to ask if a stranger has ever been kind to you?

[Penguinsarethebestest]

On the back of the negative thread of 'nasty to you'

Standing at the toilets at a station, bursting, no coins on me, about put a £20 note in the change machine that would had given me £19.70 all in coins. Nice random bloke pays the 30p for me to use the loo...

Student, broke, knackered, walking home up a big hill after a shift in late night takeaway 3 am, Cabbie stops, insists on giving me a free ride home the last mile and waits til I'm safely in door.

[PollyannaWhittier]

When I was at uni I was a leader at a Guide unit about 2 miles away across Bristol. One evening I was already running late and was cycling to Guides (I'm not a confident cyclist !) and the chain came off my bike in the middle of a junction. I nearly fell off the bike, pushed it to the kerb and stood there trying to figure out how to get the chain back on whilst attempting not to burst in to tears from embarrassment and the shock of nearly getting run over.
A man walking past - mid 40s, very crisp expensive looking suit - looked at me, knelt down, slipped the chain back on in about 10 seconds flat, smiled at me and walked off.
I was so grateful, I'd have been horribly late if I'd had to walk the rest of the way. And I made a point soon after that of going to the students union 'cycle surgery' to learn how to look after my bike myself

[MsTSwift]

Dh a keen cyclist and despite all the vile cyclist hate he gets there is kindness too. In Ireland his bike needed fixing and half the village came out to help and opened the church as it started to rain!

[Peppapigisevil]

Yes. My dog went missing when I left her with a pet sitter last year while we were on holiday in Norfolk. It was a rural area, lots of farms fields and out buildings. I was distraught and spent three days trailing the village where we were staying and from where my dog went missing. I walked 32 miles in flip flops looking for her - my only other shoes got ruined in the mud initially looking. I also put it on local social media sites.

People came out in their hundreds to help us search for her. They put posters up. People were out on foot, had binoculars with them. People were out on bicycles and golf buggies as the sound of cars maybe frightening to my dog. I was completely taken aback with how kind people were. My dog was spotted a couple of times and was eventually caught by local people after she was spotted in a field. We were so thankful.

Back how now and my dog is none the worse for her ordeal. I will never forget how kind people were and how they helped us.

[tympanic]

Thanks for this thread! Sometimes it can feel like the world is a vampire but there are so many good people out there.

I have many stories but here’s the latest.

Yesterday my toddler freaked out just as we stepped onto a downward escalator. Ripped his hand out of mine and screamed, trying to crawl off, his little fingers coming close to the mechanics. My shopping bags ripped open and groceries went flying as I tried to grab him.

He was okay but I was shaken after the near miss which came after a painful shop full of tantrum-throwing on top of the significant stress I’ve been dealing with lately. One woman stopped and gave me her cloth bag to put my groceries in. Another collected those at either end of the escalator. Then a man carried them to my car for me. I got in and cried like a baby. Not sure if it was shock, exhaustion or just because people had been so kind to me despite me feeling like a bloody great unworthy failure.

Either way, it reminded me of how nice people can be.

[CluelessBaker]

I was on a camping holiday in Mull with my husband, years ago when we were broke students. We were almost out of petrol but didn’t have time to stop to fill up as we were on our way to a whale watching tour which I was incredibly excited about - we had saved up for it for ages and it was the focus of our trip. We decided to drive straight to the tour and get petrol after.

While on the boat we asked the tour guide where the nearest petrol station was and he told us that it was only open part time and would be closed by the time we got to it. We knew we didn’t have enough petrol to get to the other, bigger station. I was starting to absolutely panic.

The tour guide told us to drive back to our campsite, and he would go to the bigger petrol station and fill up a jerry can for us. He arrived at the campsite a couple of hours later, having done a 40 mile round trip, and filled up our car for us. He only accepted about £10 in payment, even though it must have cost him far more than that. I couldn’t get over the fact that he would go so much out of his way to help us when he didn’t know us and had no obligation to us.

[Emmylou1985]

DS8 (6 at the time) with ADHD and no emotion control had a meltdown in Sainsbury's. He was screaming, punching and kicking me, running off. People were just looking at us, a few head shakes and eyerolls from the oldies. I tried to hold him, to stop him, and it just got worse. So I sat next to him, on the floor of the toys and household shite aisle, trying not to cry, until he calmed down. A lady came up to me and said "you're doing a good job". And it meant the absolute world to me.

[cstaff]

My dad has Alzheimer's and a few years ago when he was still at home he had a bit of a routine every evening. After dinner he would put on his jacket and go out as far as the gate, say hello to anyone passing and come back in after about 5 minutes. He did his usual one evening but instead of coming in he kept walking. My mam realised about 5 minutes too late and there was no sign of him on the road. The police and family were all called and a search was underway.

