Someone was just very kind to me

[Sairelou]

I'm still feeling a bit emotional about it too!

I took DCs to Morrisons cafe as we needed a couple of bits on the way home from the park and they were getting hungry. I went to pay and my contactless card wasn't working I couldn't remember my PIN either and after a couple of tries I was getting really flustered and hoping the ground would swallow me up. Typically I had left my credit card at home and no cash on me. I went to get DS who was sitting down at a nearby table to leave (bracing myself for the inevitable tantrum, understandably!) and the gentleman behind me in the queue offered to pay for our lunch!

I've put something on my FB page and hoping to track him down so I can repay him and I will certainly do the same if I see anyone else in that situation (provided I can remember my sodding PIN).

My kids are wondering why I'm crying too..

Thank you all for cheering me up after a crappy couple of weeks. I think that we all need to remember these random acts of kindness, and like others have said, pay them forward.

I'll never forget being 17 years old and running away from home with my new baby, and the 2 elderly ladies who took it in turns to help me take care of her on the train. They were so kind and encouraging, and made me feel like less of a failure. They never knew just what a massive difference they made to me at a time that I so desperately needed it💜

I was once waiting at a taxi stop and a lady was sat next to me, she answered a phone call and it was very obvious it was very bad news. She started to cry (properly sobbing). So, god knows what came over me, instinctively put my arm around her while she finished her phone call. Theres a little cafe right next to bench so i got her a tea and cake, we had a chat, her mum had just passed away and she had just left a hospital appointment where she found she had miscarried. She looked so distraught and desperate. It really upset me to. In the end, 30 bloody mins later, one taxi showed up. We shared and i paid. She offered me the money but it just didn't seem right, she needed comfort and to be supported. I just hope she's ok and things are better for her now, i think of her alot and wonder how she is. Sometimes you dont really think you, just act and i try and act how i would like people to treat me.

These are beautiful stories. I got sudden severe abdominal pain on a train and got off the next stop teary and feeling faint. I crouched down on the platform to stop the faint and an old lady, without a word, came over and held my hand until it passed.

Just before Christmas, I was in M&S with DS, queuing to order our turkey. The old lady in front of us dropped some of her money and DS dashed around to pick it up for her. She insisted on giving Ds one of the pound coins. When I tried to politely refuse, she insisted he take it and tearfully told me how lovely it was to see that there were still kind people in the world. I walked away from the exchange feeling very teary eyed.

Here I am outing myself again
But here's my story. I suffer from anxiety and one day decided to get a train with my toddler to see a friend, first time alone on a train with DS. Get to the station and there's no lift so I'm dragging a pushchair plus a toddler up the stairs when a man appeared, carries my pushchair across down the steps and onto the train for me. Getting off the other end again a lovely man and woman help me get it off the train at this moment my toddler decides to make a break for it, I grab him getting in a flap and a lovely elderly lady comes up, says let me hold him while you sorted your stuff out, at this point the man had popped the pushchair up for me. Once up she distracted and talked to DS while I got him into the pushchair and safely off the platform. A minor thing to them probably but the help those people showed me that day I was so grateful for especially as I was so close to panicking and letting my anxiety take over.

Two years ago I was having a very bad time (still am a bit but still...)

Three days before Christmas, someone put £100 in an envelope in my letter box, with a note (in capitals) saying:
SPEND it on treats for the children and you and may you have a very merry Christmas.x

I think I know who it was (a very lovely neighbour who is very fond of the children and who had hard times of her own when younger).

I did spend it, but each month I saved £10 and put it back in the envelope. I wondered about offering it back but I might have been wrong or she might have been offended so I used my 'xmas fund' the next year that i'd kept in her envelope. I still have my 'mad money' (emergency fund) in that envelope, tatty as it is now.

I cried and blessed her for her kindness. The money helped of course, but it was knowing someone cared enough that was the real gift.

Yesterday I realised at a shop checkout (having run through a big shop) that I'd lost my purse. The woman behind me offered to pay. I couldn't accept as it was over £30 but loved that she offered.

