On Friday 30th, January 1998, a Librarian told me off for listening to music loudly whilst wearing my headphones. I was reading the newspaper, as I used to at the time.
Four weeks later, on Saturday, 28th February, I was stood in a queue, near a woman, and the same Librarian who said to me, "Excuse me please" seven months before, which provoked me to swear, snapped at me, "You, come away from that woman". I replied, "I was just....". She answered, "I could see what you were trying to do". She didn't give an answer to what she was implying when I asked, despite me asking, "What's that supposed to mean?".
Ten days later, on Tuesday, 10th March 1998, I was in the job centre, looking for a part-time job. I politely asked this man, aged about 20, if he would move because I wanted to look at a vacancy. He said to me, arrogantly, that he wouldn't, because he was looking at it. I asked him again, and he told me to "F*** off". I told him, calmly, that if he spoke to me like that again, I would ram his head through the job centre window, and I am not a violent or aggressive person. Then his girlfriend approached me, and she said that if I touched him, or even looked at him, she would batter "Ten bells out of me". She "offered me out" on the spot - outside. I didn't respond, because she was pregnant and because I don't hit women, unless they are beating me up.
Instead, we resolved it, and I walked away.
Eight days after this, after not using the Library for over a week, I received a letter from them saying that I was barred for another six months, because of "Further complaints from staff and other users" and that "I must reinstate your suspension with effect from Monday, 23rd March, for a period of six months".
I might have deserved the ban the previous September, but I honestly believe to this very day, even now, many years later, that I had done nothing to earn this, and that this was a motivated by spite, as said to myself in December 1997 that I would watch myself in future, and I tried to do so.
Outraged, the following day I wrote a letter to the Chief Librarian about the ban. I reeled off a host of other incidents I had seen in the Library, saying that the will to bar these offenders was strangely lacking. The letter was unsigned. I took it in on Saturday, 21st March. The following week, the Chief Librarian requested to meet me. In the Library. I received the letter from him on Friday, 27th March 1998. I wrote back, the following Monday, 30th March 1998, agreeing, saying the meeting should be in a neutral location, such as the Metrodome. I never heard anything else back, and sat out my ban.
Exactly six months later, on the evening of Wednesday, 30th September 1998 I went back into the Library. The staff upstairs told me I wasn't allowed in again until I saw the Chief Librarian. At the early age of 50, he retired the previous month. I was told that I had to see someone else. A Mrs Green. As I hadn't, I was asked to leave, so I went. I saw Mrs Green on Friday, 2nd October. She said I still had a book from the Library earlier that year which I hadn't returned. I replied that I had lost it. She said I must repay the fine, which I believe was £7. I agreed to do so. I told her that I had used other branch Libraries during my six-month ban. She said that I shouldn't have and had she learned I was doing so, she would have sent them each a letter informing them that I was banned from using them all. Mrs Green did state though, that this fact was now irrelevant, because the ban would be lifted from Monday, 5th October 1998.
To date, I have never been banned from using the Library again. I can think of one or two people who should have, but that is irrelevant to my case. My nemesis, "Excuse me please", left in December 1999. In 1999/2000, new members of staff came in, who were a lot friendlier and more pleasant to users than the ones who reigned supreme during my bans in 1997 and 1998, and that is the case in the Library when I occasionally go in nowadays.
No other incident of note occurred for a while in 1998. Not one for parties, get-togethers or do's, nontheless, my dad's 50th birthday bash in April 1998 was brilliant. It seemed to be over in a hour, when in fact it lasted for four hours. It was one of those nights you didn't wish to end. I spent it with someone I was friends with and his girlfriend. However, I remained near the bar, and people approached me for a natter.
On Saturday, 26th September 1998, when in a cafe, I said to someone, "Well, as the good egg said to the bad egg, I must be off!".
In the spring of 2004, I tried to set up a social and support group where I live for people with Asperger's Syndrome and Autism, because there wasn't, and still isn't, anywhere which caters for those with the condition. I received funding for the project, and to my shock, working for one of the authorities involved in my setting up of his project was the person who banned me from using the Libraries in September 1997 and March 1998.
I arranged a meeting with him face-to-face. At this point, I wasn't entirely sure whether I would receive funding, and if he learned of what I was doing, thinking back to the bannings, he could have tried to scupper it. I also wanted to resolve the issue, for once and for all. On Wednesday 25th August 2004, we met, and surprisingly, I got on well with him. I thought he would be a shithouse, but he wasn't.
He said he remembered the Whitaker's Almanacks incident, which I admitted to straight away, and I informed him that they were motivated by my weather interests, and weren't done to annoy librarians, or anyone else. I said, "It probably seems boring to you, but I was, and to some extent still am, fascinated by weather and weather observations".
He replied, "No, I am interested in them myself". I told him of the "Excuse me please" remark, and he said that was unacceptable, and I agreed, whilst admitting that some of my behaviour was out of order in 1997. I did assert though, that the second banning was motivated by spite. He didn't respond, merely that we should have met when my first one ended, so no such vendettas could have occurred.
I told him I had AS, and I put this to him, "If someone with Down's Syndrome, or Cerebral Palsy had behaved like I did, in 1997 or 1998, would you have banned them from using your services in 1997 or 1998?". He paused, and replied, "Probably not, no". I answered, "There you go, that is why society, from the job centres, library staff and the police, need to be educated and informed about Autism and Asperger's Syndrome". He agreed, and said that he was probably now a more tolerant and understanding person than he was when Chief Librarian, but then we all change and move on in life, including "Yourself".
On Tuesday, 23rd August 2016, I attended a meeting in the Town Hall, as they were looking at setting up a chill out room for people with Autism in the Library, which was due to move in January 2018. By coincidence Mrs Green was there. And I mentioned my two bannings, and I said "Do you remember that Mrs Green?". "Yes I do". "I don't, think, quite frankly, with the attitude you and a few of your have staff have displayed, that you should be on this panel about providing provisions for people with Autism. I ask that you should be removed". She never said a word. I even emailed her to discuss the 1997 and 1998 bannings but she refused to meet me. I've seen her since and whilst I've let it go and moved on, I refuse to speak to her .
