Random Act of Kindness - to balance all the ranty threads, tell me of a random act of kindness that you have never forgotten.

DD was 2 years old and throwing a major tantrum in the middle of town. She had runny poo all down her legs. She'd messed herself in town, and lost it as a consequence. She was too big to carry and urgently needed cleaning up.

A complete stranger took pity on me. She helped me carry daughter, poo and all, to the M&S toilet so I could get her into some clean things.

Thank you, Stranger. I hope you didn't catch the D&V that followed for the rest of us.

Oh I don't know if the lady is on here?!
A woman burst into tears in my mum at the checkout in the supermarket. She was pregnant and just found out it was twins, and couldn't get hold of her partner to tell him. She was so excited and desperate to tell him, so she told my mum first instead. Mum made my dad pay for her shopping as a congratulations gift

Thank you to all the Mums and Dads at DDs school who have scooped me up in the rain and driven me home so I don't have to wait for the bus! Lovely people.

The lovely neighbour who defrosts my car every single morning when it's frosty. If he knows I am on nights he does it in the evening too

Another one. My parents run a pub and had someone in that was getting sweary, drunk etc at lunchtime. Mum refused to serve him anymore and asked him to leave. The pathetic excuse for a man twisted my mums arm behind her back and shoved her into a wall. She is 62 and has a lack of mobility in one arm from a prev injury
A group of hooded young men pushed him off my mum and out the pub and helped her back inside. They saw him drive off - staggering drunk
Karma was when mum rang the police with his registration. Local paper reported he was charged with drink driving, driving with no insurance, speeding and no MOT

When ds 3 was in scbu we had to supply nappies, one day we were running short and the lady whos baby was next to ds (and was a lot more ill than ds) offered us the use of some of her daughters nappies..

When dd1 went missing, the lovely lady who helped us so much...turned out dd was hiding in the shop we had been in but the shop staff did nothing at all but this lovely lady saw how distressed I was and really helped.

Oh and a lovely lady who helped me put ds1 aged 2 months in his car seat outside M&S at the Kew retail park, I was hot and sweaty, my boobs were leaking and I was crying as our flat sale had just fallen through for the 2nd time and I had just watched a mum, daughter and baby grand daughter having a lovely happy lunch together in the M&S cafe and I just missed and wanted to be with my Mum so much (were were selling the flat to be nearer to her). The lady was so kind and said something like 'don't worry, we've all been there and these car seats are a bugger to do up at the best of time!". My first taste that special club of mums who know, worth it's weight in weight in gold and platinum!!

oh aqua - that is brilliant!

Oh girls that must have been AWFUL! Thank goodness for those people! I once had to take my DD who was 2 to A&E after she bunmped her head and that was stressful enough...I had my 7 year old with me too but the A&E people were lovely to me. People ARE nice arent they?

During lunch, my not-quite-2 year old had a severe allergic reaction to her food while I was feeding the baby. She was screaming with the pain in her throat, her skin went blotchy and her lips swelled up; cue frantic drive to the local A&E hospital with a crying hungry baby and a very frightened toddler.

I'll never forget the people I met in the car park. I literally asked strangers for money for the machine - I had no change - and 2 or 3 sorted me out. Another lovely lady in her 30s/40s helped me carry the baby's rock-a-tot all the way into the A&E reception and ensured I was to be taken straight in. I meant to thank her via the local paper but never got around to it.

Oh this thread is beautiful and moving me to tears!

When I was 17 and travelling back from the states on my own I had a day to wait in Seattle, I met a lovely guy who gave me a tour of the markets and got the four seasons hotel to look after my luggage and get me a taxi to the airport when it was time to go!

The woman who sat next to me on the train when my abusive marriage was ending and who I ended up pouring my heart out to, who told me I was doing the right thing and that it would all be ok.

The mechanic in NZ who gave us a brand new battery for our van while ours was on charge at his garage, we left and carried on touring for a few days and then went back to pick ours up, but for all he knew we could have just carried on driving with that lovely new battery and never come back.

The world is full of beautiful people.

We hired a couple of bikes in Greece and took off the beaten track. After peddalling like biliie O for miles we finally stopped at a cafe and plonked ourself down on the welcoming veranda underneath a coca cola sign. It took quite a while for us to be served and unable to speak much Greek we pointed at the the coca cola sign. We had a conversation in the international language of smiling and pointing and everyone was very very friendly and smiley..
Finally, we asked for the bill to be met by a great deal of laughter and head shaking.
It transpired we had plonked ourselves on the varanda of someones house!!
They were so kind to us pair of ejits.

Helenagrace I am snuffling like a fool at your DH helping that family get home. I can imagine how vulnerable they felt with such a young baby - it must have meant the world to them at that moment.

lovely to read these stories. My husband and I once drove across the Southern States of America. It was our last day, feeling a bit sad about leaving. We were driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, sun setting, beautiful views, windows down. We pulled up at a traffic light next to a van loaded with fresh strawberries. They smelled amazing and I said so to my husband. The man driving the van, smiled at me, got out of his van, went round the back, took off a box of strawberries and gave them to me. Then hopped in his van and drove off with a cheery smile and wave. It was a real God bless America moment. (and the strawberries were bloomin gorgeous)

carocaro that is lovely :(

A friend of mine who is a bus driver told me a story about this school age girl he says hi to who travels regularly on his route. He said she is "a bit of a big girl for her age".
Anyway one day she is on his bus sitting by the window and a load of schoolkids start banging on the glass next to her and shouting abuse, even taking pics of her through the window on their phones, generally being horrible about her looks/weight while she just sat there, head bowed.

