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Original poster

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

309 replies

CrushWithEyeliner · 18/02/2008 20:09

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?

OP posts:
Lucewheel · 20/02/2008 13:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Riddo · 20/02/2008 13:49

In M&S cafe with a screaming tantuming ds (2), everyone looking daggers and disapproving so I left with him under one arm, pushing buggy one handed.

A lovely really old lady held the door for me, smiled sympathetically and said "Don't worry dear, they all do it sometimes". Her kindness made me cry and I've never forgotten her.

ajandjjmum · 20/02/2008 13:54

I was taken on a day trip to London when I was very small. I was waiting to hand over my 6d (yes, it was that long ago!) for a postcard at the Tower of London souvenir shop, when I was told that the man before had paid for it.

I'm sure loads of people have been kind to me over the years, but that one always stays in my mind.

welshmum · 20/02/2008 13:55

I was in New Zealand with dh and dd staying at his in-laws for Christmas. I was about 13 weeks pg and started to miscarry. It was so wierd being so far from my own family and friends and everyone there seemed to expect me to get on with it. I felt like I was somehow spoiling their Christmas.
I went to the GP a couple of times as the bleeding went on and on and they told me to let it take its course. The day before we were due to fly home and still losing loads of blood I took myself to the the local hospital and told my tale there.
They were so lovely to me especially the gynaecologist, a really sweet elderly asian man who shook his head and said 'oh no this shouldn't be happening' and whipped me into theatre. Just before I had anaethetic I remember asking him if I'd be able to have another baby, explaining that I'd had to have fertility treatment to get pg ' Of course, my dear' he said and stroked my forehead.
He was so wonderful - and right, ds arrived a year or so later

margoandjerry · 20/02/2008 13:58

oooh welshmum, you've made me well up.

Bink · 20/02/2008 14:08

Another one, which ajandjj's story has reminded me of ... and which I am not quite sure would happen nowadays -

Aged about 6 I found a pound note in a puddle on the way to school. Knowing it was precious I gave it to my teacher, who said she would hand it in to the police. Do you think that was the end of it?

No. Six months later (the formal "lost property" period) there was a knock on the classroom door. In came a huge huge policeman, and gave me my pound note.

Just imagine the levels of thoughtfulness behind that!

wilbur · 20/02/2008 14:10

11 yrs ago, was on holiday with dh and another couple in Venezuela - three of us were sick with a stomach thing, and our friend had it so badly we had got him checked out at an American Hosp in Caracas. Doctor had said he thought is was just regular travellers tummy, but did some tests just in case and told us to call in a couple of days for results. We travelled on way away from the city, took a day and a half to get to a v remote area. Stayed at a guesthouse owned by a lovely American lady, who helped us phone the doctor who told us that actually we all had something v nasty, a type of full-blown dysentery and MUST have antibiotics immediately. So lovely lady took us to the pharmacy, translated for us, got the right pills and when we realised we didn't have enough for the drugs, let alone the guesthouse bill, she loaned us the money and told us to send it when we got home. We did, of course, but bless her, what a chance to take with a bunch of smelly Brits.

foxinsocks · 20/02/2008 14:21

I have to post this now as I can't stop looking at this thread and it's doing my head in.

About 16 years ago, my dad couldn't cope with my mum (an alcoholic with mental health problems) any longer and sent her down to stay with me (I was 18/19) while he went away and did his own thing. I was trying to study - no-one asked me if she could stay - she just turned up on the doorstep in a pile.

The first night, I got called by the barman at the local pub to come and pick her up as she had passed out on the floor (I knew the barman from university). Second day, she woke up and downed a 5 litre box of wine.

So on the 3rd day, she told me about these tablets the doctor had given her called Antabuse that were supposed to stop her drinking. I thought this sounded brilliant but she didn't want to take them so I thought I'd be really clever and mix them in with her coffee so that when I came back that evening, she would be sober.

Except I came back and she was barely breathing . I didn't know what to do so called for an ambulance and they put me through to the National Poisons Line. I told them what I had done and the man on the other end was incredibly calm and just wonderful. He told me those pills were designed to make you incredibly ill when you drank, to the point that it could be very dangerous but that I didn't know this and I was only doing what I thought would work. Never once did he get cross (even though I had been incredibly stupid!) and he was the first person I had ever spoken to about the whole situation and he was reassuring and kind and compassionate . He told me he would speak to the ambulance people and tell them what to do and he would personally take charge of my mother's case once she got to hospital.

