What's the kindest thing a stranger has done for you?

A few years ago I tried to find monkey 2 to replace dds favourite friend. A lovely MNer sent him for free and was happy to help. he us still treasured

I wish I could thank the strangers who looked after DH when he collapsed on the platform at Hammersmith station in 2009... Someone gave him their coat for his head, they called an ambulance and he was taken to hospital , briefcase and wallet intact.

I had a ROK happen to me this week.
I shall start at the beginning,in December 2011 my dd age 5 at the time visited a grotto and was given a teddybear. This teddy was nothing special but became very precious to my dd she called him christmas bear.
During 2012 we went through a bad year my grandma died and dp and I split for a while :( . Christmas bear became even more of a comfort to dd he sat on her pillow all day and she cuddled him all night.
Things got better but christmas bear was still very loved and comforting to dd. I noticed last week he was getting very threadbear and tired looking and we also had a night where he vanished and dd was distraught. We found him but it got me thinking about getting another.
I googled and searched for 2 days but found nothing in the end I rang the factory that was on his label.
The woman on the phone didn't have a clue which bear I was talking about but asked me to email a photo and she would try her best to look.
I didn't hold out much hope but got home from work to an email saying she had spent the afternoon searching and found him in the archives and if I sent our address she would send him to us free of charge!
I'm so happy dd is 7 now so will know he isn't christmas bear but we are going to give him to her Christmas Day with a letter from Father Christmas saying he was dropping christmas bears brother off as he missed him and had heard how much his brother was loved here. :)
Soppy but it has made me so happy.
So if you ever need a teddy or a lot of them Aurora toys are amazing.

Absolutely skint! I sent my young daughter with my last £5 to the corner shop for a carton of milk.

She returned with the milk and a bunch of flowers for me from the neighboring florists. She was so pleased to see me smile.

How could I be cross? She's still as thoughtful today.

Aw thanks Mudcity, I can't express how much it helped. This was 3 years ago and I'll never forget it.

thornrose Your post has really made me think. As a passer-by I would not have known what to do in that situation. I will think about at least staying with the Mum if I ever witness something like that, and at least providing moral support or helping with her bags, even if I cannot intervene.

Poor you though...you must have felt really alone and vulnerable.

When I was eighteen I was at the university sports ball, my dad had said he'd pick me up and I'd asked him to come around midnight. By about twenty to I was getting a bit fed up as most people had got very drunk by that point, so I went down to the reception area to wait and sat down near a group of people who were in the same hotel for some other function. One of the men, who looked maybe in his mid-twenties came over to me and started chatting me up, but in a really creepy way; he was sitting far too close and moving in as if to kiss me and not taking the hint that I wasn't interested, and I asked him to please leave me alone, but he wouldn't. His friends were standing not far away and they were asking him to leave me alone too, but he wouldn't listen to them either. So after a few minutes I got up and walked outside to wait for my dad, but the guy followed me out and came up to me again and kept hassling me. I was feeling really threatened by this point.

However, a guy who had been at the same dance as me was outside waiting for a taxi, he was with another guy and two girls (I believe they were two couples), and he came up to me, pushed the horrible man away and, standing between the man and me, said suitably aggressively "leave my girlfriend alone". He then called his friends over, they asked if I was okay, asked if I had money for a taxi, and when I said I was waiting on a lift they waited with me until my dad came, missing a taxi they could have got themselves in the process. I was so grateful to them.

i draw cards for people.its not much but id love to recieve a ltitle card if i needed one.ha,it sounds so pathetic!!
ive had many people there for me when i literally depended my life on them in the last few years.you maybe dont class that under kindness but for me especially my family that kindness when they faced my end so often must be a terrible to bear.

My dd, with AS, was having a huge meltdown in a supermarket car park. She is 11, not a toddler, and was physically attacking me and I had to manhandle her into the car while she screamed obscenities, kicked the windows etc.
I don't blame people for not getting involved but a really kind lady did. She talked to me and made me feel less alone in that moment. She didn't judge, she didn't act shocked or disgusted by dd's behaviour I always wished she was on MN and would recognise herself when I told the story on a similar thread.
I once came across a lost and confused old man and drove him home. He had his address on a piece of paper but couldn't direct me. After about half an hour I finally got him home safely. Then he tried to offer me money (which I of course refused.)

I put my purse on top of the health test machine in the pharmacy of a supermarket recently and then just went off into the shops, forgetting about it. Realised and panicked, running back through the shop and bumped into an old lady who had my purse in her hand. I gave her a massive hug!

