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

[GimmeDaBoobehz]

Equally, what is the kindest thing you have done for a stranger?

I often like to do random acts of kindness.

The one thing that sticks out regarding an act of kindness given to me what when I was heavily pregnant with DS and witnessed someone vying beaten up at the train station - I think they call it "steaming" - said stranger kindly found me somewhere to sit, chatted to me and then arranged a cab to take me home.

Being*

I always try to be kind and do nice things if I can.

I'm not a doormat either though, I like to think I have a medium base covered.

In the floods a couple of years back, I got stranded in a road 'lake', a biker pulled up on nearest dry land and waded in, water way over his boots, and pushed next out, I never knew who he was. Queues of cars either end and no one else attempted to get out.

A very nice man shared a taxi with me last week when the tube was buggered. He also paid for it. Lovely man who looked a bit like Richard Osman.

I always over estimate how long I spend in p&d car park s so hand my ticket on when possible.

I bought a homeless guy a cup of tea last winter. He'd just come in to the bus station to get out of the snow. He was so grateful and nice. It felt good to do something nice.

Supermarket carpark, we get back to car to discover flat tyre, dh starts doing it but not very efficiently, bloke who happens to be mechanic (and has his own kids waiting in his car) sees dh floundering a bit and comes over and sorts it out for us.
These things are a big deal when you have a car full of kids at the end of a long day, desperate to get them home.

The nicest thing I've done for a stranger is to let a recently-bereaved couple keep my missing cat, whom they found living as a stray and looked after. I thought they would benefit more from having her than I would, despite having looked for her desperately for 6 months.

The nicest thing a stranger's done for me was to attend to me when I collapsed with shock in the middle of M&S after taking a call to say that my best friend had been found drowned. She was a staff member, and I'll be forever grateful for her care & support in that awful moment. She took me into the staffroom, looked after me, made calls on my behalf and then arranged for a paid-for taxi for me.

I wrote to her after the event to thank her, and commended her to her manager. She sent me a lovely card in response.

This was exactly 10 years ago, but it still makes me emotional to remember her kindness.

I haven't had massive amounts of nice things done for me (not that I mind) but I have done lots of nice things for people. Bit like others, I like to please and just be a nice person.

One story though which I recall -

I pulled over on a busy motorway when a young girl got 'bumped' in to the fast last by an artic lorry from the middle lane (he didn't see her). I saw it happen and it could have been very serious but she controlled the car and managed to pull over. Lorry driver did too and so I pulled over as well. The girl was in shock, completely hysterical and the lorry driver was being an arse. I instructed told him to get in his cab and wait for the police and called 999 for the girl. I held her hand and she called her dad. She was only about 18 I think, not long passed her test.

I got a call a few days later from her dad (I'd wrote my details on her uni pad for the insurance witness statement). He said he had looked out for his daughter every day of her life and the one day he wasn't looking, I was there and I was his angel. I cried on the phone. Thought it was lovely that he took the time to call me and thank me. The girl wouldn't get back in the car despite his best efforts, it had really shook her up.

Anaesthetist in hospital - made me cry as she held my hand for an entire operation under spinal, told me how proud she was of me and how much she admired me. She sat on my bed in recovery War after (I was last surgery that day) and gave me a proper hug :) Sent her a card telling her what a fab doctor she is and hope she got it.

Also hospital related, I was visiting my mum once and on her ward was a very distressed older lady with dementia. My mum was quite ill and was taken out to see a psychiatrist. The lady kept smiling at me. She then tried to get out of bed repeatedly, crying and even yanking out her catheter. I did call the nurse several times but she laughed at her, and just told her to get back to bed. I went over eventually, and she asked me for her suitcase. I asked what the great hurry was and she said her father would be waiting for her at home. This lady was past 85, mother and father long since deceased.

I couldn't help myself, I took her hand and asked her to tell me about her family. She settled into bed, and she spoke to me for two hours. She had grown up where I had, and told me all about her life. She was a radiographer and witnessed the beginning of the NHS. She'd gone to school in what's now a shopping centre, danced at my uni ballroom and had lived through ww2.. It was amazing to talk to her. All the while I held her hand, and she eventually relaxed enough so that I could tuck her in.