I know he was doing his job but it was the way and manner in which he did it. He didn't have to treat me so kindly - he would have been well within reason to tell me I was a prat but he didn't and I've never ever forgotten his kindness to me that day. I never met him. I never saw my mum in hospital that time but he's always remained in my mind.

BabiesEverywhere · 20/02/2008 14:24

{{{foxinsocks}}}

kitbit · 20/02/2008 14:28

dh has one - when staying with his parents when they lived in Ireland we went on a weekend trip to Dingle. There's a lovely bay there and dh and his dad borrowed a little coracle from the friends we were staying with to splash about in the water for a bit. They were gone for ages and we were starting to get a bit worried...then they turned up totally knackered and a bit the worse for wear - they'd got carried away and had actually paddled right across the bay (it had taken them an hour or so) and when they got there all chilled and exhilarated they went into the lone stone pub for a pint of guinness...to discover they hadn't got a penny between them. The landlord gave them both a hearty ploughmans and 2 or 3 pints each and told them to come by sometime and settle up. One of the farmers even offered to drive them home but the coracle wouldn't fit in the tractor so they had to paddle back - with nice full tummies and a guinness-fuelled twinkle in their eyes!
They drove around the next day and the landlord said "I wasn't expecting you so soon, I thought you might come back next year when you come on your holidays again or something" !

geordiemacminx · 20/02/2008 15:30

Luce - I'll let you buy mine - IF DP EVER PROPOSES!!!!

rainbowbadger · 20/02/2008 16:05

As v v naive teenagers myself and then boyfriend (now husband - who else would stand for our rubbish planning!) went to the Glastonbury Festival with nowt more than a tent and green Doc Martins to buy a ticket off a tout which we duly did for over the odds and were given our coloured wristbands. Of course going through the gates we got immediately taken to one side by quite a 'grandaddy' steward who gave us a big lecture about trusting touts, got all the other stewards to laugh at the price we'd paid all whilst he put on us pukka wristbands and shooed us on into the hallowed fields - back in the early 90's so prob less tolerant there now but what a real example of the festival spirit!

filthymindedvixen · 20/02/2008 16:15

oh glasto! One year me and a female friend went and on the way our windscreen was smashed, We used every scrap of our money to get it fixed (no cash cards in them days!) and turned up with tent/1 very small case of beer and a lot of hope in the kindness of strangers.
At first we used the beer to barter for food. Then word got around that we were penniless thru' no fault of our own and people fed us, gave us beer (and , erm, joints) all weekend. We were very young and no-one took advantage of us!
TBH this was 20 years ago and I don't think people would be so kind now....

evenhope · 20/02/2008 16:16

When I was about 18 I had an accident on my motorbike. A van pulled out of a side road in front of the car I was following. The car stopped- I didn't. I was gathered up by a biker I hadn't noticed behind me. He had me under one arm and the bike in the other. The front mudguard had got jammed down over the wheel so it wouldn't move. He fixed the bike by the side of the road then told me to follow him to the police station to report it, where he did all the talking, then called my parents to get them to pick me up.

Another one was on a cross channel ferry. DH and I were driving with our 6 week old PFB in her carrycot on the back seat of our 2 door hatchback. As they loaded us on, one of the crew noticed the carrycot and called to the others "there's a little baby in here". They then stopped all the loading and helped DH lift the carrycot out through the hatchback, only carrying on once we'd got over to the stairs out of the way.

filthymindedvixen · 20/02/2008 16:17

I am a huge advocate of RAOK and endeavour to carry them out whenever the opportunity arises.
This is a beautiful thread and reading some of these experiences has made me cry!

filthymindedvixen · 20/02/2008 16:23

oh crap! I forgot a major one! When my ds was in hospital with meningitis for a fortnight, a vague aquaintance (not even a friend!) heard about it and turned up at my home with a week's shopping which she left on the doorstep for me (as we wwere at the hosp).
I only found out who had done it by chance, weeks later when a neighbour said he had seen someone leaving the shopping.
He just said ''it was a woman with a blue car with a little girl''. From his description of the woman's dd, I worked out who it was (she had distinctive hair!)

Our paths never really crossed that much and she upset some of my friends subsequently so we nver did get past aquaintance stage, but I will NEVER forget her kindness and thoughtfullness at that dark time.

flowerybeanbag · 20/02/2008 16:23

I was in my beat up little Renault 5 driving back from visiting DH when we were both at separate universities. Car started majorly playing up, slowing down, so I crawled off the main road and saw a garage which I pulled into.

