Nineteen Ninety Seven

Eva Ross gave me an Amnesty International diary for Christmas 1996 and I tried hard to keep it up to date. The entries from our coach holiday in Salzburg were easy to write and vivid to us, but they are as dull to anyone else as holiday photographs. Many other days are not significant either. Samuel Pepys wrote a vivid description of his stools when he had nothing better to write about. My entries record that we got up at five or six o'clock, that we had colds, that Maureen had crippling arthritic flare-ups, and that I had mouth ulcers and agonising shoulders. We still worked hard in the garden and won another second prize in the BVT competition. The Baggies played dreadfully and had to appoint a new manager.
Such notes would give the wrong impression of our lives. Tony Benn tape-recorded his diary and so caught small things that later proved important. Churchill dictated his memoirs to a room full of experts who protested, "This is contrary to the facts we have here sir." His answer was, "But you will write down what I say." History is selection, editing and myth.
Our kitchen-wall calendar is useful for this book, though the 1997 one has few notes. I usually wrote up conversations on my BBC computer and saved them on 5¼ inch floppies, but that year the power unit failed and I had to use longhand until Ian cannibalised another broken computer. I curse the gaps and cannot read some of my abbreviations, but there is enough to stir my memory. What I relate is true.
1 January: Nasty Baggies experience, as fans were called in to clear snow from the pitch.
2 January: Our outside pipe burst and we had to turn the water off until Ian could mend it.
4 January: Saturday. Ian, the boys, Jim (next door but one, aged seventy-two), Steve Jones and I took the train to London for the FA Cup 3rd Round, away at Chelsea. The Underground was dirty, decrepit and starved of investment, and the area round the ground was worse. This was the Tory era of private wealth and public squalor. I had paid for all the tickets, which was financially embarrassing, and my solicitor Ray Burford pulled out at the last moment and sent another demand for money instead. He said, "You'll get it all back when the old man pays up. The Stanton family has disintegrated and the younger brothers are demanding that PTS settles and forbid him further court action." He had it from Abe, the Stanton solicitor, in one of those private conversations that made me sick, since I had hired Ray only to recover my costs. We had finished court fourteen months earlier and Ray was owed £30,000. Stanton was eighty-nine and looked frail. Chelsea was cold and wet, and we were thrashed. Jim and I agreed it would be our last away fixture.
5 January: Carlton TV rang. They would broadcast a "major TV event" at 9pm on ITV and officially support my campaign to change the law. I knew big business has no ethics, and that televising a hedge victim's misery boosts ratings. But our interests coincided in reaching voters, and the call was a huge morale boost. Phone calls came all day, every day, from people who all had the same story of a helpless victim against an arrogant neighbour. I had first used "neighbour from hell" from the county court steps thirteen months earlier.
Clare Hinchliffe, a recently retired English teacher on a computer course at Birmingham University, came into my life. She was intelligent, committed, obsession-prone like me, and willing to work like hell. Pam Schofield of Cambridge asked why I didn't just move house. I said, "I could not live with myself afterwards. Don't be like me." She replied, "But I am like that." Joyce Cheswick, whose Polish husband died under the stress, had part of her living room collapse from root damage. The neighbour's insurance paid, but the policy required everything restored to its original state, so saplings were replanted.
Rod Williams of Siguy Films was commissioned by Carlton to make the programme. He wanted my thick bundle of correspondence, which cost £8.55 to send registered post. I wrote and posted a media release to the national news desks, using free labels from Max and my stock of used envelopes.
16 January: The long-awaited taxation hearing, adjourned from November. We were not called into court until ten past twelve, and by the time the judge had worked through the challenged items it was adjourned again, until March, with yet more costs added. The half-dozen reporters had gone home, though I had used the morning to educate young reporters on the saga.
