My neighbour’s 22 year old stay home delinquent had an habit of sticking his head out of his attic room and yelling at the kids, mine included, when they were playing. This tended to happen on weekends when he was nursing an hangover.

Entreaties to his parents by the parents of the affected kids did nothing. Nor would he come out outside when challenged by an irate parent. Then he called my six years old daughter a cunt. I decided to deal with it.

One day a bright blue Rover Metro appeared outside his house when everyone was out. This car had a tax disc in the window and it was before the days of computerised insurance databases. It was therefore legally parked and all locked up. Although roadworthy it looked a state with a long scrape down one side. It would look good sandwiched between their BMW and Toyota. In fact it looked just like the one my friends sister was selling for £30 since it got scraped on a skip. However this one was special. Someone had gone over the entire car with an indelible marker pen. In foot high letters. Every panel had a neat statement identifying my errant neighbour as a prolific pedophile. Every bit of the car including the roof had his name, address and a variation of the same accusation.

At five pm his mum came home. She saw the Metro and instantly jumped into her car and shot off. Five minutes later she was back with a can of black paint. She tried to spray over it but someone had sprayed WD 40 on the panels and it had sat in the hot sun drying all afternoon. The paint wouldn't stick. It was so funny seeing her on her knees desperately trying to cover up the abuse. When the son and husband came home all hell broke loose. It went on for weeks. The kids loved it. They would stand around it and read out the statements to each other, loudly asking innocent questions like “What's a Nonce?” Nobody knew who owned the car and the police refused to get involved as the car checked out as all legal. The local police knew it was community action because of the son, they wisely stayed out of it.

It had a sting in the tail too. One day, about a month later there was a lot of shouting from Mum, just after the post had been delivered. She had always accused the son of some kind of involvement and didn't believe that he knew nothing. She was loudly calling him a lying little bastard! Someone had sent the registration document for the car off in the son's name. She was furious. This meant he was legally responsible for the car. It also meant he could deal with it but he was unable to move it due to lack of keys. Even if he did get into it someone had removed the fuel pump relay so it wouldn't start. They ended up having to pay to have it taken away. I last saw it on the back of a truck and thought “Lot of car for £30” As for the son he became known amongst the neighbours and especially the kids as the Fiddler in the Roof. He never swore at or even spoke to another kid on the street ever again in the time I lived there. You can always find a way back at someone if you think about it a little.