She said one thing that I try to remember a lot - 'All you young folk, think you know it all. You don't have one thing - experience' , directed at the nurse who was laughing at her. I try to remember it whenever my grandparents are giving me 'advice'!!

She died that summer and I'm thankful she wasn't confused for too long after we met, she did seem genuinely upset and I'm relieved she had only a couple of months left.

Did trace her death eventually (otherwise I'd never have known) and have left a message to her family on a condolences site. She didn't have children but maybe there were nieces or nephews or something.

Probably not an amazing thing (and a story I've shared on here before) but don't think I will ever forget her.

When I was about 16 (many many years ago) I was on train for collage and when I got on train I
avoided sitting near a chap who looked a little odd ,
when I moved down aisle to get of at my stop this man ran after me making strange grunting noises and I was terrified ......and ran faster .
Turns out that I left my new scarf and hat in my seat and he was returning them to me .
Felt so very ashamed that I had judged him and with a full train he was the only one who noticed and made sure I did, nt leave them .
still feel ashamed today , good learning curve for me .

I always help people with cases and prams on stairs and public transport.I always think it could be one of my children one day who might need help.

A group of strangers probably saved my life.

But the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me is get my brothers teddy back to me. My parents and brother died in a car crash, my brother carried his teddy everywhere, but when I asked for it so it could be out in his coffin, they didn't have it. Obviously no one notices a teddy during a car crash with multiple fatalities.

But someone did, I have no idea who, or where he found it, or what happened, but a police officer turned up at my foster parents one day, weeks later and asked me if it was my brothers. It was.

I'm still slightly gutted that I never got to give it to my brother, it didn't, and still doesn't, feel right that he doesn't have it with him. But at least it is with me and not lying abandoned somewhere on the side of the road.

The kindest thing I did I think is to 'kidnap' my Foster brother so that he didn't go home with his birth mother, but got to go with his adoptive parents.

Last summer I lost DD in a busy city centre. One second she was there, the next she was gone. I was in bits and DS (ASD) was panicking.
First person to approach me was an off duty policeofficer who got her details straight to CCTV. Then a lady who worked in one of the shops came past on her way back from lunch, saw the kerfuffle and got DD's description put out over the shop to shop radios they use to warn each other of shop lifters, several people scouted round the area for me and one lovely lady jsut sat with DS and held his hand.
When DD was found and returned to us -a millionty years- 20 minutes later all those people jsut melted back into the crowd.
Stars the lot of them.

I know this is probably a bit trivial, but it always gives me a warm glow when people leaving car parks offer me their tickets with time left on them! I do the same to others, if I'm in the same position, and that makes me feel good, too. Sometimes it's the little things.....!

The nurse who removed her latex glove to hold my hand during a very frightening time in hospital, a small thing but the kindness, compassion and understanding without the need for words was a huge comfort.

The dog kennel owner who told me "I don't wish to make money out of other people's misery, just pay me for her food." He charged me 6 pounds for looking after my dog for 3 weeks. Needless to say, until he retired, we used his kennels for our dogs whenever we went on holiday.

I always try and be kind and thoughtful to others, I found a purse one day when walking into town and walked miles to take it to the local police station and hand it in. The lady whose purse it was came round to my house and was so grateful (her toddler had thrown it out of the pushchair unbeknownest to her) she was sure she would never see it again.

The nicest act of kindness was from a nurse who had to change my daughter's bandage twice a week for a month. She was only doing her job but her patience whilst running a very busy clinic was amazing.
During all the visits, I never cried in front if my daughter even though the tears weren't far away. On what turned out to be our final visit, she had to refer my dd to the plastic surgeon, I cried. Her words of kindness were above and beyond her 'just' doing her job. She asked me to pop in and let her know how we got on in plastics, which I did, with a card, wine and chocolate for her.