The second item on my media release was the second "annual maintenance" of the trees, set for 16 February. The first cutting was on 1 April 1996, too late in the season because Stanton junior had procrastinated. Our contractor found a collared pigeon's nest with two eggs, so this year I brought the date forward six weeks, with a view to going four weeks earlier again next year. Last year I gave notice that I would cut to twelve feet. The Stantons failed to get an injunction, and at the big "April Fool" media event I cut to fourteen feet. After a full season the hedge had grown two feet, so I intended to take it back to twelve. Barry, our tree surgeon, warned the old man that his second line of trees would kill the first hedge and offered a quote to remove it. I also wrote a careful letter to Bernard Stanton, wishing for peace but demanding half the cost of two years' maintenance. I heard nothing, and the Stantons eventually avoided paying through procrastination and trickery with their next lawyer. There was also no word on the first bankruptcy order, covering our Appeal Court costs that their lawyers had guaranteed by word of honour.
We watched Albion play appalling football, ending with chants of "Buckley out".
February
Ray's clerk served the first bankruptcy writ on the old man, who refused it. Suzanne Virdee of the Birmingham Mail rang PTS, who told her, "Costs are being sorted out. I am flabbergasted at the bankruptcy petition." John Wetherell, our tree expert, told me PTS had again tried to buy his bill from him. John declined and was content with the thousand pounds I had paid him.
I was introduced to the TV presenter Matthew Kelly, who was unveiling a plaque on the croft. BBC Newcastle recorded a piece with me. Sid Orr, a Birmingham victim, wanted to buy me pints in a pub. I had no time, but he later resolved his hedge problem in a spectacular way. The Baggies manager Buckley was finally sacked. Rod Williams rang for ages and visited for three hours, and we fixed the big filming day for Sunday 15 February, the day before the cutting. Ray told us the final County Court taxation day would be 27 March.
A reporter from a national Sunday paper took a story from me. An ex-Baltic merchant navy hero rang. He had chopped down his neighbour's Leylandii, refused lawyers, and told the Crown Court he would do it again. The judge refused to imprison him and fined him fifty pence a week. His story drew Radio Newcastle to me and the national press with them. Nora France of Sunderland, a constituent of the sympathetic MP Chris Mullin, was among the first to write to me after seeing my address in Garden News, the only paper I allowed to print it. Most of my first fifty followers came from that paper. Ten years on she still sends Christmas cards, though her husband has died, with stress a factor. Chris Mullin became the first "Hedge Minister".
Ray finally served the first bankruptcy writ. He rang Abe "entre nous", which made me choke with rage, and Abe repeated that the Stanton family had disintegrated and PTS would pay. Ray also said Nick Millard, our taxing solicitor, charged 7% for obtaining the County Court Allocatur. I sent Nick £1,100 and Ray £500 from our savings, with an angry letter that Abe had reneged on his guarantee.
I delivered a fortnight's notice of the cutting to the old man's door, unseen. A couple of days later PTS visited his father. Andrew White, a Brighton accountant, said the bankruptcy people would have noticed the Sunday Express story and blocked any sale through the Land Registry.
The nation enjoyed the story of Midge Mathers, driven mad by church bells, who smashed the vestry door lock and cut the bell ropes. I wrote to support her, and she rang to say she was thrilled. The Crown Court judge told her, "You want me to fine you, then you won't pay because you want me to send you to prison, and I am going to deny you that pleasure."
Siguy Films organised our "Neighbours from Hell" gathering. I hoped to recruit the guests as heads of a communication tree, where two victims would contact two more. In theory it should have covered the planet, but it never worked. Carlton's Annie Clayton arranged the catering with Maureen, with wine, "medicinal" gin for staff and receipts kept, and everything unopened was taken away. We got no money, and I signed a contract barring me from other TV companies. Abe objected to the "costs of the costs" for 27 March, and knew nothing of the bankruptcy hearing on 5 March or the second cutting. Maureen was appointed a school governor. Ray Hartford became the new Albion manager. I felt the adrenaline, while the mouth ulcers and painful shoulders were dragging me down. Calls from supporters distracted me from the pain.
15 February: Filming. Twenty people chatted and nibbled for hours while hidden microphones recorded. My diary says only "Phew, what a day." Just fifteen minutes of it would be broadcast five months later to eleven and a half million viewers.