It turned out that he had hopped on a bus into town and at some point hailed a taxi. The taximan realised immediately that he wasn't right and brought him to the nearest police station and because we had reported him they knew exactly who he was. We got him home about 3-4 hours later.

My mam got the taximan's number and rang to thank him for what he had done and offered to pay / reward him. He refused as he said his mam also has Alzheimer's and he would like to think that someone would do something similar for her if needed.

[TheSecondMrsAshwell]

Oh I forgot about the time my DDad went missing just before Christmas a couple of years ago.

He was supposed to meet me at Victoria Station (in a specific spot), but ended up at Waterloo (I never established whether he came to Victoria first). While my DP and Best friend helped me, we also had help from a Cab driver who took us to Charing X police station for free (black cab drivers are fab) and the bus driver who stopped his bus on Waterloo Bridge to shepherd my DDad to safety and dropped him at a bus stop he could get home from.

[BMWL]

I recently lost a pregnancy and was staying overnight in the hospital. No visitors allowed due to covid. I became very upset overnight and the woman in the bed across from me came and sat next to me, she didn't say anything but just held my hand as I cried. I never got her name but that small gesture meant so much to me when I couldn't have my husband there.
I don't think she will realise the impact it had on me, and I wish I knew how I could thank her.

[Tooshytoshine]

I called an emergency electrician at night. Took the electrician about an hour and a half to fix. I went to pay him, but he said he had seen me at the school gates a few times with my son (who has behavior issues) and really loved how I had spoken to him, so wouldn't take any money...

One I have done... Met a woman a few times whilst I was walking my dog. She had a young hard work puppy that she had got for her kids as they were grieving their dad who had died suddenly. One day as we were walking, she got a phone call saying her daughter had been rushed to hospital and was likely to be there for a few nights. I took the puppy in for a week and just told not to worry about the dog and to make sure her daughter was okay. It just the decent thing to do.

I genuinely think the more kind things you do, the more often people do them back for you

[Chocolateandamaretto]

Breastfeeding newborn in a cafe, utterly exhausted, toddler running around, feeling embarrassed and exasperated. Lady comes over with a drink for me, smiled and told me “it gets better!”

Several times older women sat with me or told me I was doing a good job when breastfeeding, actually.

The bus driver who recognised me as taking his bus every day and without fail got out of his seat to help me on and off the bus with my buggy.

Daughter’s nursery pal’s dad cycles past me trudging to nursery in the rain and popped my daughter in his bike trailer to get her there quickly and I could go straight to uni.

Plenty of kind people in the world!

[cstaff]

@TheSecondMrsAshwell
Wow that is crazy. Our stories are so alike. Thankfully it all ended well.

[Hushabusha]

Was Christmas shopping one year and lost my purse/had it stolen. I had £50 left but had started with £500. This was back before debit cards were common. Bumped into my aunt on the busiest street in the city. I told her what had happened. She pressed £50 into my hand and disappeared into the crowd.
Now, she's not a stranger but it was a random coincidence to bump into her. I never have before or since (I've obviously arranged to visit her etc)

[Hushabusha]

I was in Morocco. My friend had a colleague who was from the city we were visiting. Colleague told us to drop in to her uncle's café to say hi. We did so. He didn't let us pay for our food and drinks, then insisted on driving us to the bus station, found the bus we needed for wherever we were going next and paid for our tickets!

People in Morocco always stopped when they saw us looking at a map and asked if we needed help. Then physically walked us to where we wanted to go.

We got "lost" in the Medina and a street vendor recognized us from the previous day, helped us find where we were supposed to go,showed us a great restaurant for lunch, sat us in the ladies' section and ordered for us. Then brought us home to meet his sister (not an axe murderer thankfully) and she took us to the local hammam.

As two women travelling in Morocco - it was the friendliest kindest country ever

[MazDazzle]

I decided to take my eldest, then 3, and my newborn into town for the day on the train (what was I thinking?). I was running late and didn’t have time to pick up the tickets. The train was packed and I had no way of knowing which seats were ours. The conductor escorted us through the carriages and gave us seats in first class! It was so quiet and calm there.

On the return journey, I had the tickets and was on time, but didn’t realise you couldn’t walk from one carriage to the next and I got on the wrong one. When the conductor saw me (it was the same guy!). He asked someone to mind my buggy and bags and escorted me to the first class carriage again! He made sure we were settled, then went back and got my buggy and bags.

[RaraRachael]

When I was little, in the 70s, I had saved up 12 and a half pence to buy a Ladybird book I really wanted. I felt really grown up being allowed to go to the shop by myself. Imagine my horror when I got to the till and it had gone up to 15p. I had exactly the money with me so was 2 and a half pence short. The lady behind me in the queue paid the extra money for me. I now know who she was and 50 years later, if I see her in the street, I always remember her kindness.

