Has a random act of kindness stayed in your memory forever?

[CrushWithEyeliner]

Once when I was 21 I was on the tube going home after work when I suddenly felt really really awful and had to get off the train. I wandered up to the ticket barrier when a guard saw me and asked me if I was OK. I was feeling so faint I couldn't even talk I just said I felt sick. He then took me into the back room where he and his colleagues made me sweet tea, toast and talked to me for ages until I felt better then called me a cab home, they were really concerned.

I know it sounds really silly but I have never forgotten how sweet they were to me and how much better I felt for it and it was so long ago and such a little thing - does anyone have any similar experiences?

sorry? Your point in the rolleyes and angry face is?

Well were you??? Two years later I think we need to know !

I had just had a collision with a very slow-moving bike (he didn't even notice) and I ended up in the middle of the road in rush hour traffic with my bike between my legs, unable to get up. A lovely man stopped his car, removed the bike for me and offered to take me to hospital. I was going to the GP's surgery for my first ever appt there, so he threw my bike into the back of his Lada estate (I have never laughed at those since) and drove to my GP's surgery. He even put the chain back on my bike for me so I could cycle home after.

I had his name and knew where he had come from workwise, so I dropped off a box of Roses for him later.

Brilliant thread

Every man who, when seeing me struggling to push my mate's wheelchair up a hill at Alton Towers, would come up, take the chair from me and get us up the hill It made such a difference, whenever we went. It's easy at the start of the day but by the end I was always dead on my feet!

That was about a year ago, we've both been at college/uni on demanding courses so haven't seen each other for ages, so we're having a catch-up soon.

About 5 years ago, when on a school holiday in Italy, I got seperated from the group. I'm visually impaired, didn't speak a lot of Italian, and 3 men, each tried to help me, eventually handing me over to a policeman, and then the daughter of the teacher running the trip spotted me. I was in tears and so, so scared!

I try and help whenever I can, I'll direct people, pick things up for people if they drop them etc. But I've not done anything that's ever truly made a difference.

Actually, I tell a lie, I might have! I was on the bus home from work (Alton Towers, this year was my 2nd working there) and a lady was sat next to me, we got chatting, and she said her son had ASD. I began giving her every bit of info I could think of that would help in future visits to the park, and happened to mention the Mumsnet SN board. I don't know whether she joined, but if you did, I'm that lady that spoke to you and helped you when you needed to get from the bus station to the train station.

Oh, and in my first year at Towers, I was working on the admissions gate, and a lady came to my mate sobbing, wanting to make a complaint.

Turns out she'd had a really long walk from the carparks, and had lung and liver cancer, as well as a daughter with ASD. Me and my colleague, along with a Guest Relations person, sorted the lady out with wristbands to help get on the rides, got her a wheelchair as she couldn't walk far, and sat with her while the wheelchair was found, going into our lunch break.

I didn't expect any reward for it, and didn't get any, no problem there. Major problem was when I found out 2 girls got employee of the month for counting cars in and out of the place Made me question that whole system and brought to the fore, a serious bout of favoritism (the girls had worked there the year before too), and also a cynicism about the whole employee of the month system.

Awww - BUMP! Looks like it has been a good year since this thread was revived and, having just came across it I think it deserves to be bumped!

My RAOK was when my son crashed into my DD's head on a slide in a soft play area here in Manila. He ended up biting off nearly half of his tongue. Screaming and blood everywhere!!! We were quite new to the city and didn't know where the hospital was. The manager of the soft play didn't know either but got in the car with us and asked loads of people until we found it. I knew that it was because she probably felt guilty as it had happened in her place but was glad. She put my DD and (visiting) in-laws in a cab and sent them home then got us to the front of the queue. I kept trying to shoo her away but she insisted on staying and even helped us to hold him down while his tongue was stitched.

She tried to pay for it all but we insisted. While DH was away getting the anti-bs she sat with me and I made conversation about how lovely and new the hospital was. She completely broke down and told me how difficult it was to be there as the year before her gorgeous 4 year old boy (same age as my DS) had to be brought here when he had a massive heart attack but he died. I was so touched that she stayed with us even though it must have been so very awful for her. I can't tell anyone that story without welling up.

lisalisa cmon now!