16 February: The cutting was rained off. Wednesday at noon was agreed instead, and I rang round the media and wrote to old Stanton, which I need not have done. On Tuesday Ray said Abe knew nothing of the bankruptcy order, and next morning PTS dropped a threatening letter through our door, written as though from his father with a shaky signature. It said the covenants had been "stretched to its limits to save your neck", and claimed my "Peeping Tom activity" had driven his wife away and led to her early death.
19 February: Wednesday. The cutting was far smaller than last year's, with only local media present. PTS squeezed between his hedges with a stepladder and camera, hoping to photograph any attempt on his second row, which I had no intention of making. He made no protest as the old hedge was cut to twelve feet, having at last accepted the law. The new row now showed above the old one. Afterwards I gobbled a sandwich and dozed off until Radio 5 rang. I sent the Stanton barrister a copy of the letter, pointing out that the "Peeping Tom" idea had started with his client. We joined Weight Watchers.
Then came a shock letter from insolvency practitioners Haines Watts, saying Charles Bernard Stanton had no money or property and offering £6,000 from his last assets. I faxed it from CRIS, our community printers, to Ray and Andrew. Ray told them Stanton had begun the case as sole owner of his property, and that the bankruptcy order would go before the court in five days. I suspected the property had been conveyed before my trial ended, which the judge should have been told. My GP found my blood pressure at 168 and the ECG fine. Radio WM and Kilroy's researcher wanted us both.
5 March: At the Bankruptcy Court door old Abe handed me a cheque for £10,500 from his client account, with the Press Association and Express and Star watching. It relieved our finances and Ray's position with his partners, and it covered the Stantons' ill-advised Appeal Court venture of three and a half years earlier. Ray learned that the Stantons would not go bankrupt but would pay up when the £35,000 County Court Allocatur was served in three weeks. The Baggies won four-nil, our first glory since the court victory fifteen months before. I always said there were no winners in this war of attrition.
At the Dudley by-election Ian Pearson succeeded John Gilbert, who had gone to the Lords as a defence minister. I had liked Gilbert's support, but Denis Harris quickly won Pearson's backing. John and Sue Clay, our neighbours, visited, and John had lost weight. I was potting and sowing, which makes me happy. I helped Maureen deliver Labour leaflets to the flats. Every day brought new victims, and more MPs were supporting us. I kept pestering the Legal Services Ombudsman, the Bar Council and the Law Society, and referred Recorder Woltan's chambers to the Advertising Standards Authority over an inaccurate advertisement. Nothing came of it, but it kept the issue alive in legal circles. We beat the Blues two-nil in the Sunday noon derby and then enjoyed a lovely meal.
27 March: The "block busting day" in the County Court, the "costs of the costs" hearing. Abe announced he had changed firms. Ray stayed away because the court would not allow his fees against Stanton. Nick Millard got everything he asked for, £3,375, which Stanton had to pay, and which he could have avoided by accepting Nick's costings a year earlier. I was sore that Nick refused many of my own expenses. There was press coverage but nothing on TV.
16 April: Our second bankruptcy petition, for the County Court costs, was dismissed at once even though the allocatur was before the court. Ray served a fresh statutory order to start the process again. Abe, who had confused the two procedures, did not turn up. The County Court costs and the second tree line were still unresolved, and the trees were my responsibility, not Ray's. Ian learned from the new BVT secretary, Paul Clayburn, that the Trust had counsel's advice on acting under a second covenant. The Trust could have acted twenty years ago and prevented all this. The second line of trees was now a visible menace, a threat to grow to the stratosphere. As for positives, we were famous, which we could have done without. Neither had "Neighbours from Hell" yet been broadcast.
21 April: Ian and I share the Queen's birthday. He gave me Irish whiskey. An ICM poll predicted a narrow Tory win, though everyone expected Labour to win and Maureen feared defeat. John Clay was deteriorating.
1 May: Polling day. Ray told Abe our statutory order expired in a week and we meant business, then went to help Labour in a "safe" Tory seat that turned out not to be. I bought six real ales and went to bed at ten past five.
2 May: Five hours later we watched Tony Blair go to the Palace.
3 May: Ian mended the computer, which crashed again after he left, and the Baggies lost to Stoke in the worst game we had seen. John Clay looked dreadfully thin.