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?

When eldest DS was about 3 months old we were travelling to stay with my mother for a bank holiday weekend. She was very excited because she was on her own, my father having died a short time before, it was her first grandchild and our first visit, with him, to her house. Our car broke down half way, we called the RAC but it needed extensive work at a garage. We had home relay but couldn't have it taken to my mothers because my DH had to be back at work on the Tues. He went home with the car and so as not to disappoint my mother it was arranged that she would come to collect me.It was going to take her about 2 hours, so the RAC man took me to his home and his wife looked after me and DS until my mother arrived.I couldn't have sat on the roadside with baby and luggage for 2 hours, but it was very kind because we were not his problem.

On one of my first ventures out alone with my first baby I planned the trip really carefully so I could use tube stations that had lifts.
I had a lovely afternoon out, then got to the station to get home and found the lift wasn't working.
With a massive pram and feeling exhausted there was no way I could brave the escalator, and the thought of trying to squeeze onto two buses to get home was too much. I burst into tears.
A lady came over and asked if I needed any help. She offered to collapse the pram and take it down the escalator for me, then said 'hang on, what if you end up stuck at your stop when you get there?' She took £20 out of her purse and directed me to a black cab outside the station. I was so overwhelmed and refused, but she insisted and helped me get the pram in.
It was so lovely and thoughtful of her.

Especialy kind when I think of the number of times I've struggled up and down steps around London and not a single person has even looked my way, let alone offered to help.

Ah London cabbies... a friend of mine finally plucked up the courage to leave her abusive boyfriend and organised a cab during the day so she could take all her stuff away while he was at work. But he turned up while she was there and started making a huge scene, threatening her, pleading, hanging onto her ankles etc. The manly cabbie took control, forcefully got all my friend's stuff in the cab, told her ex he saw it all the time and she wouldn't be coming back, unpeeled him from her and drove her away.

Another one, we were holidaying in a cottage in the highlands and stupidly only took food for the first night as we planned to buy what we needed locally. The next morning we had a series of disasters, we drove to the local shop (20 miles, lol!) to find the cash machine wasn't working and we had barely a penny between us. We asked the shopkeeper where the nearest one was (50 miles away)only to find the car wouldn't start.
The lovely lovely lady came out to see what was happening, closed up the shop and took us to the local pub where the landlord gave us drinks and cake on the house. His son was the local mechanic, but wouldn't be back until the morning.
The shopkeeper insisted on driving us home and handed us a box packed with groceries and told us to drop some money back when we could. The next afternoon the landlords son arrived in his van to tell us our car was fixed and he'd drive us to pick it up.
DH picked up the car, drove to the cash machine and back to the pub to pay but the lad winked and said just get a few in for me next time you're in the pub. We went that night and had a lovely evening drinking with him and his friends.

The sense of community and kindness astounded me but I suppose living in such an isolated area you have to rely on and trust each other.

Nothing to add but- this thread is wonderful, it's had me in tears here. Than ks for making me smile today [smiile].

Hasn't done anything for my ability to type though .

I was (just) holding it together until the story of Custardo's rock.

One night after drinking in London, I hopped on the train to get hom and promptly feel asleep. Luckily a man who caught the same train as me in the morning happened to be catching a late night train home too. When it got to our stop, he woke me up and I stumbled from the train - too bleary eyed to even thank him. (I could have ended up in deepest darkest west country!)

I resolved to thank him the next day on the regular 7.28 train into London.... I never saw him again, so never got to thank him. I think of him as my train angel!

Where did lisalisa go??? I want to know if it was her that helped ghosty.

I've got two small ones.

When I was tiny, I got stuck in some mudflats after venturing out to try and fetch a shell, and a lovely lady in a white dress fished me out. Where were my parents, you might ask. They were in a pub garden. These were unreconstructed times...

And a couple of years ago I was trying to unload a very heavy microwave oven from the boot of my car when two young teenage boys came past and offered to help me with it up the stairs to my flat. It was a tiny thing really but it got me thinking, as I just wouldn't expect boys that age to be helpful so it revised my opinion of the Youth of Today.

