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

[GimmeDaBoobehz]

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

[higgle]

When our dear old dog had leukaemia last year he eventually became so weak we had to make the decision to have him PTS. He loved our vet and she came out to do the PTS at home, talked to him when she arrived, and he wagged his tail in his bed and afterwards she carried him out in a blanket talking to him kindly all the time, she and the nurse were both crying. They were so kind, and sent me a nice card too.

I suppose that giving an ancient poorly old dog a home in the first place ( and he was of one of the currently reviled breeds) was my kindest deed.

[Barney1]

Wonderful stories, small acts of random kindness help the world go round. There is actually a book called 'Why kindness is good for you' can't remember the author(via Hay House, I think) which examines the physiological effects of kindness. An interesting read.

[CiderBomb]

When my old banger of a car broke down on a busy slip road and every other arsehole behind me was too busy beeping their horns at me to move despite it being obvious that I'd broken down, a van with two work men pulled up alongside me. They pushed my car off the road onto the side, and then one of them lent me their phone to call for help (mine had died, typically).

Never seen them before or since but I've not forgotten it.

[Polyethyl]

The most dramatic I know is a friend of mine. She had a regular running route which passed a well tended garden. Daily jogging passed she became nodding acquaintances with the old man that lived there. Which developed into a discussing the weather and the state of the garden acquaintance - when winter came she occasionally fetched his milk/bread etc. When the snows came she helped dig out his garden path. She never entered the house or progressed to the familiarity of using his first name. She just viewed it as a friendly place to pause on her daily run.
When he died she got a solicitor's letter - he'd left everything to her.

[happypotamus]

It's good to see so many stories about nurses. We do really try (most of us anyway) to help. Today I left work even later than my already late finishing shift, as I ended up doing a couple of extra jobs, helping my rather stressed looking colleague from the next shift as the skill mix was crap and there wasn't really anyone free who was able to do the thing required to silence the annoying noisy machine for the patient's relatives.
I bought a hot chocolate for a homeless man on a snowy day last year. Other people made comments about he was probably just begging to get money for drugs. Even if he was, he had to be pretty desperate to be sitting outside in the snow at 6.30am, and he still needed a warm drink and biscuits. I needed to spend a note to get change for the bus fare anyway ( though I did end up spending more than that as coffee shops are so expensive so had to then spend more money on something else to get the right change). I don't think it was that kind though, surely just human nature in the freezing cold.
I have a colleague/ friend, who mentioned severe money problems in the run up to last Christmas. I bought small Christmas presents for her children and left them in her locker. I have also dropped a £5 note into her bag if I have had it spare when she has had her bag lying round in the staff room.


I would like to thank those who help with pushchairs on buses and with entertaining/ smiling at babies and toddlers when out and about. I try to repay this now DD is older. I would especially like to thank the man who found my dropped purse, phoned DH's number (which I have in there in case of medical emergency) and walked out of his way to get it back to us.

[marzipanned]

Sunflower that's terrifying.

I can think of loads but the one that I appreciate the most:

Age 19, travelling in the US, my train had been delayed by about 5 hours so I got into Denver very late. There was a large family sitting in the seats behind me and they asked where I was staying and if I could get there safely.

When I told them I was planning to walk to my hostel they immediately bustled me into their car (despite having several little, sleepy kids) and drove me to where I was staying. Thank goodness they did as it was seriously dodge, heard several gun shots that night and by the cold light of day would NOT have wanted to be walking those streets alone!

Most people really are lovely.

[toffeesponge]

This thread is amazing but yours, Polyethyl, has finished me off .

[Polyethyl]

Thank you. My friend really is lovely. We volunteer for the same charity. Her job was a caring profession and when she retired they gave her an MBE. She is exceptionally nice.

Everytime I see on mumsnet someone talking about going "no contact" with some family member they can't get on with - I think of my friend's experience. That old man had children with whom they had gone no contact after too many family bust ups. (My friend did do a deed of variation to share the estate with them.)
No contract may end toxic arguments but it can also leave an old person lonely.

[AbsDuCroissant]

It wasn't directly involving me, but around the time of the famed London Riots, I was getting into Tottenham Court Road station, and overheard a girl saying to one of the policeman stationed outside there "thank you SO MUCH for looking after us the last few days". Had me in tears.

When we were in Japan, we were totally lost (no street names) and jetlagged, and a teenaged boy asked us if we were tourists, and then escorted us, walking us to our hotel (took around 20 minutes) and then just said "welcome to my country, welcome to Japan" and then walked away.

[Sunflower49]

Marzipanned it was. Nothing happened to the man, the police said he probably just wanted a chat and a cuddle with an attractive young girl! (WHAT) and he was quizzed about it but that was it.
I am glad in a way that it happened to me and not my friend or another babysitter, as I was a very aware young person, I can't help but think many kids wouldn't have known what to do and something much worse could have happened.
My friend's Mum (the one who had put me onto the babysitting 'job' , called him and expressed her disgust and that she had trusted him with her daughter and it was horrendous etc etc.. And he replied 'Well I never did anything to Samantha, it was only Sunflower I did that to!'

Polyethyl that's lovely. We never know how much our actions can mean to some people.

[Weeantwee]

I ran across the road to a woman at a cash machine who had her skirt tucked into her knickers. Everybody else was walking by staring and I felt I had to do something. I couldn't leave her like that! She was ever so grateful and we had a good laugh about it. She did have nice pants on

[MothershipG]

I've got a really trivial one, a couple of years ago I had a spare ticket for Discover Dogs so I gave it to someone waiting in the queue to pay. Sunday, I'm queuing to pay for my ticket and someone comes up and gives me their spare! Kismet!

