Tell me about a time a stranger has been kind to you - that unexpected kindness

[BridportSpectacular]

I was wondering around Cambridge waiting for a relative to get the yes or no after a biopsy at Addenbrookes, the prognosis was awful but this would give a bit more time.

I'm not a make up person really but thought I'd pop into a Department Store - John Lewis?? and ask about a new foundation.

The absolutely lovely middle aged make up lady took me under her wing, gave me a full make over, including doing my eyes twice because I cried when I explained why I was in Cambridge and chose me a lipstick shade that was perfect.

It was like a total therapy session. She was just so kind and it made that 2 hours I was waiting just go.

The news came back from the hospital that we had more time left than we thought.

I had to go for breast cancer screening, didn’t take my purse with me thinking I could pay for parking with my card. When I came out the machine wasn’t accepting card payments. I was in SUCH a flap! A wonderful complete stranger came up to the machine, put the £2 in, handed me the receipt with a smile and told me to go and take 10 minutes to calm down

I’ll never forget her. I put £10 into a breast cancer collection tin as soon as I could, I just wish I could tell her

My tests were fine

That's lovely x
Last week I was visiting family with my small children by train and had a changeover that involved using an escalator. One of my kids was terrified to get on the escalator and having a meltdown , the other was half way down it and I was losing sight of them...and I had heavy cases to manage. I was freaking out! A lovely man grabbed my cases, and caught up with my other child and made them wait until I had got down there with my scared one. A true hero , I was so grateful!

I got separated from my boyfriend in Trafalgar Square one New Year’s Eve. I’d been assaulted in the crowd and was wandering around the square looking for my bf. The tube was finished for the night. I was drunk and crying. This was before mobile phones.

A Japanese lady took pity on my and took me on the night bus to Paddington. We hardly exchanged any words apart from “lost” and “Paddington”. She made sure I got onto a train home ok.

It was so kind of her. I’ve never forgotten it.

(my bf ended up sleeping rough at Charring Cross Station and got the first train back so he was fine too).

I was 19 and not long passed my driving test. I'd driven to see my boyfriend who lived an hour and a half away and my car broke done on the way home; about 10.30 at night on a huge roundabout on a dual carriageway.
This was before mobile phones so I had to walk to hopefully find a phone. I managed to pull in behind traffic cones by roadworks.
I could see hotels on the other side of the carriageway so started walking to find a way across to them.

I'd only just started walking when 2 lovely ladies, mum and daughter, stopped to help. They drove me around to find a phone and then once I'd called RAC they took me back to my car.

I've never been so grateful to anyone, they truly made a stressful situation so much better.

In London last week and I had my mobility cane with me. 2 ladies asked if I would like some help. I said yes please and said where I was going. They helped me on the tube and said I need to get off two stops after them. They let me know when they were getting off.

I'd hitchhiked with a 'friend' to a venue 50 miles away from home to see a band. Stayed there overnight and had a big row in the morning. So I was hitching a lift back home in the morning on my own. [Stupid I know but lots of people did it then and I was young and an idiot].

A car stopped and a middle aged man gave me a lift, asked where I was going and I told him the story and how I was so upset about what my 'friend' had said which was why I was alone.

He drove me to a railway station, gave me some money and told me to buy a bar of chocolate to keep me going [I was very hungry, no breakfast]...and to buy a train ticket home. And NEVER hitchhike alone again!

Often think about him, what a kind man who showed such concern....when the outcome could have been so different. I had no idea how vile people could be when I was that age [16].

I ran over a large deer one winter evening and sat was in shock in my car wondering what to do, and after many cars just drove around me and the dying animal, a lovely woman about my age came and asked me if I was OK and called people. She said she had also run over a deer and how awful it was, making me feel better.

Then, a guy stopped his truck and helped us moved the deer up the very steep slope that it had appeared from, out of nowhere, so it out of the way of all the cars.

Years ago, when DC1&2 were a toddler and a baby I was really struggling - DC1’s behaviour was causing concerns, I was exhausted, very lonely and my mental health was v poor. I pulled into the car park of our local shop and went to put both of them in the pram. It was pandemonium - both were screaming and the toddler was having a meltdown. I could feel the tears coming when I heard a voice beside me asking me if he could help. He was lovely, helped me get them both into the pram and checked I was ok.

