My name is Stephen Howard. I'm a woodwind instrument repairer by trade with some 45 years of experience under my belt. I like to think I'm good at what I do, and over the decades I feel I've established a credible reputation in the field. I've met a great many clients over the years - almost all of whom have been fantastic. I enjoy a good working relationship with the majority of my clients, and some have gone on to become good friends. As with any collection of clients you're always going to have a few that, shall we say, require a little more patience - but if I had to count the number of clients who turned out to be problematic I think I could safely do so on the fingers of one hand. I'm very pleased about that - proud, even - because it means I must be doing something right! But in 2008 I had an encounter with a client which was to hang around my neck like the proverbial albatross.

What follows here is my account of the whole sorry saga.
For reasons which will soon become very apparent I've often threatened to publish this story but have somehow never got around to doing so. I suppose I've always considered it to be something of a Doomsday Weapon - a final resort from which no victor emerges unscathed. I held on to this feeling up until very recently (March 2025, as I write this) when various events caused me to reconsider my position. Perhaps, with hindsight, I should have done this many years ago.
I should say that I'm not looking for any kind of approval or judgement; I need neither - what follows is simply my standing up for myself and saying "Hey, now it's MY turn to tell my story!"

You may ask why I haven't published this on my business website. I make no secret of who I am - you can find my site in seconds from any search engine - I simply didn't want to taint what I consider to be a place of goodwill, entertainment and useful information with the spectre of something as distasteful as the events that are about to be unfolded.
Everything that follows is accountable - I retain complete records for legal purposes - but for clarity, legibility and brevity I've tried to keep things as brief as possible in order to provide a coherent overview. This is no mean feat, because the amount of data that's been collected over the years would likely fill a book.
And on that basis I should like to thank all my friends and supporters for their often tireless assistance in keeping track of various blogs, forums and social media outlets - informing me of relevant developments and/or collecting data on my behalf. I could never have done it without them. And the very best of it is, I never asked them to do this for me; they did it because that's what you do when a friend has their back to a wall, you chip in and help out. I am both humbled and eternally grateful.

In some places I have redacted information on the basis of privacy and safety - and I believe my reasons for doing so will become alarmingly apparent. There's also nothing flashy about this site - it's deliberately as stark as the saga it contains.

If you've read the saga before but are returning for updates, you'll find them in the Ongoings... section.

This, then, is the story of how I became the target of a stalker called Angelina Souren. The sections from 2008 to 2010 were written in 2010, when I first considered publishing my story. The sections that follow were written in 2025.

First Encounters

In May 2008 I received an email from Angelina Souren enquiring about a service to an old alto saxophone she'd recently bought. She came to me via a recommendation from a client and friend, as do the bulk of my new clients these days.
A number of emails were exchanged, and Ms Souren arrived at workshop with the alto a couple of weeks later.
I took some time examining the alto - it was quite old and in poor condition, and not a notable brand. However, it had a good tone and after much deliberation I came to the conclusion that in economic terms the alto was a borderline case. Such cases aren't uncommon, it's a question of making the choice as to whether to go ahead with the work or cut one's losses and buy another instrument. I can't make such choices for the client, I can only advise. In this instance Ms Souren decided that she had some attachment to the alto and that she would go ahead with the service.
As per the usual practice in such instances I asked for a deposit up front - £100, from the total estimate of around £250. This was paid in cash on the spot.
At the end of the consultation I offered Ms Souren a lift back into Petersfield (the nearest town) as I has some shopping to do. She had come up by train, followed by a taxi to my workshop - which sits in a rather remote spot. This isn't unusual, I occasionally collect and drop off clients who have no other means of transport given that they number only a handful each year and it saves them around £30 in taxi fares.

That evening I received a pleasant email from Ms Souren thanking me for my time and advice. Over the next few days I received a number of emails relating to the saxophone, some of which were quite lengthy. This isn't all that uncommon - a great many of my clients are enthusiastic about their instruments and I tend to share that enthusiasm. I also enjoy corresponding with people, an offshoot of my younger days when I used to write letters to penpals around the world (in the days before the internet, when letters were sent by post!).
As is common in such correspondence, the conversation drifted back and forth between the business of the alto saxophone and more personal, anecdotal subjects. I'm usually quite willing to engage in such conversations, and over the years have seen many clients become personal friends in this manner.

A month or so later I had a client call to ask if I knew anyone who was interested in a cheap alto sax. I mentioned it to Ms Souren by way of a cheap stopgap until her alto had been repaired. She considered it for a while and eventually chose to purchase it. She arrange to come up by train again and I collected her from the station and brought her to the workshop where she spent some time trying the alto - after which I drove her back to the station.

The emails kept coming, and the subjects discussed broadened, and I don't mind admitting that I enjoyed the seemingly intelligent banter - but at some point I think something inside 'clicked' and I found myself beginning to wonder. The main cause of this was an email that suggested I had some sort of low-frequency device hidden in the workshop that might cause people to act in a strange manner. At the time I didn't think too much of it, it just seemed like a slightly off-the-wall comment - perhaps typical of some of my rather more eccentric clients (of which I have quite a few, it has to be said - but I think that's pretty common in the music business).

Things, though, were about to get very much stranger.

Next: Disquiet