I love this thread

Driving by myself up the east coast of America, 13 years ago. I stopped for lunch at a motorway diner. When I asked for the bill, the waitress said my lunch had already been paid for, by a trucker who'd then driven off up the freeway. She had no idea who he was.

Longer ago than that, when I was about 17, Interflora came to the door with a mahoosive bouquet. Honestly, the biggest bunch of flowers I had ever seen. I was SO disappointed when they weren't even for our house but for a 'Miss Brown' - not me, not my mum, not even a neighbour. Me and my mum and my boyfriend's mum who was round for tea spent ages trying to help the delivery man work out who the flowers were for, because even the address was only a vague description of a rough area of our wiggly village.

Interflora man came back an hour later, having gone back to the shop and phoned the client. Client had apologised for inadequate instructions, admitted that he didn't know my name or the name of our house, but confirmed that flowers were for me (me! ME!). I never found out anything more than that it was someone who drove past me on my morning walk to school. (School coat was brown. Apparently I was supposed to understand the code.)

Next day I got a nowhere-near-as-enormous bunch of flowers not at all anonymously from my somewhat put out boyfriend, whose mum hadn't stopped going on about my secret admirer all evening

My secondary school tutor kitted me out in school uniform when I was in year ten as my mum was AWOL and my Dad didn't get it (I was working a a silver service waitress and he felt that I should be providing for myself but I'd spent all my money on my brothers school stuff). I had no idea she woud do that, it actually made me cry. Ten years on and she still writes to me to make sure i'm ok

On a train through Spain in the middle of the night myself and my friend met a nice Irish guy. We'd been talking about how little money we had before we discovered he was also Irish. We chatted long into the night and just before we got off the train he gave us all his pesetas in change as he was en route to france. We almost wept with joy!

OMG fatheadsgirl

I have just discovered this thread for the first time and read it all with a lump in my throat.

When I was about 10 my sis & I were playing on a really muddy building site (1970's). We got stuck thigh deep and were panicking as there was no-one around. An elderly couple living nearby heard our screams and rescued us, dug out my lost wellie, and took us back to their house where they cleaned us up and gave us tea and sandwiches.

I live by 'treat others the way you would like to be treated' and love love love RAOK

Just discovered the classic threads and had to add this (although is very trivial compared to many of the stories on here)...when my DS was very tiny and screaming his head off at the checkout in the local supermarket, an older gentleman said "that is the loveliest sound in the world". I thought he was being sarcastic but he went on to explain how he thought a babies cry was beautiful because it was pure and without malice. Actually I am making him sound a bit barking now but he made a new and red faced mum feel fab and less embarrassed and that was one of the kindest things anyone said after my DS was born.

Hate to spoil the vibe but i can mostly recall random acts of unkindness rather than kindness

I was in a nightclub in Paris. It was an African place and jammed packed, hot with very little air. I was starting to struggle with atmosphere, felt really weird, then suddenly couldn't see a thing. A really kind man who realised I was in trouble guided me out of the place. Even though I was really frightened and couldn't understand him he was incredibly reassuring. He stayed with me until my friend found me. He was so kind and I'll never forget that.

when i was 13, i started my first period suddenly while out in a shopping centre. I was in pain, scared and embarrassed, staggered to the toilets where there was a mahoosive queue. Honestly thought i might faint.

A lovely kind old lady who was at the front of the Q noticed my distress, put me in the next free cubicle and told me to wait 5 minutes. She returned with some baby wipes, some sanitary towels and a pack of pants. Once i was cleaned up and came back out, she took me to the cafe and bought me some juice and made sure i was ok and had money for the bus home (i did, but i'm sure she would have given that to me too). I was so mortified i'm not sure if i even thanked her properly but i have never forgotten her gentle, caring voice.

The porter who regularly pushed me from ward to scan during my 2 month stay in hospital (I was very ill). He called me 'smiler' and always seemed genuinely pleased to see me again, would tell me I was looking better and generally make me feel like a human being instead of a sick carcass.

