A real Good Samaritan….............Random Acts of Kindness
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One act of kindness that befell British writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Then a student living just north of London, he tells the story to inspire troubled young people to help deal with their disrupted lives.
The police called at my student hovel early evening, but I didn't answer as I thought they'd come to evict me. I hadn't paid my rent in months.
But then I got to thinking: my mum hadn't been too good and what if it was something about her?
We had no phone in the hovel and mobiles hadn't been invented yet, so I had to nip down the phone box.
I rang home to Leeds to find my mother was in hospital and not expected to survive the night. "Get home, son," my dad said.
I got to the railway station to find I'd missed the last train. A train was going as far as Peterborough, but I would miss the connecting Leeds train by twenty minutes.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Bernard HareTo this day, I won't hear a bad word said about British Rail”
End Quote
I bought a ticket home and got on anyway. I was a struggling student and didn't have the money for a taxi the whole way, but I had a screwdriver in my pocket and my bunch of skeleton keys.
I was so desperate to get home that I planned to nick a car in Peterborough, hitch hike, steal some money, something, anything. I just knew from my dad's tone of voice that my mother was going to die that night and I intended to get home if it killed me.
"Tickets, please," I heard, as I stared blankly out of the window at the passing darkness. I fumbled for my ticket and gave it to the guard when he approached. He stamped it, but then just stood there looking at me. I'd been crying, had red eyes and must have looked a fright.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Course I'm okay," I said. "Why wouldn't I be? And what's it got to do with you in any case?"
"You look awful," he said. "Is there anything I can do?"
"You could get lost and mind your own business," I said. "That'd be a big help." I wasn't in the mood for talking.
He was only a little bloke and he must have read the danger signals in my body language and tone of voice, but he sat down opposite me anyway and continued to engage me.
"If there's a problem, I'm here to help. That's what I'm paid for."
I was a big bloke in my prime, so I thought for a second about physically sending him on his way, but somehow it didn't seem appropriate. He wasn't really doing much wrong. I was going through all the stages of grief at once: denial, anger, guilt, withdrawal, everything but acceptance. I was a bubbling cauldron of emotion and he had placed himself in my line of fire.
The only other thing I could think of to get rid of him was to tell him my story.
"Look, my mum's in hospital, dying, she won't survive the night, I'm going to miss the connection to Leeds at Peterborough, I'm not sure how I'm going to get home.
"It's tonight or never, I won't get another chance, I'm a bit upset, I don't really feel like talking, I'd be grateful if you'd leave me alone. Okay?"
"Okay," he said, finally getting up. "Sorry to hear that, son. I'll leave you alone then. Hope you make it home in time." Then he wandered off down the carriage back the way he came.
I continued to look out of the window at the dark. Ten minutes later, he was back at the side of my table. Oh no, I thought, here we go again. This time I really am going to rag him down the train.
He touched my arm. "Listen, when we get to Peterborough, shoot straight over to Platform One as quick as you like. The Leeds train'll be there."
I looked at him dumbfounded. It wasn't really registering. "Come again," I said, stupidly. "What do you mean? Is it late, or something?"
"No, it isn't late," he said, defensively, as if he really cared whether trains were late or not. "No, I've just radioed Peterborough. They're going to hold the train up for you. As soon as you get on, it goes.
"Everyone will be complaining about how late it is, but let's not worry about that on this occasion. You'll get home and that's the main thing. Good luck and God bless."
Then he was off down the train again. "Tickets, please. Any more tickets now?"
I suddenly realised what a top-class, fully-fledged doilem I was and chased him down the train. I wanted to give him all the money from my wallet, my driver's licence, my keys, but I knew he would be offended.
I caught him up and grabbed his arm. "Oh, er, I just wanted to…" I was suddenly speechless. "I, erm…"
"It's okay," he said. "Not a problem." He had a warm smile on his face and true compassion in his eyes. He was a good man for its own sake and required nothing in return.
"I wish I had some way to thank you," I said. "I appreciate what you've done."
"Not a problem," he said again. "If you feel the need to thank me, the next time you see someone in trouble, you help them out. That will pay me back amply.
"Tell them to pay you back the same way and soon the world will be a better place."
I was at my mother's side when she died in the early hours of the morning. Even now, I can't think of her without remembering the Good Conductor on that late-night train to Peterborough and, to this day, I won't hear a bad word said about British Rail.
My meeting with the Good Conductor changed me from a selfish, potentially violent hedonist into a decent human being, but it took time.
"I've paid him back a thousand times since then," I tell the young people I work with, "and I'll keep on doing so till the day I die. You don't owe me nothing. Nothing at all."
"And if you think you do, I'd give you the same advice the Good Conductor gave me. Pass it down the line."
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That's an awesome story. I think random acts of kindness are really appreciated, but you also know that being the good samaritan also brings a rush.
A few weeks back, my friend was looking for a storyteller for a bunch of kids aged 5-7 years old at a poor community, and she was asking me to look around for a volunteer. She was getting frantic and two days before the outreach program, she had the "brilliant" idea of asking me to read to the kids, instead. I was definitely interested (and kind of flattered that she asked me) so i went there with my boyfriend. It was a lot of fun, and i read them a story about being afraid of the dark, and they all enjoyed it. Of course it would have been better told over a campfire at night than in a classroom during daytime, but they clearly enjoyed it.
My boyfriend and i were kind of outsiders there because the program was for my friend and her college classmates to help out, but they were also very grateful that they didn't need to force anyone from their batch to read the story hehehe. It also gave me a chance to test out my bone-chilling dracula laugh.
We had so many toys, crayons, coloring books, and the like with us, that the entire community was so grateful that we made their Christmas much nicer. I said that it just made my Christmas to be able to touch the lives of these kids.
Not a bad way to spend a saturday, eh?
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Random acts of kindness really do make the world go around. I myself in situations where my 6th sense tells me it's safe will stop to lend a helping hand. If it wasn't for people doing it for me in sticky situations, things would suck a lot more than they did. I especially return the favour after my episode in Calgary a while back.
My car had finally died completely from the damage caused by the accident a few months prior, so I was having to take Calgary Transit. Sometime between the time that I had gotten onto the C-Train and the time I finished doing some price shopping and buy a pack of cigarettes and a book of bus tickets, I discovered my wallet had been stolen. I had everything in that wallet including birth certificate SIN card (known in the US as your SSN card), Driver's License, bank card, money, etc. The worse part was that I still had all my ID registered to my Ontario address (3 provinces away), and therefore had no way of replacing a lot of it. When I explained the situation to the girl at the cash register, she decided to pull a random act of kindness. She said "As a random act of kindness, I'm willing to pay out of my pocket for your bus tickets so you can get home, but I'm not willing to pay for your cigarettes."
That simple random act of kindness saved me from an even larger problem. Aside from being 3 provinces away from any family with no ID, I was also faced with the problem of being stranded clear across town from where I was staying in the -43°C (-45°F) weather with no way of getting home. Such a simple act turned out to be one of the best things anyone could have possibly done for me.
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In a real sense, I think it's just a rare opportunity to help that actually makes things worthwhile. So we should recognize it when someone helps us, and even better if we recognize an opportunity to really help someone else.