My acts of kindness are many. One that sticks out is mainly because of my kids reaction.
There was a car broken down on a 2 carriageway road. The person driving was completely frozen and didn't know what to do. I told my kids to stay where they were whilst I helped push them round the corner. My dh went to the front of the car and steered through the window whilst I pushed from behind. We got them safely off the A road onto a side street. On going back to the kids, they were doing a 3 person Mexican wave and they said I was their hero , their dad didn't qualify because "he didn't push Mum, you did all the hard work"

I LOVE the feel good factor you get from giving and receiving random acts of kindness, so I'm forever doing the little things like helping with prams, parking tickets etc, and have had enough of the same kindness bestowed on me too.

My favourite moment of kindness with a stranger was back when I was 17 and in Tunisia with an ex. We were in one of those Souk things in a shop that sold leather goods, and it was being run by a young brother and sister. While the brother was doing his sales pitch on my ex, the girl was waiting at the back looking very bored and picking at her nails. I went to look at the purses near her, and she took my hand to see my pink nail varnish. Her English was as non existing as my Arabic, but she liked my nails and showed me that hers had really old nail varnish on them and she was chipping it off. By amazing chance I happened to have the bottle of nail varnish that I was wearing in my bag, with a box of nail varnish remover wipes. I showed her what the wipes were and gave them and the varnish to her, and she was so thankful and excited. It was lovely! Then she gave me a red purse from the shop, insisted I take it, and forced it into my bag because she didn't want her brother to see that she was giving something away. Presumably he wouldn't have been happy about it.

All of this was with only the words 'hello' and 'thank you' in each others languages. I still have the purse and I will always remember that lovely girl.

The teenage boy who found my purse on the bus and returned it in with all the cards/money etc intact.

The woman in the sweet shop on holiday ( we were buying the essential fudge to take back to the office) who heard my DS2 asking if things were 'dairy-free'. She saw us later on the beach and handed him a packet of dairy-free buttons.

When I was pregnant with dd and in prem about they wanted to move me to a hospital that could cope with a delivery that early. I ended up being sent to a hospital miles and miles away.
The registrar from my original hospital (I had been there a fortnight) spent a huge amount of his time and favour pulling to get me transferred to a much closer hospital even though I was no longer his patient or his problem. Not only was it closer so I could see my 2 dc, 3 and 20mths but it was a much better hospital and I genuinely believe that without him going the extra 1000 miles dd wouldn't be with us now.

I dislocated my wrist on a road someone stopped a cab as it was five mins the the A&E.
He carried me in and as I was almost passed out pain and never uttered a word about paying him.

DD (9 months) threw up on a train. A smartly dressed man, working on his lap-top, switched off what he was doing and let DS (3) play a game on his lap-top, to give me peace to get DD and the train cleaned up.

When I was a student & on one year exchange in Germany I had just returned after Christmas and i was at the supermarket to stock up my bare cupboards. Germany had already introduced chip & pin machines (wayyyyyy before we did here) and as I went to pay for about £50 worth of shopping my brain froze and I couldn't remember the PIN number. I was in a small town with rubbish German skills and so embarrassed. Then the person behind me paid for my shopping. I was so grateful, he wouldn't give me his address or any info so I never managed to repay him but I was so happy that day. I never bumped into
Him again.

I always try & help others when I can and do random
Acts of kindness when I can. I'll always offer to help a mum struggling down stairs with a pram (those days were tricky when I went through them) and I give car parking tickets to people queuing to buy one if I have an hour or so left on my ticket.

My disabled son speaks to a homeless man whenever he sees him. One day he noticed he didn't have the blanket he usually had. When my son inquired where it was he explained he had given it to a friend who was cold. My son asked him if he wasn't cold too and he said a bit but he would manage. My lovely son whizzed off to the nearest camping shop and bought him a sleeping bag. Two disadvantaged young men doing a kindness.
I once gave a teenager money for his bus fare. He burst into tears as he said everyone else had ignored him. I told him that when he was earning he could pass it on.

I went to ASDA to buy some food. When I got to the till I didn't have enough money so said I would put some stuff back. The cashier said not to worry and that the money would be covered.