When dh and I were on our honeymoon we met an old couple who had been married 30yrs. One day they bought us lunch and said that when they were on their honeymoon an old couple had done the same for them so they were passing it in. It will stick with me because if we get the chance DH and I will do the same for someone else.

Just remembered something that happened to us on our honeymoon.

We were in Montepulciano in Italy and found a lovely restaurant. The owner asked if we were on our honeymoon, don't know how he knew, we must have been looking particularly dopey.

He brought us a glass of prosecco each and took a hefty discount off our bill. Then when we were leaving he ran after us and gave us a bottle of red wine.

mmmmm Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, one of the best wines ever.

(sorry)

Years ago an ex boyfriend and I were in Pahpos and having eaten at a restarant some nights before decided to go there again. We got there too late too lage but the waiters told us to come back in half an hour and then shared their own meal with us and would not take a penny for it. Meal was delicious too! Loving this thread x

I ran out of petrol on a busy road and had dd with me and no mobile phone.

Whilst I sat there flapping a woman pulled up behind me and said she had seen me on her way past and come back for me. She let me use her phone to call dp and then went off to get me petrol.

She came back with a brand new petrol cannister full of petrol and wouldnt take any money for it - just drove off!

I couldnt express my thanks enough to her - not one single other person stopped to see if I was ok and I still think about her.

These are beautiful - have been sitting with a cup of tea and a box of tissues reading them all!!

My story takes me back to when I was 18 to the leaver's ball at school. I was all dressed up to the nines and my dad was driving me there when the car broke down. It was a remote country road, so he had to walk back home (fortunately not too far back, but even so would probably be a twenty minute/half hour walk) to get my mum and her car. I stayed with the broken down car.

About five minutes after he'd gone, a police car passed by and pulled over to check I was okay. One of the policemen stayed with me to make sure I was all right, while the other drove back to pick up my dad and give him a lift back.

Then they gave me a lift to the school in the police car - I made quite an entrance

Ooh I'm in tears reading this thread too!

I remember walking home by myself late at night in tears, as a teenager, after argument with boyfriend of the time.

A car stopped and the driver said he was very worried about me walking back in the dark by myself so late and offered me a lift.

With "don't get into strangers cars" ringing in my head I politely refused.

So he said something like "Okay, I understand you don't know me and don't want to get in the car. Very sensible. But my little sister is about your age so would it be okay if I kept circling around until you get to the centre of town just to check on you? If you tell me in what rough section of the town you live and give me a thumbs up when you get near your house, I'll drive off when you're nearly home".

So I walked along with him circling from time to time, grinning at me. I gave him the thumbs up a few roads from my house at which point he waved and drove off. I never saw him again but thought it was such a lovely thing to do!

I had a very positive experience two weeks ago with my ds, he's 11 with learning difficulties and deaf, he decided halfway through Moorgate tube Station that he needed the toilet! and the guard was lovely when i explained and let us use the staff toilet. Ds then shouted MAN MAN at him till he turned round and ds said ANK YOU!! Last year i missed my connecting train at L Street because of a delay on the tube, i was in tears because i thought id have to pay extra, the guard at L Street was lovely and said "Madam we will get you on the 6.30" he then got his colleague and said "you will walk this lady to the train, you will find the guard and explain and if there any problems you will telephone me and I will sort it out" Both of the above experiences had me writing thankyou letters to London Underground and One Railways!!

i was 18 and had gone out with friends to a different town, all in a cab discussing who had the fare,none of us had any cash. cab driver threw all 4 of us out in the middle of a really dodgy area.
we all had high heels and hardly any clothes on , it was in the days before mobiles and wondered how we would get home at 3am .
a police car drew up, ordered us in the back and dropped us all off at my parents, they put the blue lights on as we were pulling up.my mum woke up and wouldnt believe they had just given us a lift, we must have done something.
the police said they would rather take us home than finding us later.

