Friday 9 May 2008

Angry Neighbours

As I arrived on site, I knew that I was going to have an interesting night. Partly due to the fact that once I had boiled the kettle in the office, I heard an almighty bellow coming from one of the fields. Sadly, I wasn't on shift, so I couldn't (and wouldn't) do anything about it.

After finishing my coffee, I decided to venture out into the unknown territory of the site. By the time I had walked around and noted down who I thought was going to cause trouble, it was time to lock up for the night. Once everything was secure, I heard a familiar sounding bellow from one of the tent fields. I made my way over there and quickly discovered which tent was making the noise. They were told to quieten down with immediate effect, which they reluctantly did so . . . for about five minutes.

As I was leaving the field, I noticed someone walking in. The walk was familiar and when they spoke, I recognised the voice immediately. It was the Assistant Park Manager. Apparently, the tent opposite the one I had just spoken to, had called him out. The occupants of the tent were trying to get their young child to sleep, but because of the incessant noise coming from the opposite tent, their attempts were failing miserably. The complainant then went across to the group and asked them to quieten down, as he was attempting to get his child to sleep. His protestation was met with a response of, "Fuck off!" When he realised they weren't going to be quiet, he called the Assistant Park Manager out. After he had spoken to them, they headed towards the toilet block. Generally this means they are going to get ready for bed and call it a night. We left them to it.

About two hours later, a taxi pulled up at the entrance and out fell the group who were making a noise. They had evidently run out of alcohol and had gone to town in search of more. I asked them to be as silent as possible when going through the park and when they got into their tent. I knew from the outset that they wouldn't adhere to park protocol, so I followed them to their tent.

By the time they had got there, they were still making a lot of noise. I decided to give them their final warning. This is usually enough to make the majority of the punters shut up and go to bed. There are a small minority who go against the grain. Can you guess which category this group fell into?

As they weren't showing any signs of quietening down and going to bed, with no regard to the fact there was a family with small children opposite them and it was fast approaching two in the morning, I decided to call Alex.

I was to approach the tent with the talk button keyed on the radio, to enable Alex to hear the conversation which ensued. Unfortunately this idea didn't go according to plan, as one of the group was lying half-in and half-out of the tent telling the other members of the party to quieten down whenever he saw me approaching. Sadly though, he was only watching the road entrance to the field. There are other ways in.

I approached the tent from behind, with the radio button keyed, and asked them to quieten down as the Park Manager had been called and if they weren't silent within two minutes, they would be ejected from the site. This seemed to do the trick, as they were silent within one minute of me talking to them.