[cstaff]

Another one about my epilepsy..
I was on my way to work one morning just walking down the road and instead of turning right at the end of the road I had a mild seizure and walked straight across a main road completely zonked out of it.

When I came around there were 3 men surrounding me. I tried to make a getaway to get my bus but they were insistent on making sure I was ok to go to work. Once they realised I was going regardless, one of them pipes up "Ok I'm taking you" . It turned out that he was a taxi driver and he brought me into town and refused to take a penny off me.

[cstaff]

I just realised that that is the second story I have told about a kind taxi driver in Dublin.

[BitOfFun]

This is an amazing thread! I've bookmarked where I'm up to, but have to get this down while I can still think...

A few years ago, I was walking home along a main road, with my learning-disabled daughter (she was in her early teens, maybe, certainly too big for me to pick up) when she dropped to the ground and refused to continue. I was a bit flummoxed, and desperately trying to think who I could ring to help, when a couple of lads in a sports car pulled over and insisted on driving us home. As a bonus, they put the roof down and turned up the radio, which dd loved.

They made such a difference, and I'll never forget it.

[whereistherum]

This was years ago and probably illegal, it was certainly against the rules.

I was due to go on a surprise holiday, my then partner had arranged for me to go but didn't tell me till 3 days before, what he hadn't checked was my passport which had expired and I hadn't got round to renewing. Frantic, getting the form done and then running into London, after a four hour wait, found I had missed a signature. They were going to close in about an hour, I didn't have time to get to my dad's office which had a professional in it I was crying on the phone to my Dad (yes I was an adult) and he told me to take a breather and he would try and sort something. A guy came up to me, to check I was ok, I explained that I was just a wee bit stressed and what was wrong, he took out his NHS ID and said he could sign it, no problem.

He signed it, gave me his number. Did it for me properly 10 years later as well

[Anon0998]

I once had a lady stop me in the street to ask me where I got my dress from, I thought she was taking the piss but she was genuine and said she thought I dressed well. And on my first day of uni I wasn't living in the city yet and a guy from the group chat offered to pick me up from the train station and take me to our first course date and back to the train station no funny business just genuinely nice.

[Downunderduchess]

@Gibble1what a lovely thing they did for you. This post really got the tears going for me.

[lilgreen]

Just love these kind bus drivers and train conductors. It can make all the difference.

[AlternativePerspective]

Another couple.

One upthread has reminded me... when we first moved here. I went to a little bakery to buy some bread because ILs were coming to visit. We got the bread and some cakes and when we went to pay she said it was cash only. As I never carry cash I said I would have to leave it and went to leave. She said no worries, to take the bread and the cakes and i could pay when I was next in. She had no idea who I was or whether I’d be back. I went in and paid the next day, and we went there frequently after that.

Last year I was in hospital, had just spent two weeks in ICU and was back on another ward, had the water jug in my hand to pour a drink into one of those tiny plastic cups which seem to be too small and too light. As I’d just spent time in ICU I was understandably still weak and my hand was shaking holding the jug. One of the senior cardiologists walked by and asked if I would like him to pour it for me. I always thought it was a bit churlish to expect people to pour my drinks so I politely declined. But he took the jug out of my hand and poured the water for me anyway.

One I did, DS sent me a text at about 1:00 in the morning saying he had heard a dog outside and it looked remarkably like next doors’ dog. I was fortunately awake and went downstairs to see what it was about. The dog was standing outside his house wining. I knocked the door but there was no answer so we took the dog back into my house, I shut her in the kitchen and DS put a note through their door saying we had her. I had to barricade the lounge door as she doesn’t like other dogs and my own dogs were in the lounge. Unfortunately she wouldn’t settle and wined and barked for about half an hour. I finally got up, put my dog’s lead on her and went next door and did knock hard until he opened the door. He was very grateful and explained the next day that he’d fallen asleep with the front door open as it was hot and the dog must have got out without him noticing. He brought me a box of chocolates the next day...

[Ticktocklovelyclock]

Back when wages were paid in cash in an envelope my dad dropped his on our estate on the way home. Devastated, as we lived week to week on his meagre money as a builder’s mate at the time and it meant my parents couldn’t do the weekly shop that evening AND no fish & chips for tea for us kids. Even the heat and electric depended on coins in the metre. Mum wasn’t back to work yet after having my baby sister ( no maternity pay)
Knock at the door and it’s a woman we don’t know who lived on the other side of the estate with dads wages. She’d asked around til she found someone who recognised his name and brought it back and said that she knew how she would have felt if she’d lost her week’s wages.
My mum nearly cried with relief, because she knew how tempting it must have been for someone to keep the money when everyone around us had so little.