[stinkingbishop]

Aw this is all sooo nice.

Top tip for you all - the warm glow of doing a good deed is even warmer if you treat it as a sort of dare and try to get away with no one knowing it was you. So no thanks, no aren't-you-marvellous.

I tidied up the war memorial yesterday as either some ferocious winds/hoodlums had scattered all the wreaths. And I left some apples for some elderly neighbours on their doorstep. And gave some sage anonymously to a native american who used to meditate to the smell and misses it.

Feeling positively scorching . I just think it's nice when people can wonder who it was. And it restores their faith in ALL humanity, not just one person. Which hopefully will encourage them to be nice in return.

[ImABadGirl]

There is an old gentleman that comes every tuesday without fail to lay lovely red roses on his wifes grave. Anyway one Tuesday he wasn't there and I thought he must have died and felt sad, he turned up on the Thursday and I said I missed you on Tuesday and he was delighted that he was missed as he's very lonely and thanked me for looking out for him, warmed my cockles it did...

[helzapoppin2]

Very simple. A young guy on the till in Waitrose. He spoke to me so politely and kindly I felt myself start to cry. I must be surrounded by some very abrasive people to be stunned by sweetness and politeness!

[evertonmint]

A guy in the street saw us walking with toddler DS. He was just about to take his grandchildren's old dolls house to the tip. Gave it to us. It was in great nick and would have cost a fortune to buy similar. Always remember him when the kids are playing with it

[AbsDuCroissant]

Ooh, and I lost my phone (muppet) and just assumed it was gone for good. A lovely woman found it, somehow contacted my provider (I don't knwo if she'd phoned a number of providers or what), who knew that I'd registered my phone as lost, so they contacted me, gave me her number, and we met and I got my phone back. It was just SO sweet - she didn't have to do that, she could have just handed it in at a lost property office or something, but she said she thought if it happened to her she'd be gutted to lose photos, so she'd tried to track me.

[helzapoppin2]

In a church this summer in Italy, I could hear a young woman sobbing quietly. Nobody cries alone on my watch, so I put my arm around the poor girl and hugged her. (Must have terrified the poor thing!)

[CbeebiesIsMyLife]

I'm pregnant, this is my 9th pregnancy and I have 2 dd's (try were 18 months and 2.5 years) I was told in early pregnancy to avoid lifting the girls and take things very easy.

For some crazy reason I decided taking them swimming would be a good idea. Dd1 cried getting out of the swimming pool and tantrumed in the changing rooms while getting dd2 dressed. Dd2 then tantrumed when we were trying to leave. By this point I'd been kicked, punched and generally beaten up by the girls and I had also carried them both lots just trying to get in the car.

In the foyer of the leisure centre I just sat down and was so close to tears worried about the baby and unable to control my 2 dd's who had thrown themselves on the floor and were screaming and foot stamping. A lovely lady came over sat with us talked to dd1 till she calmed down them stayed with dd2 while I put dd1 in the car. She was an angel and I haven't been back since!

[YooHooCuntImHere]

Nicest thing was when a stranger held me in a Morrisons as I had a full on wobbley 4 days after I had found my mam dead in her home. I was just stood there in a total pit of despair and that lady was amazing. She even wiped the snot off my face with her glove and made me smile. I never saw her again but often think of her around xmas/new year.



My act of kindness was doing some shopping for a lady down the street when we had all the bad snow. Her own son never bothered his arse and she is 94! She is lovely and still stops to chat on passing.

[dogeral]

One boyfriend I had had a ferrari, he asked me if I could take it to get some petrol, as I came over battersea bridge my foot slipped and the car stalled. I knew if I pumped too hard I would flood the engine so I put on the hazards and waved my arms for people to pass but the guy behind me kept blowing his horn at me telling me to get a f..... move on, not sure if he was jealous, or if it was because i was a woman driving a sports car. suddenly the noise stopped. there was knock on the window I wound it down and there was a young man smiling, he handed me a bunch of keys and said, don't worry about him anymore, just go and throw them out of the window. i did just that and smiled all the way home. I wonder how many people behind him told him to get a f..... move on.

[Southfarnhammum]

I had just moved to Madrid in 1996 and was trying to find a flat for my then boyfriend and I. It was, at the time, a very strict Catholic country and very difficult to find a flat for an unmarried couple. My Spanish was pants which didn't help. I was on the phone in a bar, as it was the days before mobiles. I phoned yet another flat owner in broken Spanish. It did not go well. I burst in to tears. The entire bar staff and a number of the customers all stopped and asked me if I was OK, and I think gave me a free drink. I went back there for breakfast a few times and they always asked me if I was doing OK. I was and my Spanish had improved enough to let them know how grateful I was for their kindness.

[IdreamofFairies]

one of the kindest things someone did for me and my family was to make sure we got back to our camp site safe. we had through communication failure managed to get stranded in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in France. a man had picked his wife up and seen us stranded he took us over to where some buses where waiting and convinced or rather from what we could guess shamed one of them to take us to our camp site. we were very grateful he just shrugged off our thanks.

i always try to pay things forward giving parking tickets money to the homeless and i once in bad weather took and old lady home she seemed to be very frail and i felt in good conscience i couldn't just carry on my way and leave her there.

I agree if everyone did something for someone else the world would be a much better place.

[Retropear]

Once in France we docked late on a Sunday and ran out of petrol.Being a Sunday there were no manned petrol stations so we had to use a card except ours wouldn't work and we were in the middle of nowhere with 3 babies under 18 months.

The lady behind us offered to pay on her credit card and we give her the cash which we did.We could easily have driven off.

Have to say we've had a fair few kind stranger incidents in France.