My friend said he looked around and all the other passengers were ignoring the situation :(

So he got off the bus and shouted at them to clear off, telling them that when they are older they will look back at themselves and be ashamed. He then got back on and told the girl not to worry about idiots like that.
When she got off the bus she mumbled a shy thanks. I like to think she will always remember the grumpy bus driver sticking up for her :)

Cant actually believe that I have missed out the biggest random act(s) of kindness that have ever been shown to me so here goes..

When I was 10 years old my pet rabbit was stolen from her hutch, killed and chucked into someone's garden. A friend of ours called our local paper about it and it made front page news in our evening paper. Anyway during the next few weeks we got literally hundreds of phone calls and letters, both at home and via the paper offering me support and new rabbits. Was so lovely - when we did get a new rabbit from one of the people the paper did an article on that too and let us have a free photo.

Oh and with DS: the lovely lady in Wimpy who gave him a teddy to keep when he was upset, the lovely stallholders at the memrobillia fair on our annual holiday who give us free/heavily discounted stuff for DS and DS's keyworker while he was in toddlers at Nursary who opened the door to me once when I was in floods of tears. She put her arm round me and took me I to the staffroom for a chat and a cuppa - actually all the staff there really do seem to care for the whole family and not just the kids.

My choir friend who had only known me a month and randomly gave me a card and a teddy to wish me good luck with my GCSE's, my work collegue who risked getting herself in trouble to comfort me when I was having a meltdown...... Ok, I'll stop now but it just seems so nice to be able to post here to thank all these people even though they will probably never read this!

When my Dad was in hospital and I was told the dreaded news that it was unlikely that he would recover and would die in the next few days, I went to the hospital chapel at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital (am not at all religous), it was empty and I just sobbed big lungfull snotty sobs, I then felt some arms around me, it was this little old lady. She said nothing and just held me, till my sobs had peaked and normalish breathing resumed, she kissed the top of my head and said I would be OK and left.

I really felt like she just glued me back together after being shattered. No idea who she was and I never thanked her. But it was the most touching moment ever from a total stranger I've experienced.

These are so nice and reminds me most people are kind. A bit teary at some of them though - MilitaryWAG I cried reading your post. Hope your DD is better.

My DS got stuck on the continent last year in that dreadful snow. He had to travel on a horrendous journey in the clothes he stood up in which took a few days. He lost his glasses and couldn't see. He even had his wallet stolen.

But a kind lady at Eurostar broke all the rules and arranged for a ticket to be at Gare du Nord for him (with me paying from the UK) and upgraded him to first class! He got the last train out of France for days.

Not quite the same thing as it only happened today but a kid told me that she'd really enjoyed the lesson today, had never understood past tense etc but now did. Really made my day. Comments like that from self-conscious teenagers (who aren't angling for anything!) are rare as hen's teeth, and all the more precious. Was a random act of kindness in my world today.

A few years ago my DH was very ill and in hospital. I was at home after going to see him and my then boss who could be a bit of a grumpy bastard turned up at the house. I started talking about work, he promptly told me that he would make sure that everything was done, gave me a hug and a box of chocolates and went. A small thing but it meant a lot at the time.

I was also in a jewellers with my dd and mum who was getting something altered. Jeweller noticed dd looking at the shiny things just like her mother!, went into the back and came back with a little amethyst from his 'slightly foxed' box of stones and gave it to dd. So sweet!

It's always nice to be reminded that people are generally quite lovely.

I cycle to work and there's a humpback bridge over the river as part of the cycle path, it's pretty steep and people often get off and walk. When I was about 7mo with dd2 I was cyc,ing in one morning and was halfway up the bridge and started flagging, it was clear I was about to grind to a halt when I felt a hand on my back and a chap cycling past helped push me to the top.

Just a very little thing, but it was such a knight in shining armour gesture!

I was very pregnant with DS and DH was out at an evening meeting. It finished very late and on his way home he broke down 20 miles from home. I started having twinges and to be honest was panicking a bit. He rang the AA and explained the situation. They diverted the nearest patrol. The patrolman took the keys and arranged the recovery of the car whilst they got DH a taxi home. They wouldn't let us pay for the taxi and the control room staff rang me every 10 minutes to check if I needed anything. The patrolman even bought flowers when I'd had DS.

DH had the chance to pay it forward last year. There was a signalling problem on the London to Glasgow line and everyone was stuck at Birmingham international station. They were told the delay would be 2-4 hours. DH had decided to get a taxi to somewhere north of Birmingham so he could continue his journey. He found a taxi driver who would do it for £50. He rang me to say what was going on and it popped into my head to say "see if there's anyone else you can help". He looked along the platform and spotted a young couple with a very young baby. He approached them and they shared the taxi. He paid the extra for the driver to take them home. They'd been at the station for two hours and only had one spare nappy and one spare bottle of milk left. The young man cried when they got out of the taxi.

Going to Greenwich Park via the foot tunnel and lifts weren't working. Had toddler on bike and baby in pram. A lovely couple asked me if they could help then proceeded to carry both the bike and pram up some 80 steps for me. It's not often in London I encounter such thoughtful people and though it was a few years ago I still think about it when I encounter a twat I'm having a bad day

I was about to get off the bus, with a buggy (complete with baby) and a toddler. I was struggling with the bags, the buggy & holding the toddlers hand. the bus driver. got out, took the toddler off the bus and held his hand at the bus stop until I had managed to get off. I almost cried, I was so grateful.

We lived in Africa and just before coming back to England my cleaner's mum travelled on a bush taxi for a day and a half to thank me for giving her daughter a job.
She apologised because all she had to give me were some mangoes from her garden, which she had brought with her in a plastic bag.

I'm actually welling up thinking about it after all these years!!!