“My favourite moment of kindness: I would have been about 20, heading back to university for the new academic year, walking to the station with a huge rucksack and a heavy suitcase on a boiling late summer’s day, counting to 20 between stops to regrip or adjust the straps. It wasn’t far — a mile or so — but I’d underestimated how hard it was going to be.
A stranger, a woman I’d never met and wouldn’t recognise again, pulled up in the car and didn’t ASK me if I needed a lift, she TOLD me. You know that sort of voice that teachers and nurses have? They say ‘You will do this thing now’ and you do the thing because the alternative is unthinkable. I’d probably have automatically said ‘thank you, no, I can manage — yes, I’m sure’ otherwise.
It wasn’t far out of her way, a trivial detour for her, probably forgotten before she got home, but I’m still grateful for it nearly three decades on.”
Even more examples of kindness:
Doors opened for wheelchair user.
Dog lost on wedding day returned safely thanks to strangers.