Racist neighbours make our life misery (From Stroud News and Journal)

Racist neighbours make our life misery

A FAMILY who had to spend Christmas week in freezing temperatures after their oil pipe was deliberately cut believe they are being targeted by jealous and racist neighbours who are determined to oust them from their dream home.

On Wednesday when Linda Meyer realised she had been without oil for four of the coldest days of the year because of a callous act of vandalism, it was the final straw in a catalogue of abuse she has suffered since moving into the village of Oakridge Lynch.

Fighting back the tears she told the SNJ: "It was just the end. I wanted to pack my bags and say ok, 'you've won' to those bigoted people. I wanted to walk away from all the bitterness and racist small-mindedness that we have had to suffer here."

Linda, her husband James and son Oscar, 9, have been living at The Old Mill for a year. Before that they were weekenders, living in London during the week.

"We longed to move down here. It was our dream." said Linda. Although she said most of the villagers were welcoming she added that her family's country idyll was being ruined by a few locals.

"Some of them consider themselves to be indigenous villagers and they resent us. "They don't like us because we are Londoners, because we are different and ultimately, I think, because I am black.

"They think we are robbing their kids of houses. We have worked extremely hard and have spent vast amounts of money doing the house up to preserve it for the future. Linda said the oil pipe was sawed through late on Saturday night causing the heating in the house to stop.

At first she thought the boiler had broken down or they had run out of oil. It wasn't until a few days later she realised that gallons of oil had leaked out of the 1,800 litre tank which had been about half full, into the stream at the bottom of her garden and then into Bakers Mill stream at the bottom of the valley.

Daphne Neville keeps her famous otters in the stream but she told the SNJ on Thursday that so far the oil had not posed them a problem.

On Friday Lyn Fraley of the Environmental Agency said: "The water course which is a tributary of the River Frome was checked and no oil was found. We have left oil booms at the otter sanctuary to be used if necessary and we will be monitoring if for some time."

Linda thought she would be without heating for the rest of Christmas but luckily she found one oil firm in Bristol which was willing to deliver just in time. "It is so unbelievably hurtful to be targeted like this," said Linda. "No-one likes to think they are not wanted or liked and now I feel very uneasy about being here."

She said some of the people in the village had started making life miserable for them earlier in the summer by complaining to the council.

"A man from environmental health came out to see us because he said a vile smell from our septic tank had been reported - frankly the poor guy was embarrassed to be here," said Linda.

And now she and James are wondering about the six tyres they had to replace on their car this year.

"At the time we didn't give it much thought but now we are beginning to wonder if that was vandalism too," she said.

And she added: "This is just the sort of thing that happens in London, it is certainly not what we expected to find here.

"This is a fantastic place to live and to bring up a little boy. It is sad that a couple of bad apples can cause so much trouble for us."

Linda said some of her neighbours had rallied round and one man was so incensed at the way the family had been treated he aired his disgust at a recent parish council meeting.

"This small, narrow-minded group of people should not be allowed to have so much sway in a village," Linda said.

"These people are malicious and dangerous. If they can do this what else are they capable of? It doesn't bear thinking about.

And she added: I hope that by drawing their actions to the attention of others they just might feel shamed into leaving us alone."