AN old friend arrived for the weekend in the foulest of moods. He had warned his wife that there might be some strange phone calls of late, they had found out his name and seemed to be trying to discover where he lived.
The friend is a civil engineer in the north of England, his usual work designing tunnels and that kind of thing. Now he can't sleep through worry.
The trouble is he is overseeing a new road project - and the problem with a new road scheme virtually anywhere in Britain today is that it meets with protests.
Roger's protesters are 'tree people'. They number around 20 and hang around in tree-houses in a piece of Lancashire woodland - in the way of a new stretch of motorway which they are trying to prevent being built on the grounds of its alleged harmful effect on the environment.
Whatever you may think of the cause their tactics are extreme. He cited a Mohican-cropped woman who often placed her one-year-old baby - who lives in the tree-house with her - in the middle of the road to stop the traffic; surely child abuse by any criteria.
But Roger's problems are few compared to those in Newbury in Berkshire where around 100 campaigners this week fought off the efforts of the police and security guards to start work on a bypass.
