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?

anyone else?
xx

Lovely thread, and I am laughing at the funny British tradition of offering cups of sweet tea to combat everything.

when OH was in a bad car accident the driver behind not only gave details as a witness but followed him home in the car (about a mile, mile and a half). He could see OH was shaken (car was a write off) and he wanted to be sure he got home OK.

I have also done one or two things that give me a warm feeling - too balance all the things I feel bad about....

I'm sitting here SOBBING, it started at the cat one, and now I'm a total mess. Lovely thread. And there really is nothing like a good cup of tea, is there?

I think the cup of tea featured in my OP and has been a running theme throughout lol.
It is inspiring to hear so many lovely stories and really makes me want to do something kind for someone and "pass it on" as it were,,,,

mine is so small I'm not sure it counts but it has lived with me. when I was 6 months pg with dd2 and dd1 was 18 months we thought (for some strange reason) it would be good to go to Australia. on the flight, as you might imagine, I became somewhat frazzled. i was already having a bit of an identity crisis anyway - a sort of "omg I am ruining my life, I have no idea who I am. all people see when they look at me is frazzled mum of one, soon to be two" type thing. on the flight I was exhausted, stressed, uncomfortable and all this was blowing up in particular in my mind, as I'm sure you can imagine. I walked down the plane to go to the loo and there was some sudden turbulence which made me stumble. a man held out his hand to steady me. but - so much more than that - he asked me if I was ok. and he looked at me. not my bump, not at my situation, but right at me. and there was so much care coming over in his voice - not sympathy or "omg glad I;m not in her shoes" but genuine care. It's really hard to explain - but I;m welling up now, 6 years later! just the idea that a stranger cared mattered so much. I guess I was hormonal etc etc but it was a moment I'l never forget.

What a lovely thread.

Mine isnt much compared to most of these, had been out shopping with ds who was about 6 months, got back to the car and realised that I had a flat tyre - having had it replaced at the garage the previous day. Dp was at work, and I had no idea what to do, apart from cry - a 4x4 pulled up next to me, 4 guys got out, 2 changed my tyre, the other 2 chatted to ds and made him laugh. It was so kind of them, really restored my faith in people.

This didn't happen to me, but happened to dh instead.
Many years ago when he was about 18 he and some friends went on a cycling holiday to Ireland. They cycled all day and then drank all evening. And so on.

One night dh drank far far too much and so did his friends. They were cycling along and dh just lost momentum and the bike keeled over with him still attached to it by the pedal clips. His friends didn't realise and cycled on to the camp site. dh lay, quite happy but perfectly immobile, in the road. And then a VW beetle rounded the bend and came to a stop. 2 women got out and managed to work out from his drunken ramblings which campsite he was staying in. He was refusing to leave the bike. So they bundled him into the car and one woman drove him to the campsite while the other woman (quite old) cycled his bike behind the car back to the campsite.

I think he was amazingly lucky to meet such generous people.

When I was wandering around a slum part of Kampala (remind me there is a reason why Lonely Planet list hotels as "budget"), some nice local man asked me what I was doing and when I told him I was looking for somewhere to eat he took me through a maze of corridors to some flats where there was some unadvertised "restaurant".

The next day when again lost in Kampala a woman asked where O was going and then not only took me to the bus station but made sure I got on the right bus.

Not mine exactly, but my mum and step-dad were in a car accident just south of the Irish border, heading north. Ambulance came to take injured step-dad to hospital just across the border and mum stayed behind to deal with the police. The police weren't allowed to take her across the border to meet SD at the hospital, so they got a bus to stop for her. Bus driver heard what happened and told the passengers he was taking a short detour and drove her right to the hospital doors. Thought that was lovely.

Loving this thread.

Just so many! There are alot of kind people out there.

Experienced many kindnesses last year when I had bad SPD and was on crutches while heavily pregnant. It hurt to walk and at one point I ended up sitting on a bench between the bus stop and my office pathetically crying. A taxi had just beeped at me for crossing the road too slowly and it was the last straw. A van driver insisted on carrying me to his van (no mean feat) and driving me right to the front door of the office.

A couple on their honeymoon who stopped and waited with my granny in the rain when she had broken down and was not in the AA, and then insisted on driving her to her destination.

