Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Incident in Arundel


Incident in Arundel 

Last Sunday morning, our usual Sunday morning turbo training session with friends at Arundel Fire Station went very well. A nice little group of us all working hard together for two hours and ending up hot, red and sweaty but happy to have got through the session to the satisfaction of all. 

After packing our bikes, turbo trainers, bike shoes, towels etc. back in our van we headed into Arundel for the usual post training reward of a few minutes calming down over lovely cup of coffee in High Street haunt. 

We had parked the van on the hill and walked down to the café, ordered our cappuccino and sat down. We were quickly served at the table we had settled at.

We had taken the first sip of our coffee when two men burst into the café and strode over to the table that we were seated at very aggressively. The taller of the two shouted men at us that Steve he had driven into his car. The whole place fell silent and turned to watch. Steve said that he didn’t think he had driven into his car. At this, the man got his phone out and showed that he claimed was his photo showing that Steve had hit his car, Steve said he thought he would know if he had, but said he was sorry to the man if he had done any damage. The man’s voice went up considerably in volume and demanded that Steve come and look at the damage he had done at once. Steve said that he would be out in a moment when he had drunk his coffee. The man then shouted so alarmingly that Steve got up and went to the counter to pay and follow the man out. The younger man said nothing all the while.  

Steve told me the stay there and drink my coffee, but I was too harassed and embarrassed to stay there with everybody staring. I asked the waiter to leave our coffees for while in case we came back in the drink them. Then I followed Steve and Mr. Aggression out into the High Street and followed them up the road. I had my camera in the front of the van and intended to take photos, as one does in the case of an accident and especially since neither of us thought there had been a collision. We would have known and indeed felt it. It crossed my mind that it might be an attempted scam. 

When I got back up to our parking spot, Steve had got into our van and moved it forward to see if there was any damage. The man was still carrying on in alarming, shouting at Steve and name calling, and I thought, in a threateningly loud voice. Everybody in the street was staring at the scene. 

I opened the front of the van and got my camera out, and walked round to the back of our vehicle and squatted down to take photographs of the front of the man’s car and the back of our van. 

There was no damage of any kind at all. Not on his car and not on ours. 

I carried on taking photos of the scene until the man, who was quite tall, well much taller than me anyway, and quite big, started shouting at me, telling me that I could not take photos. I turned and took a photo of him! That REALLY upset him. He grabbed my wrist and twisted my arm, taking my camera out of my hand with his other hand, I thought he was going to hit me. When this was happening, the younger man shouted, “Back off dad, back off, stop dad, stop, stop”.
 
The man shouted at me saying I could not take photo’s. I replied that yes I could take photos and what he could not do, was to go around attacking seventy six year old ladies. The son was still telling his dad to stop and he did finally. He still held my camera out of my reach for a moment before letting me take it back.  

Whilst this was going on, the rest of the family group, I think five in all including a blonde woman that I presumed was the man’s wife, had all looked and agreed with Steve that there was no damage at all. Steve had been getting out his papers from the front of the van and looking for a pen and not finding one.   

Steve asked me to get into the van and wait whilst the scene settled. The man did not make any sort of apology. He was a thoroughly nasty piece of work, aggressive and very rude. 

Steve got back in the van and we drove away. We did not go back for our coffee we were both too upset. We drove home hardly saying anything, Steve knew that I was a bit shocked and just left me to my thoughts. What I was thinking was, that that man was quite nicely dressed in a winter overcoat, and his family who were also nicely dressed Steve told me that they were on holiday. We on the other hand looked pretty bad. We both had sweaty hair and were possibly a bit smelly, though we had towelled down. We were wearing old sweat pants and sweat shirts and jackets and trainers. Still no excuse for such aggressive noisy behaviour from that man.  

My husband knows me well. He knows that I need time to settle after an upset. He is a very peaceful kind person. We did not speak it the incident at all on the way home or indeed for the rest of the day and have not discussed it at all even now two and a half days later. I prefer to not to dwell on unpleasantness and after thirty nine years together have a deep understanding of the others feelings. I didn’t sleep well that night, or the next night either, it takes me a while to stop turning things over in my head.
 
 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Omg, i hope you called the Police!!!! you did didn't you??. If not do it retrospectively.