Childhood kindnesses you can't forget

[Clawdy]

The thread about childhood injustices is so sad, I thought I'd try a happier one ! The kind incidents you remember as a child.....mine was my usually grim grandma listening to me telling my mum how much I wanted a new book I'd seen in our local shop. Mum said she certainly couldn't afford it and Gran stood up and said "She shall have it!" We were amazed, it wasn't like her at all! She handed over the money, I bought the book, and never forgot it! It was a typical girls story - "Judy, Patrol Leader ".

I have always had migraine, since I was about 13. However looking back, I think I had them as a younger child too.

I remember being at my mums friends house where the adults were having a house party and all us kids were having a sleep over.

I remember waking up with a terrible headache, and being very hot and thirsty. My mum's friend found me upset, got me a big glass of cold water, a cold cloth for my head and stroked my face and head until I went back to sleep.

My mum was never the maternal type, I never got cuddles or much sympathy that I can remember. I've never had anything so lovely and soothing in my life as that night.

I dont want to put a downer on this thread but it is noticeable that many of these things are things that would raise an eyebrow now. Stroking a child, buying an ice cream, giving a child period supplies etc. A social worker I know talks about how things have changed. 20 years ago if a child was hungry neighbours would feed them or hand over a warm jumper. Now the run the risk of being accused of interfering.

At my DGM’s 80th birthday we went for a huge family meal. I was 12 and very socially awkward. My lovely eldest cousin (who I hardly knew and must have been in his early 30s by then) spent the whole meal talking to me like I was an interesting grown up. I remember this when I find my dinner companions trying.

Aged five or six, I was fascinated by hot air balloons, having seen them on TV, and really wanted to go in one. So a couple of family members blindfolded me, and told me to wish that I was flying in a balloon. They stood me in a basket in the garden, lifting it up and telling me that it was a balloon basket, and I was flying high above the garden. I couldn't see at all, and I believed I was very high! They went to a lot of trouble to make it seem real, blowing near my face for a passing bird, giving me a commentary on the tiny houses and fields below me: they got right down on the ground so they would sound as if they were far below. After my balloon "landed" and they took off the blindfold, I found I was at the opposite end of the garden from where I thought I had started. This was so magical I really believed it! I only learned the secrets behind this trick much later, and realised how much effort they went to.

When we were children we used to go for lovely long walks in the fields near us. There was a sweet shop in a nearby village so we'd head there and next to the sweet shop there was a house with an orchard next to it. One day we picked up a couple of apples on the wall and an old couple in about their 60s or 70s came out and half heartedly told us off, but said if we picked up the windfalls we could have what we wanted. After that we went every autumn and it was our childhood supply of apple pies and crumbles. One time they gave my brother a chemistry set. I wish they were still there to say thank you again!

Another thing was my mum used to be heavily involved in amateur dramatics. I was very young and would get brought along and to give me a 'job' during one live play I was allowed to press the 'telephone' button. But although I was supposed to stop when the person answered, I loved it so much I kept pressing it, so while they were trying to say hello with it up to their ear I kept pressing it! (And no one was cross)

I remember my dad warming my coat in front of the fire on a winters morning before I left for school. He died suddenly when I was 12.

@Walkingthedog46

I'm so sorry for your loss.

At my 7th birthday party we had nearly all the class round, including a new boy, who was Chinese and didn't speak a word of English. He spent the party looking confused and forlorn. I remember right at the end we had a treasure hunt of chocolate coins, and the boy from across the road who was another party guest gave him all the ones he'd found. I often think of that, because it was a totally spontaneous act of kindness from one stranger to another.

Such a lovely thread....It's made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Not my memory but my daughter's, she's 21 now but spent a lot of her early teens in Great Ormand Street hospital.
So many amazing doctors and nurses who she still remembers but when she was in an isolation room for a few weeks at a time there was a cleaner from Afghanistan who was amazing
He made her laugh so much, he sang songs as he cleaned and talked to her about random things which she loved, she used to look forward to his visits
All these years later she still talks about this man who made her weeks in hospital that little bit better

I was in a bomb scare in the 80s. The train stopped just outside a station where the bomb supposedly was. We had to climb down, walk around the station and onto a train on the other side. The second train was MUCH smaller and Mum and I ended up in the post wagon. There was a man, another paasenger, who was kind. I cant remember what he said but I remember the feeling - a sort of commonality I suppose.

My headteacher, a lovely nun called Sr I was ten and transferred to secondary, on a full scholarship, about four months after my father had died. We were very poor and everything about the school felt expensive.

Sr Zela arranged for me to be fitted with my uniform and sportswear like everyone else, she somehow managed to arrange for me to get the uniform shoes and indoor shoes too and gave me a schoolbag with lots of exciting things in it. Hair elastics and bands, bobbles, a brush, pencil case and maths set. Everything I could possibly need to be like everyone else. Nothing was a hand me down. I started the school looking the same as everyone else.

She also borrowed me to read to her twice a week. All sorts of interesting things were put before me; she said it helped her concentrate but in hindsight it was to give me speech training/elocution lessons and to show me a wider world.

Only later did I come to understand just how kind she had been.

Just giving this a little bump as it's so lovely to read.