To ask you to share some acts of kindness?

I regularly give delivery drivers cans of drink / water. Not just when it is hot but when you can see the driver had 100 stops to make and is now late.

I've given strangers a lift home. One was when I was leaving a supermarket, a lady with three children had divided her shopping between them.

The smallest had a carrier bag with cereal in it but if he lifted it so it wasn't on the floor he couldn't see where he was going. They were only 5 mins away.

My dad went to a relative's wedding. He went by train and then got a cab to the venue.

5 mins later the taxi driver turned up with my dad's wallet that he had left in the taxi.

Over the last year I have had a few medical investigations, CT, MRI, X-ray, colonoscopy - I have taken a packet of nice biscuits to the different departments.

I live on a large council estate with an unsavoury reputation. When I have been out on my mobility scooter or being wheeled in my chair the local kids have been great at getting out of the way, pulling their friends out of the way, generally being polite and considerate.

I fell down the stairs at a train station. Slightly but not seriously injured, just clattered, shocked and embarrassed.

Some older teenagers rushed over to help me up and dust me down and make sure I was OK. Gen Z get a bad rap but I really appreciated their kindness that day.

I was in our local supermarket at the self checkout with my girls, and a woman next to me was visibly distressed as she couldn’t get signal on her phone to pay for a couple of bits, including flowers. I could see it was about £6. The staff were trying to help her but she just couldn’t get the wallet function to work. So I told her I was happy to pay and swiped my card. She couldn’t get over it and kept saying “I’ll pay you back, what’s your address?” I told her, no need, please just pay it forward or donate to charity. The flowers were for her Mum at the local care home.
Both my kids said they knew I’d do it as soon as the lady became distressed. I hope they do the same for someone in future.

I’m divorced and not particularly flush but I would rather help people. I also used to pay extra on school trips so that other children could attend.

I’ve received many kindnesses from others over the years, counting most from nurses and HCAs with small but precious acts and I have a very loving, close family who go out of their way to be kind.

Good thread. I got told by a young woman the other day that the colour top i was wearing suited me well I didn't know her. Random compliments from people you don't know stay with you.

A long time ago, when we were in our early 20s, my BF (now OH) and I landed in Manchester Airport at 1am after a long delay to most flights, and all the trains had gone, and we were looking to get back to Newcastle. We were trying to hire a car, but because everyone was in the same boat, no cars were to be had, no hotels and it was chaos (and before the time of the internet). A family (mum, dad and daughter aged about 17) who were paying for their car parking overheard me pleading with car hire people, probably thought I was on my own (and I looked young), and said, we are going there, we can take you, and I had to say "it is very kind, but there are two of us" , and he said, it's OK, we will take you both back. They did, and it is a long way, and their poor daughter who was probably fancying a snooze in the back seat, but they took us to our door. We were not difficult passengers, we ended up having a good chat, a laugh with daughter who was not much younger than us, and a nice journey. The next day we went to their local pub and took a gift, and the whole story was re-told to their friends with some amusement. It is a long time ago now, but I have never forgotten how kind they were. It has shaped how I have turned out as an adult about kindness. x

My late Mum used to knit outfits for the premature baby unit near us. She’d even knit a matching hat with a flower on. They went in little gift bags with a tag that she wrote “never too small to be stylish” 🥰

My DS had a friend whose family couldn’t afford for him to go on a school trip it was £500 . I paid for him. I’ve never told anyone except his DM.

I'm a signwriter. I was working on a window (on the inside) today, when a woman pushing a buggy uphill paused outside the window. The occupant of the buggy, about 18 months old, was having a massive tantrum, had managed to escape, and was lying on the floor in Absolute Refusal mode. She also had a little girl aged about 3, and I amused her by painting mice and ladybirds on the window until tantrum monster had been coaxed back into the buggy. (It wipes off easily when it's fresh).

A few months ago I was in my friend's van, we were looking for somewhere to park in a hurry because we were late for her private view when we spotted a guy with his bonnet open desperately looking for jump leads. My friend chucked him hers and shouted the name of the gallery at him, in the full knowledge that she might never see her jump leads again, then we sped off. Jump leads magically appeared at the gallery reception desk before the end of the evening 😊

I noticed one time a near neighbour had put out the wrong bin, I knocked on the door to let them know it was actually black bin that week. I would want to know, especially black bin!!

This week: I was low on petrol in an unfamiliar rural village with no internet signal. I asked a random man in a car park where the nearest petrol station was. He gave me directions and offered me a top up from the can in his van to make sure I wouldn’t run out before I got there. He wouldn’t take any money from me.

While he was topping up my car, a woman stopped to check we were OK and didn’t need any help from her.

One time DP was in hospital with a life-threatening bleed so I stayed with him overnight. I was lying across two hospital chairs pushed together at his bedside, not really sleeping because of all the adrenaline and general hospital noise. By 4am I was starting to drift off but I was freezing cold, half-awake, when I realised an HCA had appeared with a blanket and was gently, wordlessly tucking me in.