I went in in floods, asked the person in there if I could use the phone. I phoned my poor DH and wept down the phone all stranded and helpless in the cold and dark. He very sensibly advised me to phone the Green Flag, as he couldn't do anything.

I came off the phone and a man who was there paying for petrol with his son asked me what was wrong, said he'd have a look at the car, drove his car up with headlights on so he could see, found a random bit of the bonnet was dangling in the engine, sorted it out for me, then took the car round the block to make sure it was working, leaving me with his son, then set me on my way.

He was so nice, and I was sooo pathetic!

misdee · 20/02/2008 16:26

i cant pinpoint exactly, but i experienced a lot of RAOK at harefield. from the lady in the canteen letting me have a cup of tea for 20p because i had run out of change, from the little hand squeezes from people as peter went downhill, to the massive hug from one of the patients who assured me it would all work out.

and for Jason the nurse, who ignored my no tea request and bought me a cuppa anyway when peter went down for transplant.

filthymindedvixen · 20/02/2008 16:30

oh hospitals are fab places for small but hugely life-affirming RAOK

(our hosp took the unheard of step waived the visitor parking fee for my mum when we all thought ds was dying...)

Yes, many lovely nurses who brought me books to read while I was conducting my 2-week vigil, and the ones who took me by the hand to tha canteen to make me eat and the one who played with my toddler for hours with the Brio so I could have a nap...

mrsmalumbas · 20/02/2008 16:35

The two lovely men on the train from Paddington yesterday afternoon who moved so that me and my DD's could sit down - very kind of them and all the more welcome because DD2 was really ill and spent much of the journey vomiting into a Harrods carrier bag!

purpleduck · 20/02/2008 16:37

I was travelling back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem, and only had enough money for the cab and a Falafel (was going home that day). I was counting my money in the cab, worried and hungry. I got out of the cab, it drove away, and I realised i had left my wallet in the cab.
I told someone at the Taxi-rank thingy, and the drivers shuttled it between them to get it back to me. Amazing!!!

On the same trip, I was in Egypt, and I was really short of money - very tight budget, only enough for cheap food. I was feeling a bit sick, and wanted a MEAL, but couldn't afford it. I went into a shop, and there in a box of apples was a fiver. I tried to give it to the shopkeeper, but he kept thrusting it back to me. It was only a small amount, but made all the difference in the world.

jamescagney · 20/02/2008 17:11

When I was 8 months pregnant, I had travelled all the way to Dublin, on 2 trains really early in the morning and had to get on the Luas. I fought my way in feeling exhausted.It was pissing down, carriage was full and this big tycoon business man just tapped my shoulder and gave me his seat. tears just rolled down, i could have kissed him.
Also when I crashed my dh( then boyfriend)s car, totalling it. Guard found my glasses, brought me into pharmacy and made me tea and gave me kit kat. it was warm in there and people so nice. About a week later, same Guard doing traffic duty, stopped me and said "great to see you back driving lovey"

Iota · 20/02/2008 17:27

It was a dark and stormy night... {smile]

11pm, I was driving home alone from the pub and my car engine died at a set of traffic lights in town. It was the olden days, long before mobile phones.

An AA van stopped behind me and the lovely AA man looked at my engine, found the loose battery connection and fixed it. He then followed me across town to make sure that the engine didn't die again.

I think I was a member of National Breakdown at the time

aefondkiss · 20/02/2008 17:43

great thread

Phlox · 20/02/2008 18:41

DS was six months old and I was pretty postnatal. DH dropped me and the baby at the supermarket then took DD to a Drs appointment. I did my shopping and spent all my money (we were completely broke at the time). After an hour DH hadn't returned and DS started screaming blue murder. I tried repeatedly to raise DH on his mobile but no joy. DS was in his car seat and I had no buggy with me so I couldn't even attempt to walk home (we lived about 5 miles away!)

Another hour passed and I was beginning to lose it completely. Finally I burst into tears at Customer Services (by now very hungry DS also still screaming). At this point a lovely little old lady approached me and said "My dear, I have nothing else to do today and I am happy to drive you wherever you need to go".

At this precise moment DH turned up but I have never forgotten this kind lady who was prepared to take a complete stranger (who happened to be an over emotional sobbing wreak) and her screaming baby home.