I've got two.
- Local very posh village. Small housing development going in along a particular lane. Local very wealthy resident took exception and devoted more than two years to hindering construction by numerous methods, not all of them legal but all of them foul, abusive and occasionally violent. He'd place obstacles twice daily in the way of the builders' vehicles, release his daughter's sheep to run onto the construction site, send long and abusive missives to the innocent parish councillors and local council staff members, keep daily watch in the lane and harangue anyone who traversed it, whether they had anything to do with the development or not, with offensive tirades. He was arrested several times and bound over to keep the peace. A minor celebrity turned up to open the show-home for local press. They, too, were stopped and lectured at length about how evil they were for supporting the much-needed development.
The poor construction workers bore the brunt of it. Every slur and insult was hurled at them as they worked, in addition to the daily obstacle course that was erected and re-erected on their access road. For the most part, they followed their gaffers' instructions to ignore it and crack on.
One hot day, the workers were building close to the boundary hedge. Mr. NIMBY came up with the wheeze of moving his livestock muck-heap closer to the lane and setting fire to it, thus sending clouds of foul, stinking, choking burning animal sh~te breezing over the builders. He spent ages piling it up with his little ride-on mower thing, all in full view of the builders, then stood back and set fire to it. He had initial joy as the clouds of choking, befouled smoke overwhelmed the builders, sending them scuttling, coughing and spluttering, out of the way as he laughed and jeered at them.
Until a gust of wind took a spark from his bonfire o'sh~te and deposited it on the roof of the brand new timber "vehicle port" he'd had built next to his house, in which was parked his little ride-on, a big 4x4, a new livestock trailer and a valuable collectors'-item sports car, and immediately took hold like the last days of Pompeii and Herculaneum. He couldn't extinguish the flames by himself and went berserk trying to get his wheeled prizes out, all the while screaming at and begging the builders to come over and help him. They just watched. One of them was kind enough to phone the Fire Brigade; but that was the extent of their mercy.
- The dog and I were driving down to the West Country for our summer holiday. We stopped at the motorway services about halfway there. A car full of lads with football scarves hanging out the windows came speeding into the car park and proceeded to do several screeching handbrake turns for the benefit of other punters, generally directed at lone ladies (as I was) or pensioners either waiting to cross or actually crossing the road, forcing me and the dog (plus others) to leap out of their way. The car then parked in the nearest disabled bay to the doors and five lads all reeled out clutching beer cans.
They went into the services being loud, foul-mouthed and generally making a nuisance of themselves. After that, they climbed back into their car and sped out on their merry way.
We finished our business at the services and set off on our own way. We'd only gone down the motorway a few more miles when we passed the same car of lads on the hard shoulder, four of them looking like they were sh*tting themselves in the car and the driver out and trying to explain himself to two angry and unimpressed rozzers.
It was very, very sweet.
@lolliplop - I'm really sorry that you are having to deal with all of this, in addition to the loss of your father. The injustice of it must rankle deeply, plus anger and frustration at your dad's choices, which must be the last emotion you want mixing in amongst your grief. I hope that you have a satisfying outcome, and not too long to wait. Best wishes to you. x