Just lately we can’t seem to avoid seeing, and reading news from around the world of the depths to which humanity can sink, so it warms the little cockles of my heart to be able to personally bring you a tiny snippet which goes to prove that there are also some kind thoughtful folk out there too.
A few days ago, at the wedding venue where I work, I picked up a phone message from an elderly sounding gentleman. He left no details, just gave his phone number and requested a call back.
Cynical old me thought to myself that he’d got the wrong number, daft old bugger, I sighed and perhaps a bit impatiently waited for him to pick up the phone as I returned his call.
After some time, he answered in the old fashioned way, with his number, something that I think you will agree we hardly ever do these days, when a simple ‘Hello’ usually suffices.
I told him who I was, and then instantly added ‘suspicious’ to my cynical side, when he proceeded to ask me if a certain named person worked at my office.
And hell yes, I went all sniffy, and curtly replied, ‘who wants to know, and why’?
Elderly man, asking about sweet 16 year old girl. I immediately went on the defensive. Suspiciously cynical silly me………
It turned out, that Mr F. had found our young girl Sophie’s wage packet in a local supermarket car park. He’d opened it up, found the name of her employer, and the reason for the call was that he was anxious to return her lost wages.
Honestly, I could have punched myself in the face for my initial lack of graciousness, and looking back on the conversation, predictably then went into over egging the pudding with my gratitude at Mr. F’s kindness in contacting us.
Like any other 16 year old, Sophie’s wages are hard earned and at that age, we all know every penny counts, so there was a huge sigh of relief all ways round to know that a kindly, elderly man, who possibly might also welcome a few more pennies, had been honest enough to return what had been lost.
Wouldn’t it be a good idea if there was a ‘GOOD NEWS’ paper which only gave us positive human interest stories of people doing kind things.
I for one, am getting increasingly fed up with seeing pictures of ‘victims’ clearly instructed to pose with their gloomiest face, to reinforce some equally gloomy tale of mindless acts committed against them, which, let’s face it, might give similar idea’s to people who are easily swayed.
Instead let’s see more positive examples in the media of the kindness of strangers, because as I found out it is still out there, alive and kicking.
Imagine the feel good factor going on here. Sophie is a happy bunny as she has been reunited with her cash, and Mr. F, quite rightly, probably has a tiny little glowy feeling inside, knowing that on this occasion, his honesty was the best policy!
That’s something I always say – let’s have more good news. A friend of ours never trusted doctors, as he thought they’d killed his wife. He had a point – she was misdiagnosed and maybe could have been saved. Who knows?
He used to back up his argument by saying ‘Look at all the horror stories in the newspapers.’ At the time, a friend of ours who had had a kidney transplant, and my husband Tony, whose life had been saved after a serious bout of pneumonia were sitting there, and I pointed out that nobody wrote about how the doctors had saved their lives, because it wasn’t news. This must have been 20 years ago, and nothing’s changed. In fact with the ‘victim’ angle, it’s probably worse than ever.