by Ronald Smith
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I never took up his offer, but what he told me put my mind back onto the Devil Stone and the quarry. I had begun to hate the quarry because they had been putting in too much dynamite, causing stones to rain down on our property. What was worse, bulges had begun to appear in the wall buttressing the railway line that ran between my land and the quarry; these were, in my opinion, caused by the new blasting patterns and by water pressure due to bad drainage inside the quarry.
British Rail planned to build some new buttresses, but the real problem was the quarry itself. It was like an evil dragon, digging into a hill which had once been the site of an ancient fort, and polluting the area. I wanted to close it down. The quarry company had to apply for new planning permission, and when I heard of this, I decided it was my moral and ethical duty to object. The last two explosions had caused our house to shake. I went to see Mr, Nibblet and harangued him with my catalogue of complaints.
"I'm going to do all I can to shut you down, I will object to your application for new planning permission." I declared war. I wrote letters, lengthy objections to the Regional Council, saw people, agitated whenever I could. I was the only agitator, however. I caused a lot of trouble, but I didn't succeed; the new permission was granted, to my chagrin.
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