Years ago I came across a little toddler (18months or so) wandering around. I stopped and chatted to her and thought she sounded french (Papa etc) so used my school girl french to talk clothes and colours for about 15 minutes while others looked for her parents. Then a woman came up and said that she had found the distraught father about 300m away around the corner having a breakdown. I took her back, asked if he was french and said that she had been cheery but literally couldn't speak anymore for being overcome emotion. He almost looked like he was going into shock. I then just walked off leaving him with others who were helping him.

After losing my son for around the same time more recently I can understand the state he was in.

I would like to thank the both kind and honest person who handed in my purse intact when I left it behind in the station.

I would also like to thank the security man who let me sit in their offices out of the summer heat when I suddenly felt faint one lunchtime.

The young lady, basically a stranger to me, who handed me a £10 note after I had served her (I worked in a building society at the time) when she knew I was soon going off on maternity leave.

I've paid for someone else's shopping when she did not have quite enough money on her.

I saw an elderly lady standing at a bus stop (I thought at the time she is going to be waiting a fair old while; that route only ran once an hour) with a massive present. I stopped the car and gave her a lift into town.

My dh and I were rescued in france by a wonderful man. I got the times of my flights mixed up because I confused the 24 hour clock with the 12 hour clock. thought our flights were at 10pm at night when actually they had left at 10am. got to Paris airport to find it closing, no where to stay no flights home. we'd missed out flight no hope of remittance, couldn't afford to fly home at such short notice the next day because it cost a bomb.

A lovely guy from air france, found us a lovely hotel late in the night-drove us there got us settled, picked us up at 5am in the morning and drove us to charles de gaulle station so we could catch the eurostar home. talk about above an beyond the call of duty.

Sat in a church bawling my eyes out during a really tough time. A man came and sat beside me and offered a listening ear if I wanted to talk. Out of all the congregation, he was the only person to approach me. This was 20 years ago and I have never forgotten it. I wish I could thank him.

Another man came and helped me on an escalator when I had overloaded myself with boxes. I would have fallen (and potentially sustained a serious injury) if he had not run down the escalator and intervened.

Another man helped carry my dog when we got stuck on a rocky bit while climbing in the fells.

In return, I always try to help people. I particularly specialise in finding stray dogs and returning them home!

Years ago I was a student cycling from from uni when a car went through a red light and knocked me off my bike. I managed to get myself and bike to side of road and was blown away by the number of people who stopped to check I was ok, including the smartly dressed man who had witnessed it who took the time to come back and give me his details and who had taken down the number plate of the car. I remember almost nothing about the whole experience except that if it wasnt for the kind passers by I would just have limped home.

Loads...

I slipped on some ice a few years ago and couldn't get up again. A total stranger came along, got me up, ascertained that I had probably broken my elbow (I had) and went and got his wife to help. Turns out I vaguely knew the wife - she is a colleague, but in quite a large school. She looked after my toddler and baby while DH took me to hospital.

I've had my purse handed in several times when I've lost it, always with the contents intact. I try to write and say thank you when they leave an address.

When DD1 was a few weeks old, my car key snapped in the lock and I was totally stuck. I ran with pushchair to a locksmith's, which was about to shut. They stayed open late to help me - I had to call out the AA to retrieve the missing piece before they could make me a copy. It was a few days before Christmas - aaw. I took the man a hand made Christmas card for that one.

I only do little things really - buy the odd cup of tea or snack for homeless people, pass on tickets, etc. A couple of years ago, a guy was sleeping in the bus shelter near our house one night, and it was snowing. DH got chatting to him, and he was a really nice guy - he almost invited him in, but we had tiny children and he decided you can't be too careful... so he took him duvets and a warm sleeping bag, which were returned in the morning.

The people who helped my Mum when she had a heart attack in the street - the man driving by who saw her unconscious on the pavement and knocked on the nearest door to get help. The young woman who lived in the house he knocked at who called an ambulance. She then gave my Mum mouth to mouth/ CPR, very bravely (she told me later she was terrified!) following the ambulance person's instructions over the phone. She did this despite the fact my Mum was a complete stranger, who was covered in vomit and blood from hitting her head.

I only found out who she was when she telephoned ICU to find out how my Mum was while I was there and the nurse handed me the phone. There was no way to thank her enough for her selflessness, but we sent gifts and had a very tearful meet up when Mum was well enough. She said the photos in my Mum's purse of my children made her determined not to let them lose their Grandma. (Wibble, sniff) The ambulance crew were lovely too, they kept popping on to the ward to see how Mum was for days afterwards.

nouvellevag I think its lovely hearing about all the acts of kindness

(Oh, half of those aren't actually to/from strangers. I'm an idiot.)