My friend and I (aged 21) wandering dopily through Havana in the early evening when a motherly lady came out of her house and told us that this area was not safe and firmly directed us back to a safer bit of town.

In the middle of Mexico stupidly having spent the cash I had on me on a present then realising I didnt have enough for the bus fare back to where I was staying. A kind Canadian man paid for my ticket.

I was going out with some 'superstar dj' who had just been offered a set at Glastonbury whilst we were going out. Unbeknownst to me he dumped me and took my name off the guest list.

I hitched to Glasto and made my way to the ticket bit thingy (normally jump the fence so all a bit new to me!!) and they had no idea / note of who I was.

After a whole day of sitting there looking forlorn in the drizzle waiting for twat boyfriend to show up they took pity on me and let me in anyway with VIP pass.

That was cool.

Fab thread - i'm really welling up.

When i was 18 and just passed my test my battered old mini decided to break down as i was trying to turn right at a really busy junction.

Stuck in the middle of fast flowing traffic i started to panic until a couple of blokes got out of a white van behind me (shelve any stereotypes here) and helped to push my mini a nearby petrol station.

When owner of station turned out to be an utter knob and insisted in trying to fool me that it was a lack of petrol and sell me petrol. The two blokes towed me home (about 10 miles).

sigh!

Ooh, have just remembered mine
Flew to Oz on very cheap flight - not hugely comfortable journey. We were staying with friends who were not getting home for the evening, so then spent a day, with luggage on the beach/mooching round, wanting to go to sleep & have a shower. MAde our way towards friends house (various buses & ferries) - on our last bus journey, the driver came down to help us with our bags & started chatting/asked where we were heading. He made a detour to drop us off at our friends door - just totally what we needed.

when i was 4 my dad died of a massive heart attack aged only 37. he died in front of me and i was 4.

i obviously have limited memories as i only had those couple of years to have any memories. one of those was of my mum in a yellow bikini on a rock that kinda just came out from the bank of Llyn Padarn in Wales. my dad and i were paddling and trying to catch fish. we had a caravan there near snowdonia.

i mentioned this on a thread and MOONDOG said she lived around there. she then took her whole family on walks around the lake - which is bloody huge on a trek to find this rock and this memory of someone whom she had never met on the internet.

her family must have been exhausted - but she found it

she too ictures of it and drew a very detailsed map to it

and i went there in 2006

I was a very junior advertising person, but was invited to join some colleagues entertaining a client in Central London. I live in Wimbledon which is some way out of town.

The meal finished very late, and no provision had been made for any of us to get home. No-one else was going my way. The tubes had also stopped running by then.

I stood in Trafalgar Square for ages trying to flag a black cab, but none would stop, or were free.

Finally one cab, who didn't have his light on, stopped for me and asked where I wanted to go. He had finished for the night and wasn't going my way, but me made me sit in the back of his cab whilst he radioed for someone to come and take me home.

Custardo it was and still is a huge pleasure and we know go there often and all call it Custardo's rock.

Yes, from this place, all my sons presents, it was amazing and something that cold never possibly be repeated in my life, or his.

A good friend had to fly from Singapore to Sydney on her own with a baby and a very boisterous toddler. She was dreading the oh-God-don't-sit-next-to-me stares from the other passengers, but as soon as she sat down, the 20-ish woman beside her said "You look like you could use some help. Tell me what to do!" and for the whole flight she kept the toddler amused, minded the baby while my friend took the toddler to the loo and held the baby while she ate.

My friend is quite senior in a big bank, which at her instigation now sponsors the charity for which the helpful stranger works.

When I was 6 months pg with dd2, I crashed my car into the back of another at a roundabout. Their car was slightly dented, my radiator was broken and spewing steam. Called insurance co. to send out towtruck, but was crying (for no good reason as I wasn't hurt). Lovely man on the phone said he would send the tow truck, he really needed more info from me but why didn't I just wait till I was home and had a chance to calm down and call back then? Then, when tow truck arrived (nearly an hour later), I was still crying. The mechanic got out of his cab, took one look at me and said 'Aw, darlin', it's only a car. As long as you and the baby are all right, it's only a lump of metal.' Then he got me into the cab of the truck and gave me a drink and a tissue before going to get the car onto the back. What a lovely man he was.