My 2 year old lost her favourite teddy the day before Christmas Eve, panicked I found one on eBay and sent a desperate message to the seller offering more money if it could be posted by special delivery on Christmas eve, he did - it cost nearly as much as I paid for the teddy and he wouldn't accept anymore money, lovely lovely man whose kindness won't be forgotten.

Genuinely wasn't trying to put a downer, as I said lovely thing to happen.

I guess if someone paid for my lunch I would immediately ask for their details to pay them back (I'm sure he would've refused abywah) rather than go off and feed my kids. They can always wait a couple of minutes even if crying or moaning.

Sitting here in floods at all your tales. Not that long ago I was 8 months pregnant and on a supposedly 4hour train journey with toddler DS1 who was kicking off. Journey became an 8 hour one due to delays and it was the worst kind of hell. DS1 was screaming and crying, nothing was working, so I crouched on the floor of the vestibule with him thrashing around there so as not to disturb the other passengers too much. I was crying too at this point, it was so awful.

So many kind people stopped - a lady brought me some tea. A parent brought their own small son to see if he would distract my DS. Another lady gave DS her "emergency banana" All of it just made me cry more of course but they were so so lovely.

I was struggling one day at work - my third day in a brand new job - and my colleague, a staff nurse, was really laying into me, as was an auxiliary and they were both laughing at me between shouting . All of this was in front of a patient.

They told me after she would have been annoyed by me , and so I went in and apologised on the basis of what colleagues had said, in floods of tears.

God rest her soul, she gave me a huge hug, told me I had nothing to apologise for , told me to take a chocolate. She was a lovely lovely woman. She died about ten weeks later . I think I will remember her kindness forever, she still comes to mind quite often.

As a patient myself twice at the end of last year I think the nicest person I came across was a domestic from Latvia , I was standing in the shower bawling my eyes out when she came into clean. She helped me wash, dried me off and got me back into bed. She was lovely. I'm due to go back to the same ward this spring and hoping she is still there.

Many years ago I was a lone parent with a three yr old. We'd been through a hard time and were in a toyshop. She fell in love with a toy we couldn't afford - a Fisher Price clock that ticked and chimed. She was crying bitterly as we walked away, and a woman came up to us and said to her " We've got one of those at home but my kids are too big for it now. Would mummy let me bring it to your house?"

We thanked her, and later that day she brought it round. I asked if her children really didn't mind, and she said "My son said take it mum, to tell you the truth it drives me bloody mad".

We never forgot that family.

I was walking up the hill in Greenwich Park (steep ish) with DD in her buggy, a couple of years ago. She was grumpy and whinging (as always) and I was in the throes of horrendous PND. At the top of the hill, all sweaty, I realise she's kicked off one of her new shoes. I was so angry, and was ranting at DD, who was crying, and this amazing lady walked over to me, and showed me something (might have been conkers she'd been collecting) and steered me to a bench. I sat and cried on her shoulder, and she talked me down. I will never, ever forget how kind she was to a sweaty, red faced, mess of a woman, who could have done with a stern talking to about taking out her feelings on her child. Her kindness really helped me start to get a grip on my PND.

I was once having a cup of tea in m&s cafe with my 3 month old. She was crying, as was I. I was crying because I had not long found out I had cancer and was lost thinking I wouldn't be there to hold my baby soon. A lady came and sat beside me and said 'you might not believe me, but things will get better'. She had no idea the reason for my tears, but she was right. I'll never forget her.

This thread is feeding my soul
So many lovely people out there

Ive just remembered a lovely thing that happened to me. I dislocated my elbow falling over a kurb. A lovely man and his dog stopped and called me an ambulance as it was bad. He sat me down and his dog sat with me.