The wonderful nurse on the mixed gynae ward where I was having an op to remove an ectopic pregnancy. She saw through me, desperately trying to keep it together, and without saying a word let me know that she knew how tough I was finding it. She slowly and carefully explained what had happened and showed me the notes from the operation. then she stood over the junior doctor and instructed him to write me a sick note for 6 weeks off work. I often think about her and wonder if she had experienced something similar or if she was simply a very good nurse.

Nice to see this thread out and about again.

I have another one - when I was 11, just started at secondary school, I took the bus to school for the first time. For some obscure reason, when school ended, I got on the bus from the same bus stop I had got off that morning - and so ended up going the wrong way. I got off after about 3 or 4 stops and was completely disorientated - no idea where I was at all. Highly distressed, I looked to see if I had any money to phone my mum - but I only had 2p and you needed 10p to make the call (sooooo long ago! ) A lovely old lady saw my distress, asked the problem and promptly gave me 10p, plus a few extra 2ps as well. Not a big thing, maybe - but it sticks with me.

I was working last week (Am a nanny) and had one of those days from hell
Had to drop one charge off somewhere, on the tube with a 9yo and a 1y in a buggy

Spent the whole journey there being shoved and pushed and grunted at, 9y being pushed everywhere etc when he helped with the buggy!

on the way back (minus 9yo) the "up" escalator had broken down...its huge! hundreds of "steps"...I had to take a sleeping 1yo out of the buggy, then transfer everything from the buggy into various bags (Its a Mac.quest...refuses to fold if anything DARES be in the basket ...then trying to fold buggy up ready to go up the escalator....all while trying not to wake the baby and with everyong shoving past....

this lovely lovely man was coming down the escalato, got off, picked up all the stuff walked backup the escalator with it, got the buggy open and helped me put bags on etc, then turned around and went back down the escalator to catch his tube

He completly and utterly made my day....thank you random tube man :)

Actually I do remember one (just the one!) - I had PND at the time, didn't realise until later, and a 6 month old in a pushchair plus 2.3 year old wilful dd. Was at DLL (usually populated with twunts)...went to get out of the lift and something (can't remember what)set dd off - she lay on the floor and tantrummed, whilst people stepped over her and looked at me scathingly. I couldn't think what to do. A woman got out of the lift and started talking to dd, engaged her completely and got her out of her tantrum. I was so relieved I could have kissed her (and I am definitely not given to over demonstrative displays of affection). It doesn't sound much but this woman radiated empathy, it was like she could see inside me and how desperate I was feeling (had been feeling for a while). I expect she has forgotten all about it now, but I haven't

What a really lovely thread. Have been in (nice) tears over so many of these.

About a year ago, I lost my wallet, with all my cards, a bit of cash, and a few sentimental things in it. I then got a message through Facebook from the guy who had found it in the street and tracked me down to return it to me. Thank you, kind man!

When I had ds he was put to the boob everytime he cried and I buzzed for help which was great but I was exhausted. Been awake for 36 hours, very painful slightly traumatic labour and I was exhausted. Really nice nurse came and sat next to me as was getting upset and worried I'd drop him as was so tired. She said if I wanted them to take him for an hour they would so I could rest. She left me and not long after he started to cry again. I buzzed. She just walked into cubicle, took one look at me and wheeled him away. So so grateful.

We tried for a baby for ages and nothing happened. Then I lost my job, DH's was threatened, which would have meant our house - and I found out I was pregnant with DS.

I bought a baby sleeping bag from Ebay and the woman sent me two, and a message via saying she hoped that was okay and I didn't mind. I emailed back thanking her profusely and saying we were not in the best position financially so actually I was hugely grateful - and then she sent me all her gorgeous, barely-worn baby clothes from 0 - 6 months, with the loveliest message imaginable. Not patronising or pitying, very positive on how her son was a late-in-life unplanned surprise and how he was the best thing she had ever done. It was one of those moments when the genuine, unforced, altruistic kindness of a total stranger makes you feel like you can handle something that overwhelmed you before. It was one of the sweetest and most thoughtful things. If she is on Mumsnet, I hope she knows what that meant to me, and does even 3 years on (and those things have now gone to another mother who was struggling financially, too).

I could have been that lady Ghosty I probably wasnt but I have comforted many sobbing paents in the pead ward and many have comforted me.