In the very early eighties my family lived in a very close neighbourhood, a real community where good friends lived no more than a couple of footsteps away. These were great years for me, and the most formative ones of my life. One lesson I learned during this time is that there are more ways than one to skin a cat (as the saying goes), and that violence is very rarely the best solution to a problem.

It began when a middle aged couple moved into the house next door to us. They were of Italian descent, very small of stature but loudly spoken. As is the way in close communities, my parents offered their assistance to the couple as they moved into the house, assistance that was not so politely refused.

At first meeting the couple seemed a little stand-offish, excitable and eccentric, but these were new surroundings and so it was somewhat understandable, soon however my family and the whole neighbourhood were to discover that this was just the beginning of something unbearable.

As far as we could ascertain, the couple never spoke to each other – they simply shouted, every word audible through the normally sound-resistant walls, as every night an argument reigned until morning, with loud banging noises and loud music at all hours. They rarely took their garbage to the curb for collection, preferring it to pile up in their back-garden. They would urinate openly outdoors (both the husband and wife), and they were often abusive to the people who lived on the street. They were accused of stealing when a neighbours missing laundry turned up on their washing line, but any complaint made to them, no matter how polite, was greeted with a torrent of outraged abuse and defiance.

My father could have crushed the man of the house, and were it not for the fact that the man was clearly at a disadvantage he probably would have. The man was small, physically unsound and clearly unfit, while my father was in his prime; a massive man, an imposing man, and a man well known in the town for his strength and courage – but he chose not to resort to violence, seeing little point in proving his manhood in such an uneven battle, so instead he endeavoured to bring about a peaceful solution.

That’s not to say he didn’t threaten the man. On a number of occasions (when events had escalated) the man had fled back inside his house fearing for his life, often shouting accusations of insanity at my Dad, but still he made no attempt to change his ways or show consideration for the neighbourhood.

Months passed and several times the police were called, and several attempts were made at a peaceful solution, but all to no avail. If anything matters grew worse, and it seemed these new neighbours were feeding from the community’s anger, intensifying every action that was complained about and openly insulting those who dared to ask for consideration. Then one summer the tensions reached breaking point. The noise from the house next door became unceasing; arguments, shouting, screaming at all hours of the day and night. The smell became worse than ever as more and more waste was dumped in their garden, to the point where rats were beginning to gather (At a later date we discovered that the couple had flooded their toilet and resorted to calls of nature wherever and whenever the urge took them - mostly their own living room).

This particular morning, they had been playing loud music, slamming doors, throwing ornaments or plates for the entirety of the previous night and my father had had enough. He went to their door and pounded upon it. As expected they refused to answer, but instead raised the volume of their music in defiance.

At this point my mother and father took separate courses of action. My mother turned on our own stereo, blasting chart music so loudly that the windows began to shake, while my father retrieved a large sledge hammer from the garden shed and, leaning over the short garden fence, proceeded to hammer the wall beneath the neighbour’s living room window with all his might.

Fearing that my Dad was trying to break through the wall of their house, the neighbour and his wife fled through the back door and out of the garden gate, heading for a public phone box to call the police.

At the time a friend of my Dads (who had fallen on hard times) was staying with us - a man in his thirties named Paddy, whose resemblance to a scarecrow was uncanny. He had long thick black hair, a gaunt face, a skeletal body, missing teeth and a twinkle of mischief forever etched behind his eyes. Never one to shy away from fun, Paddy endeavoured to help my father’s cause by throwing a blanket over his shoulders like a cape and heading off to intercept the neighbours.

As the couple walked through a hedge-lined passageway that led to the public phone, Paddy leapt from the bushes in front of them, topless save for the makeshift cape; his hands placed on his hips, his voice booming.

‘I am Captain America!’ he cried.

The couple shrieked with terror and surprise. Paddy pointed at the man, ‘You shall not pass!’ he bellowed, ‘For you are going to grass upon the friend of Captain America – and this I cannot allow!’ He raised his hands in the manner of a comic-book villain and slowly advanced on them. The neighbours screamed dramatically then turned and ran, leaving Paddy doubled up with laughter.

Some time later, the police arrived.

My mother answered the door dancing, and when the policeman asked her to turn down the music, she initially refused, quoting a number of laws that safeguarded her right to listen to loud music during daytime hours, but my father suggested it might be best to show the policeman what it is that our family were going through – so my mother silenced the music.

My father took the policeman to one side. He told the officer (in his usual charming way) of the neighbours antics, and then told him that the man of the house may have some sort of mental instability, and that the accusations they had made against my Dad and Paddy (who's existance my father denied) were all fictitious, perhaps a part of the man’s delusions. By this time the man was standing on his doorstep, gloating about the presence of the police, certain that my father would be arrested. Seeing this, my father suggested that the officer go and talk to the man and recognise the insanity for himself.

The neighbour’s concern had already begun to grow, he had expected my father to be arrested immediately, but there he was, sharing what looked to be a pleasant conversation with the officer on duty, and now the officer was looking at him with suspicion, seeming more like a conspirator to my father’s cause than a saviour to his own.

The neighbours’ frustration touched upon breaking point, he loudly demanded my fathers arrest and re-iterated the story of the sledgehammer and Captain America’s threat. My father suggested that the officer should choose this moment to go and talk to the man, since it looked as though an episode of madness was about to begin. The officer agreed.

As the officer turned and walked up the garden path to the gate, my father beamed widely at the neighbour and stuck up two fingers in defiance.

It was at this point that the neighbour exploded. He actually began jumping up and down like an angry leprechaun, shouting ‘See! See! He starts it! It’s him! He taunts me!’, but when the officer turned he saw my father standing innocently behind him with nothing more than a ‘told you so’ look on his face.

The officer nodded his agreement with my Father and apologised for the misunderstanding. He left to speak sternly with the animated neighbour, and although the majority of their conversation was held behind closed doors and much of what we heard consisted of the couples continuing rants in their mother-tongue (one can only imagine the look on the officers face as he sat among the faeces watching a live Italian soap opera), it’s clear that things didn’t go the way the neighbour had planned, since barely a week later they moved out.

And that was my lesson. I learned that just because you can fight, it doesn’t mean you have to – and that if you’re patient, sometimes things have a way of falling into place.

Just thought I'd share something,

Yielding.