Weeks later, I was at the GP - who was none other than the lovely man who helped me. He’d just moved to the practice and told me he knew exactly how I felt as he had 2 very young children too. The man’s kindness has stayed with me for almost 25 years.

I was in a foreign hospital having major spinal surgery. Dinner was always fish, a whole fish complete with head, skin and bones. As I was lying flat on my back I couldn’t see it, never mind attempt to eat it, but the son of the other patient in my room immediately went and washed his hands then expertly filleted the fish for me. He pushed the fish to one side and the bones to the other which meant I could just take forkfuls off the plate. He continued to do it every night of my stay

These are so lovely!

I was juggling work, young DC and a dying dad who was in hospital 3 hours from where I lived. For some reason I had to go up and down to see him in one day (childcare issues I imagine) and after unwillingly leaving him to catch the last train home I rushed and got on the wrong train. I realised as soon as the doors closed but was trapped as it took me in the wrong direction. By the time I could get out at the first stop to try and sort it out I was a gibbering mess and a member of station staff was just lovely. Calm, reassuring, completely unphased by my hysterical self. I was so cross with myself for making such a stupid error and she reminded me we all make mistakes and nothing is unfixable. I only had a few minutes before I retraced my steps and got a different but okish route home that she planned out. No idea who she was to say a proper thank you but I will be forever grateful.

My old polo broke down on the way home from work, pissing down with rain and no mobiles (this was back in the day). I was feeling utterly miserable and a lady from an extremely posh house across the road dashed out with an umbrella to fetch me in for a cuppa and to ring the AA. She was absolutely bloody lovely.

Not me, but I was once on a train and the girl across the carriage from me was in floods of tears trying to get home to her dying Dad. When the guard came it turned out the train wasn't due to stop at the station she needed. The lovely lovely man arranged an unscheduled stop so that the fast train would let her off where she needed to be. He also got her a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate from the shop and insisted she had them to give her some energy.

8 years ago. Week before Xmas. Disabled, unwaged Carer to two disabled children (none of us receiving the correct benefits except my DLA which didn't go far as my exH kept his wages from his job in his bank account so my DLA bought food, kids uniforms)
I was utterly worn down & no £ or energy for Xmas. A really low ebb.
Someone put £100 in my postbox with 'A Note from Santa: you are to buy a treat for each child & for You Too"
I sobbed. It wasn't the £, it was feeling that I wasn't alone: 'You Too' I'll never forget it. I never knew who it was, though I suspected a kind elderly neighbour.

These moments of kindness are lovely.

A tiny one from me, but I took my dog for his vaccinations today. I was juggling dog & baby, & feeling rather hot & flustered, but the vet commented on how well trained my dog is & said I've done a great job with him.

It was so nice to have that recognition at a time where I constantly feel like I'm doing 10 jobs at once & doing them all badly.

Horrible abusive boyfriend kicked off at me drunkenly in the street, kicked my bicycle and booted my bike helmet across the road before storming off.

I burst into tears and a woman comes to check I was ok and gave me a hug before proclaiming what a dick he was and that I didn't deserve that.

That was the start of the butterfly effect that led to me leaving. I'd love to find her and thank her.

I came back alone by train from Dijon, metro across Paris to the horrible Gare du Nord, Eurostar to St Pancras, tube to Vauxhall station where I was taking the overground train (followed by bus) home.

From Vauxhall tube to the mainline is a fairly long flight of steps up - I paused at the bottom briefly, taking a deep breath (I had a fairly heavy suitcase and I’m far from young) whereupon a lovely man, without a word, picked my case up and carried it up for me.

I was so grateful, and told him so.

Just this morning, I was running on the moors and it was already boiling. A lovely woman asked if I wanted to fill up my bottle from her big fresh bottle of water. Just such a thoughtful gesture.