The things I've done are a bit small really, mostly sending people gifts to try and cheer them up - I had a friend in another country who had a nasty housemate, and one time the nasty housemate broke my friend's favourite mug, which was an unusual one that fit in her car's cup holder, and wouldn't apologise and was horrible about it. Friend didn't have much at the time and was sad. So I looked online, found a cup of exactly the same size and bought it for her. Only a wee thing but I was a broke student so it was quite a lot of money for me, and I think it made her feel a bit less alone in her shitty house situation.

Likewise, I once knew someone on another forum who'd taken in a teenager for months on end to help her escape an abusive mother, and then said teenager completely shat on my friend's kindness (I mean you don't expect a kid to cope brilliantly in such a situation, but my friend was totally crushed). I still had access to her Amazon wishlist from a gift swap the year before so I just went on and sent her something with a note to say that everyone on the forum thought she was amazing and appreciated her.

I remain totally grateful to all the people who helped me carry DD's pushchair over a railway bridge at the station I had to go to for my therapy sessions after she was born. And the person who took my heavy suitcase to my train for me at Waterloo when I was an Erasmus student on my way back from France, just got off the Eurostar, and my hand was actually bleeding from dragging on the case's horrible handle all day.

A few months ago DH went out to help the old lady over the road with her bins because she was struggling, and later the same day she came out with a blanket she'd obviously spent ages crocheting and gave it to DD!

I was on holiday in Thailand with my mum and sister. We were leaving the restaurant after dinner one night, and my sister pulled the wrong handle trying to 'walk' her rented moped in the right direction before getting on it, and in a very quick and confusing manoeuvre, she fell over and the moped landed on top of her. She was badly cut and scratched because it was a dirty gravel road, and obviously hurt from the moped falling on her.
Within seconds, there were about ten Thai people around us, helping my sister up, moving our mopeds to a safe spot, getting water for my sister, that kind of thing. The kindest thing I remember was the lady who used a special balm to massage the worst hurt areas of my sister's legs, she was so gentle and reassuring, she must have sat with us for at least half an hour. She insisted on giving us the tub of balm to take home.
These strangers then called for one of their friends to drive my sister back to our holiday apartment, because she couldn't ride the moped. My mum and I had to ride our mopeds back (about a ten minute journey), so my sister went in the car alone with this guy they called. They also called someone else to ride my sister's moped back for us.
It wasn't really until we were half way home that I realised how dangerous it was to send my sister off on her own, especially as she was dazed and confused. I panicked myself into a frenzy when the guy's car disappeared down some side road.
When we got back to the apartment, he was sitting in the car outside the apartment, having safely delivered my sister inside, but insisted on waiting for my mum and I to get home, because he didn't want to leave my sister completely unattended, but he also refused to stay in the apartment with her because he knew that might make her uncomfortable.

We took a few boxes of chocolates to the restaurant the next day, and tried to ask them to give them to the other people who had helped, but they were very confused as to why we should be giving them presents. It was as if we were part of their community, not some silly foreigners causing chaos.

This was all from people we'd never met, and knew we'd never see again. People who had very limited English, and who had very little money. I was truly touched.

P.S. Massaging that balm in to the cuts and bruises really made such a difference, my sister was only a bit stiff the next day, not in a fraction of the amount of pain she should have been.

My raok tend to be a bit crap really because they just involve giving (sometimes covertly sometimes not) material stuff to people who need them so I'm very lucky to have 2 very kind acts that people have done for me.

A few years ago my dd had a nasty rta and was in hospital mostly in ICU/HDU for ages, a certain tv chief who is quite hated on here visited her and read to her and signed a load of books for her to keep and to this day I still don't know how he knew she was there or that she was a huge fan.

Another one was a weird situation involving a clients violent ex trying to follow me home (during the time my dd was in hospital so my guard was down)and another clients gangster father pretending I was his wife and making the weirdo nutter go away to never bother me again.given the hate campaign he had previously launched on anybody who dared to help his ex I have no doubt that asking the stranger to help me and him recognising me as the woman who helped his dd quite possibly saved me a whole heap of shit being brought to my door.

Completely echo that, toffeesponge :)

chocoreturns - I was so happy to read your post on this thread as I was thinking about you earlier this week and wondered how things were with you. You really are an inspiration .