It's for some reason one of the stand out moments of tenderness and kindness I've ever experienced. She didn't need to do that—it wasn't her job, I didn't ask her to, and she'd been rushed off her feet all night, but she saw me there and thought to do it anyway.

I regularly go looking for the homeless man in my local community. I stop and chat to him for 5 minutes or so then give him a tenner. He doesn’t know I look for him he thinks I just happen to pass by.

I paid for a young teenagers food at pleasure beach yesterday as he couldn’t get his card to work and was getting upset in the queue

I gave a delivery driver a bottle of water from the fridge during the heatwave because he didn't have any water.

When I was having a nightmare journey with my complex needs teenager and we were stuck at Victoria with all lines to our area closed at rush hour, and he was in full meltdown, so many women helped me. Someone bought us cold drinks, others said they didn't know what to do to help but wanted to stand by me so I wasn't alone. Others tried to help find alternative routes for us and another got us an uber to share home. It was one of the worst days I've had with him but the kindness of strangers was overwhelming.

A year later I was at butlins with my daughter and saw a woman on her own with her teenager who clearly had additional needs and was in meltdown. I remembered how it felt when people helped me and went over to her and waited with her til her husband came so she wasn't feeling alone with it.

The husband of one of my DH’s former patients who died a couple of years ago brings us fruit and veg from his allotment regularly. I make him cakes (or mince pies at Christmas!) in return.

A lovely local person paid for DM’s shopping when she couldn’t find her card. (She’d left it in another shop and was in a right tizz). We found the man via the power of our local FB page and got him a lovely bottle of whisky (and repaid the £40).

People are mostly lovely ime.

A friend was having lunch outdoors st Borough Market London last month. She discovered her bag had been taken and went into panic mode as everything was in that bag. The security immediately began looking down side roads and incredibly the bag and all the contents bar cash was still in there. Cctv showednhownthey had used a foot to hook the bag between the railings while another distracted. When she returned a big cheer went up from all. The lunch was paid for and also a note plus £50 cash from another table that had already left. It was an American tourist and said he wanted to make sure she could at least get home. Friend the next day went and lit a candle and donated.

I was walking down a street about 6am (early start to work for a meeting)and as I got to a side street a cyclist was cycling up the road to turn on to the main road. He stopped, smiled and waved at me to continue walking. I waved and said 'thanks'. He smiled and said 'have a lovely day'. Really made me smile and a lovely start to my day

I paid a woman’s bus fare when her card kept declining as she tried to board. In all honesty I was just impatient and wanted to get on and sit down, so I just leaned over and tapped my card. Didn’t expect her to burst into tears and say that she would have been late for the third time this month if she’d missed the bus. and probably faced disciplinary action

I helped a fly. I'm disgusted with myself. It was stuck on its back and exhausted so I flipped it over, gave it a little puddle of water which it crawled to and drank some, then gave it a ride outside on a piece of tissue. It lives to irritate someone another day.

Last summer I was waiting at the bus stop, when a blind man with white stick and all got off a bus, realised he couldn’t get across the busy road. Bus driver got off stopped traffic on both sides of the road to walk him across arm in arm-then everyone in their vehicle's started honking and cheering, it was lovely to witness and restored my faith in humanity for a few days.

It was BTW!

Out with my Dalmatian .very wet underfoot! 2 lovely ladies came to my aid as I had taken a path through the woods ,had to hang on for dear life !They kindly helped me (I have a stick) and asked if it was my Dal that had run off and had to be caught my DH!

Maybe it's where I live and work, but I see far more kindness in RL than MN would suggest reflects the population. Barely a day goes by when I don't see someone lifting other people's cases and buggies on to trains or up stairs, staff in the nearby supermarket express giving sandwiches to the street sleepers outside, the mobile 'curry van' soup kitchen from the mosque. You need only stand still looking puzzled to have someone ask if you're OK, and if you should slip or trip, you're fighting off crowds picking you up, offering a sit down in their shop, water etc.

@JustAnotherWhinger oh gosh. That’s so sad. What a lovely lady she was.

When I was a child my parents were abusive and neglectful. My lovely teacher knew and she and the HT had tried hard to get social services interested but they weren’t (by father was having an affair with at least two local social workers 🙄).

Every day she she asked me into the classroom early to finish my work from the day before, but that was just so all the kids didn’t know she was giving me breakfast.

At the Christmas Fayre she rigged part of a tombola (which she had set up out of her own pocket to give every child a ticket purely so she could rig it for me to win the big prize) so that I won a backpack full of non-perishable foods - little cereal boxes, the small milk cartons that we got in school, crisps, crackers and juices - to try and help against my father’s habit of starving us as punishment. One of my brothers helped me hide the bag and we all snacked through the holidays.

I met her again relatively recently when she retired. I saw notice of her retirement and messaged the school, they invited me along to the leaving assembly and we had a few very tearful moments afterwards.