Me and DP had just left our last doctors appointment at 36 weeks and where told we would be getting induced. We where discussing this on the bus home, when a lovely woman, who was just getting off handed me £40 and said "good luck with the baby" I tried running after her to give it back, but she quickly got off the bus. I managed to shout thank you just in time. Couldn't believe it.

I was in my first job and travelling by train to a company event in the middle of nowhere. My card was declined at the station when I tried to get money out for a taxi at the other end and when I phoned the bank to sort this out they wanted to know exactly how much I had spent in Tesco three days before in order to prove it was me, and I couldn't remember. I was getting het up on the phone, explaining I needed to get this taxi but they wouldn't budge. Another passenger gave me £20 for the taxi which was so kind- I later donated the same amount to charity.

Also someone once randomly gave me a bunch of flowers on the street. I have always wondered why, until recently I was gifted some flowers but had a long journey ahead of me and didn't want to lug them around, now I understand!

Would be 25 years ago now, autistic ds age 3 in local co op absolutely incandescent with rage as they had rearranged one of the shelves. He was big and very strong and I am barely five feet tall and was struggling to hold onto him whilst he was attempting to clear the shelf. I was sitting on the floor, wrapping him in my arms and legs whilst he screamed and fought and I cried and a lady patted my arm and said "you are doing a great job, don't cry" I just needed that kindness at that moment and have never forgotten her. Ds is 28 now and a gentle giant but oh he was hard work back then.

I used to be an avid follower of my local football team in my younger days. One morning I'd got up early to queue for some tickets. It was a freezing morning and I was about third in the queue and, about 5 minutes before the doors were due to open, I fainted. The club staff and people around me were so lovely. They took me inside, sat me down & looked after me while someone got the tickets for me and arranged a lift home once I felt ready.

These are really lovely and reminding me to up my game with acts of kindness.

I'd just received an anonymous letter telling me my husband was being unfaithful - a complete bolt out of the blue that couldn't be reasoned away, even though up until that moment I loved and trusted him without question because the writer had also included some rather intimate pictures that burnt their images onto my brain. I made my way home absolutely wracked in the deepest pain, despair and confusion I had ever felt - it truly felt like my whole world was falling down around me. I can't remember long stretches of the train ride home but I do remember coming to my senses again sitting frozen on the seat just crying absolutely helplessly....a lady seated opposite me made eye contact, gave this really compassionate smile and reached over to squeeze my hand and said, it's going to be alright my lovely, it really will. She held my hand without asking any questions till her stop came up. Huge comfort at a time i felt really hopeless and alone. I really think she saved my sense of there being goodness and humanity out there inthe world by her actions. And that eventually gave me the strength to build my life again. I did need to feel that some things were still true and good and she did that despite all the other shit that went down and truths that came to light in the days that followed.

I once went to my sister's on my motorbike, from Newcastle to Leicester and it was wet. Very wet, I'm surprised I didn't see Noah's Ark floating by. I stopped at a services for petrol and pulled in, there were two cars ahead. I got off the bike and turned it off, then they both left.

Two women were in a car behind me, getting irate and giving me hand signals to move forwards. I took one glove off and a load of water poured out of my jacket sleeve, then took the other glove off and the same thing happened. Then I wrung my (leather) gloves out. I put the gloves on the seat, then staggered along with the bike, to the first pump.

I saw them look at me pityingly. I went to pay and in the doorway on the way out, there was a fan heater, which I was standing under, to get warm. The passenger came in and as she came out, she handed me a cup of coffee and said,

"Here you go, mate - drink that before you go anywhere!" I managed a garbled thanks. When I arrived, my sister said "God, you look like shit!" She had to help me get undressed, I was so cold and wet!

In a new baby blur on my way back from nursery drop off with my older DD. Barely slept for days...usual newborn stuff.

I walked out into the road at a crossing, totally blindly and almost caused a crash as the car had to stop to avoid hitting me and pushchair. Cue lots of beeping of horns etc.

I was so knackered I just carried on home with a sigh. Then a car pulled up beside me and started to talk to me out of the window. I realised it was the car that had had to stop suddenly and braced for an earful. The woman was so kind though. She'd driven half a mile round a one way system to catch me and all to check I was ok. I think she might have worried it was deliberate.

Just kind.