Threatened with the Ministry of Defence and the House of Commons amongst others, what do I do

[BillieTheFish]

I write on women's issues related to history and planned a blog and podcast based on how communication in teenage romantic relationships has changed over the decades. I came into some letters recently from 50 years ago between a girl and her boyfriend but she had another boyfriend in the background who was away in the army. They were all 17 years old. I wanted to use some of the information but heavily disguised and no direct quotes and no identifying features. I contacted the parties to see if they would agree to this before I went ahead and gave my contact details.

The man who was in the army called me tonight and has threatened me with contacting my employer (this has nothing to do with my work, I write as a sideline) and said that he now has to go through all these official channels, that I have caused him untold stress and to his family too, and went on to tell me details about his army career and his life, that he will be taking legal advice and contacting all these agencies. I told him there was no intention to cause distress, but that I was seeking permission as I do with research. He went on to say I had no idea what his life was like and how much worry and anxiety this has caused his whole family, I've upset his wife, his daughter and other family members.

He is easily found online, which is what I did. I simply Googled him and contacted him through his email at his current workplace that is out there in cyberspace. He has a Wikipedia entry so he isn't under an assumed name. The name is the same as was written in these letters.

I told him I had no intention now of going ahead with this project and would be happy to confirm this with any of the agencies he mentioned. Reading between the lines, he seems to have suffered PTSD but I had no idea of any of this.

I have contacted the police, just to get this on record. I don't think he will harass me or anything like that, more it's that I seem to have dragged up issues that had nothing to do with the reason I called him. Perhaps he thinks I am not who I say I am.

Long saga but frankly I am terrified now.

If you were anonymising the letters I don’t think you needed to even contact the original people. Use a bit of poetic licence and they could be absolutely anyone! I think you’ve stirred up things you didn’t need to.

He’s 66 so a bit young but I wonder if his behaviour is reflecting the beginnings of dementia. Especially as it seems so at odds with the character required of someone who did his job (which must be a semi public one if he has a Wikipedia page).

Is it ever not dementia? Anybody over the age of 50 acts in an unreasonable way or is just a general dicks and you can bet someone on MN will attribute it to dementia. Maybe this guy is just an absolute arsehole. I used to work in complaints for a council and some people were just absolutely awful for no reason (like the woman who rang the council because she didn't like the piece of fish she bought at a market or the man who wanted the council to compensate him for the conservatory he had built because it leaked). Sometimes people are just awful and unreasonable

Sadly, it often is dementia. My colleague really struggling at the moment with his Mum diagnosed with early onset at 58. My Gran was showing signs at 65.

How did you find out John's full name? I can't imagine that Jane would have written to Andy, "As you know, my fiance John Smith is away in the Army. . ." 😅

@CaptainCarrot She'd said in one letter what his first name was, then in another something like "this time next year I will be Mrs Smith but I don't know what to do".

He sounds … odd.

I suspect he feels he has a Big Job, and that you are somehow threatening it.

I suspect he also had no idea how much information he had out there publicly. Some people don’t. Or they are offended if you research it. There have been a couple of threads on here recently where half the posters were utterly shocked that someone might look up publicly available information on Companies House.

I only looked that up after the conversation with him on the phone last night, in case my employer needed any details. All I knew about him was that he joined the army and whilst he was away his girlfriend started a relationship with another guy. I agree it is worrying that he is in this position when he is acting as weird as this.

Update on this - well there isn't one, thankfully, my boss has said it is all much ado over nothing, but it is on their radar if he did contact them. I have heard nothing from this man or from any of the agencies he has mentioned. Let's hope this can be filed away now.