I was a mess in the ambulance and when I got to a and e, the hospital porter got me settled and I had some morphine and g and a. He got me a drink, helped me to the loo, took me for my x ray and back. At the time it came to reset my arm (im a bit of a legend for doing it with just g and a) i asked on the off chance he would hold my other hand. I know he probably had so much else to do and i was 20mins of time he probably didnt have but he stayed, he held my hand and he was just the kindest human, after he booked me a taxi and cleaned my mascara tears off. I emailed the hospital the next day to tell them what a wonderful staff member they had (in all of them but especially him). I had a lovely reply from the consultant and I really hope the porters compassion was recognized and he was rewarded in some way. Sometimes when im down. I read the email back just to remind me how utterly wonderful people are. Both the dog walker and the porter.

Someone pick pocketed me in Oxford street, January 1996. They had pulled out my Filofax and not my purse so chucked it in the bin. A man fished it out and posted it back to me.

I had a sudden and very unexpected death in my family, whilst sitting waiting in the ba lounge airside at Heathrow, waiting to catch a plane for a work trip. My husband called me and told me.

I had to get home obviously and I was crying and trying to hold it together, i had to explain to staff I needed to not get on the plane and get landslide to go home and why.

Getting landslide is not as easy as it sounds at Heathrow. The kindness the staff showed me was above and beyond. They gave me a specific route to follow, and there was staff waiting for me st every check point to Escort me through, inc immigration who said my name as I approached and let me straight through without checking my passport. When I got to luggage the manager was standing waiting for me , said " mrs blunt, I'm so sorry, please go home " he said not to wait and he would get my luggage off the plane and send it to me. I did.

An hour after I got home, which was an hour away, a taxi turned up at my home and delivered my bag to me, the airline had paid for it.

I drive to work 3 different ways depending on roadworks and on one route there is a T junction and anyone wanting to join traffic (turning right and crossing one lane of traffic) has to wait a very long time as it's just before a blind bend. If I see people there I always stop and let them all out. Yes it might annoy a driver behind me but it might help someone get to work on time instead of sitting there for an eternity.

Lovely stories!

I remember once feeling really faint and sick on the tube, i got off and sat on the floor on the platform as there were no benches. A lady came and sat with me , she was a nurse and stayed with me until I felt better, missing several trains (she was about to get on).

Another time when i was young i was getting home from the airport after a delayed flight had very little money, I found a cab at the train station but I knew the journey would probably cost more than i had. The driver took me home anyway and then waited with lights on until i got inside (it was a bit of a walk in the dark from the gate to the building)

Gosh, such lovely stories.

I'm a supply teacher and although I love my job, it can be hard being the 'new girl' every day. This week, I've been in a massive school where all of the dept have completely ignored me, all week.
I've been just about keeping it together, and still being smiley and pleasant.
Today I got locked out of the dept area at lunchtime and was wondering what to do. A kind TA stopped me on the corridor and said 'you look lost'. I said that I was a bit. She took me to the main staffroom, made me a cuppa and introduced me to a few other members of staff. They were the first adults I'd properly talked to all week.
It was nice to feel normal. I really appreciated that TA's kindness today.
If you're reading- thank you x

Here's mine. I was meeting my son in town for tea and to give him a cheque for some freelance work he had done. The cheque had been posted to our house. Anyway it was dark and I got in a fankle with car keys and trying to pay for parking and discovered later that I had dropped the cheque. It was a weeks worth of wages so a large amount.

Anyway a few days later some super kind person posted the cheque back to us. They had gone to the trouble of putting in in a new envelope and putting a stamp on it. Such a kind thing to do.

I just remembered something from a long time ago, but it made such an impact on me that I remember it as if it happened yesterday (it was in the 80s). This was in South Africa, at a time when there was still a big divide between black and white (I am white).

I had been to the cinema in town. There were two exits out of the building (which also housed a hotel and restaurant), and both involved a steep flight of stairs to street level. I tripped on the top step and went flying down the stairs, head over arse, and landed at the bottom, hurt, shocked and bleeding. People just walked past, and so many (white) people actually looked at me in disgust. Then this wrinkly old black man rushed up to me, helped me to my feet, dusted me off and made a big fuss over me. He offered to help me get home, and was just so kind that I almost burst into tears. I shall never forget that man.

Bluntness, your story tipped me over the edge.

Timesandtune, fankle is a great word. You're Scottish, yes?