I have thought of another. After doing the City commute for 6m of my PG (2006 the REALLY hot summer on record) and standing almost every day, one morning I was just feeling so wretched and a man walked up to me and gave me his seat. He then explained that he was on this carriage of the same train every morning and to look for him and he would give me his seat every day, which he did for the rest of my PG - got to know him quite well-, he explained that his wife had to commute whilst PG and she never got a seat so he wanted to help where he could. Such a sweet sweet man...

I want to know about ghostys 'angel' too.

I had one last week actually.
We were in Disney paris and I had thought it would be nice to go up the davy crocket treehouse. ds loves treehouses. Anyway I didn't realise how high up it would be. I am scared of stairs. Not so much heights but stairs. As we're going up i start to panic and say I don't like it etc. dh is holding dd and ds is going up fine. Dh kept saying 'nearly at the top 'etc.
When I reached the top I just burst into tears and collapsed to the floor. I couldn't move.
A German couple came past and asked dh if we were ok. dh said 'oh she's fine, she'll be ok in a minute' typical!
But I wasn't and they said we'll help her down. They each took one of my hands in theirs and held my arms really tightly and led me down. All the way speaking sofly and saying, 'you're nearly there' etc.
I was crying all the way. I was so grateful to them as I was very frightened.

Lovely thread.

I've posted before about the darling little girl who saw dd (aged 6) wandering in the playground on dd's first day at a new school and said, "Would you like someone to play with?" Simple, but if only everyone in the world had just that touch.

(Actually, in the same vein I've always remembered Marina's son companionably taking his baked potato over to the 'allergy table' where a little boy was having to sit alone away from everyone else's fish.)

Am I allowed to do a domestic one? We had come home from holiday on a sleeper train. With horror I realised I'd forgotten my wedding & engagement rings - left them hanging on those neat little hooks by the bunk. Dh took ds, went to the station, found out which siding the train would have been sent on to, drove there, persuaded them to let him in, searched all the way down the coaches & came back with my rings.

when I got on a york train instead of a liverpool train from preston last year, guard looked up the connections for me to get back, and didn't charge me extra for the wrong bit of journey.

oooh and the bus driver earlier in the week = I stupidly didn't hold my hand out, so he didn't stop at the stop, but when he realised what had happened by my frantic look, he whizzed round the bus station and came round to the sotp.

By NutterlyUts on Mon 18-Feb-08 20:35:26
"Aged 11, lost at the big secondary school. A 6th former saw me looking like a rabbit in a headlights, stopped to ask if he could help, and directed me to the playground. Never forgotten that, even though it wasn't anything big."

Made me a bit teary, that one!

This is one of the few threads I'm reading thoroughly from start to finish, it's very interesting I think.

As a very homesick 18 year old student traveling from uni via London to home up North on a train.

Got to London to discover my ticket was no longer valid and I had no money, cheque book or anything and the train staff wouldn't let my parents pay over the phone for a ticket for me, as I had to had the bank card with me to pick up the sodding ticket. I just burst into tears in the middle of the station.

Kind stranger approached me, offered me the train fare £45 in cash for my ticket and said I could post it back to her when I got back home.

Bought me a cup of tea and a sticky bun at the train station cafe with her friend and cheered me up until the train arrived.

My parents managed to sort out the tickets long distance before the train arrived, so I could give this lady her money back straight away before I left London.

But how trusting and wonderful she was, she really made my day

My car broke down on the motorway on the way to my parent's house - I was taking DS over there, he was 4 months old and it's a 1.5 hour journey. I parked up on the hard shoulder and phoned the RAC. As I was waiting (with DS in his big red sling on my chest) 2 people pulled up on the hard shoulder to ask if they could help, one of them offered me his mobile in case I wanted to make any calls.
Thank you van-man and 4*4 lady, I hope if I see someone in a fix like that I will think to stop too.

Then the RAC man arrived and couldn't fix the wretched car, so towed me to a service station and asked what I wanted to do next. I only had roadside cover. I was just biting the bullet to pay for a tow to mum and dads (well over £150, gulp) when he decided to break all the rules and tow me himself. For nothing. DS and I sat up in the front of the breakdown truck and we chatted all the way back. He was lovely, and he risked his job to help us out.