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An act of kindness
by Fanny Ward
The other day I woke up in a pretty filthy temper. It had poured with
rain all night and the builder's rubbish that I accumulated over
the previous days which had been bone dry was now soaking wet, leaking
every where and smelly to boot and this day was the day I was going
to the dump.
Fortunately my mood was such that, with rage burning within me, I manhandled
the whole heaving mess into the back of my car and off I set.
There were the usual queues of laden cars and when I finally backed
up to the bay the ground beneath my feet was a sodden, stinking sludge.
Don’t ask why but I had changed from my wellington boots into
a particularly dainty pair of this season’s pumps! Still, I was
here now and needs must so for the next ten minutes I literally tiptoed
around in the wet, teetering dangerously as I hurled the rubbish onto
the dump.
Mission accomplished I went round to get into my car – still on
tiptoe – and there on the ground, folded neatly and smoothed out
was a blanket. I hesitated for a moment and thinking that it must have
fallen off or from somebody’s car, looked for a suitable owner
but there was no one about. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a
couple of the guys who work there smiling at me. “Did you put
this down for me?” I asked. “Sure we did, we could see you
were having a bit of bother” they said. I simply couldn’t
believe their sweetness and I told them so. “It’s the nicest
thing that has happened to me all week” I said. “Come back
tomorrow and we’ll do it again” they said.
I drove away from the dump laughing and smiling, my whole mood changed
by their act of kindness. I felt so happy and uplifted that when I reached
home and found my neighbour setting off to the shops with her trolley
I bundled her into my car and dropped her right outside Waitrose. She
was thrilled and so grateful for the lift that I felt good and even
more cheerful.
I suppose you could say that I was passing on the first act of kindness
to another and when I saw my neighbour later that day she told me that
she had felt so cheered by my lift that she telephoned her sister and
made up with her as they had quarrelled recently. “I feel so much
better” she said. “Thank you.”
I read recently that in America where, like us, they have a lot of small
coinage, somebody has started a system whereby as you reach the checkout
and you have any small change, pennies for instance, you leave them
in a pot next to the till for the next person to help them round up
their bill. If it’s say £8.01p they pay £8.00 and
take one penny from the pot. Likewise should your bill be £8.99
you give £9.00 and leave a penny in the pot for the next person.
It’s called ‘Take a penny..... Leave a penny’. I think
we should start doing it in Barnes.
It requires help from our local shops but it also requires encouragement
from you.
We are so lucky to be living in such a beautiful part of London and
with all the ghastly traumas that go on in this world daily perhaps
one way of starting to heal it and making everyone around us more tolerant
of others and appreciative of what we have, is to give something back
– everyday. It doesn’t have to be a lot – a smile,
a lift, a penny at the till – pass on your luck…..
Just like a helium balloon set free at the funfair – you never
know how far your act of kindness may go.
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