Walking across a roundabout I spotted a wallet laying in the grass. When i opened it there was a large amount of cash & credit cards & personal family photos & a driving licence. I was un-able to trace the owner by phone & the police station had shut at 5pm. I put the address on the licence into the sat nav & drove to his house approx 30 miles away. The face & the courtesy said it all! he was absolutley gobsmacked. He rewarded me instantly with £40 for a meal for my wife & I & a bottle of red wine as well.
I had made someone a very happy chappy & I felt very good too.
Apparently he has stopped for fuel & put his grandaughter back in the car & left his wallet on the roof & then lost it at the first roundabout.
I just hope that some day should I do the same that some one would do the same for me
Tenuous link to motoring but a feelgood story nonetheless - first one to start moaning gets chopped ! :-)
Edited by Pugugly on 07/07/2009 at 22:53
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good on you.......i'd like to think many people would do likewise....trouble is I know they wouldn't.
Glad the recipient was grateful enough to properly show his thanks...as a grunt and a door shut in your face wouldn't have left quite the same feeling, would it
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Glad the recipient was grateful enough to properly show his thanks...as a grunt and adoor shut in your face wouldn't have left quite the same feeling would it
And doesn't that happen all too often?
MD
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thanks westpig, i did wonder what reception I would recive & whether the recipient would of been a petty theif himself but I have to say it was quite the reverse & was totally satisfied that had the roles of been reversed he would of done the same thing so that made it all the better
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Apparently he has stopped for fuel & put his grandaughter back in the car & left his wallet on the roof & then lost it at the first roundabout. I just hope that some day should I do the same that some one would do the same for me.
You are a Star. Top man. I slapped my hand on one last week on the counter of our local Builders Merchant's and declared it too. Must ask what happened though as there has been no feed back, but you driving 30 miles is an award winner. Well done that Man.
Cheers.....................MD
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I'm buying you a virtual pint of the best here inj doc, had it been my door you turned up at i'd have probably died from shock.
Makes you realise there's still a few good uns left thank goodness.
Note the dissimilarities between this and the 'not wanting to do the right thing' thread currently running.
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Good on you. I can honestly say I would have done the same thing, having been on the receiving end of similar honesty in the past.
It's not only honesty, but acts of kindness and consideration too. Returning to my car in a rainy station car park, I passed one a chap who was struggling to start his Discovery. The battery was completely flat and it was a foul night. I had some jump leads in the car, and offered him a jump start. Within a few minutes his car was running and he was on his way. Again, I was offered cash, but I asked him to make a donation to the hospice where my late grandfather had recently spent the last weeks of his life. Gave me that same warm feeling the OP describes.
If we all went out of our way for each other every so often, the world would be a far nicer place.
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Although we hear a lot about the lowlife that cause problems and have many police "action" programmes on TV, I believe there is a silent majority of "good" people. You know the ones, they get their cars impounded when ANPR says no and they have a valid insurance certificate. (sorry Westpig and co). In the days before mobile phones my teenage daughter was delivered home by a stranger, having broken down miles from anywhere.
Survey time --- When did you last speak to a policeman/woman? I believe average law abiding joe public has little contact with the BiB.
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When did you last speak to a policeman/woman? I believe average lawabiding joe public has little contact with the BiB.
Yesterday. Got a tug. Rural backwater.
MD
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'Survey time --- When did you last speak to a policeman/woman?'
About 17.45 tonight ;-]]
Well done ID. May that long glow last.
Whilst there is a large majority of people with the same honesty and values as yourself it will not be long before something comes along to return our opinions of human nature back to the gutter
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I agree with that ON. I was called out about 3am to pick up a stolen car, dumped in a park. I didn't know this park and noticed a small police station on the main road. Having been a police officer, I thought it might be useful to pop in and ask if they had any location in the park, which was dark and quite misty, for the car.
The fat policewoman lounging on the counter just scowled at me and said 'It's not a police matter ' going back to her magazine. That put me in my place then !
Courtesy and kindness cost nowt. Well done OP
Ted
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Another one praising the OP. What goes around comes around, and a little human kindness and consideration goes a LONG way.
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Nice one ID, you'll remember this event for the rest of your life as will no doubt the folks you helped out.
I found someones wallet on a toilet floor a while back and handed it in to security who then tracked down the person who had lost it, smiles all round helps the world go around.
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I applaud the OPs integrity and considerable effort to reunite owner with lost property, as has been said already, Karma will see that the good deed comes back around.
Returning to my car in a rainy station car park I passed one a chap who was struggling to start his Discovery. The battery was completely flat
Very similar story from me, a family with a Discovery with a flat battery in a seaside carpark about to head home at the end of the day but no chance of starting the car. They had a baby with them and were obviously distressed at maybe having to arrange lifts home and recovery as they had no breakdown service. I had one of those 'jump start' boxes with me and got them going in seconds, they were ever so grateful and wanted to offer me something but I just said they should maybe invest in a jump start box of their own, I'd be happy knowing that someone would learn something from a bad experience and be more prepared for the future - and of course they got baby home without undue distress.
As has been said, it the feeling that you did the right thing that is reward in iteself.
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once found a purse like that, took it the house , a woman peeps through the window at me , and eventually opens door . I ask have you lost something,when i show her the purse. she said when did i get that from?!! i didnt get the good feel factor
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You did a good deed and that's commendable.
If anyone is unsure about how to handle a situation regarding finding any item then just either contact the police or take the item along to a police station and let them process it.
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I remember when I was eleven back in 1971 I found a pay packet (the old brown type) containing the (to me) immense sum of £10. - just sitting there on the pavement.
Being brung up proper in a Northern mill town I dutifully handed it in to the police station, where forms were filled in and I was sent on my way. Fast forward three months and there was an ominous knock at the door - a policeman saying that the owner had not been traced and..... here's that £10 :-)
I don't know whether honesty is innate, taught or 'parented in' - but it is always refreshing when displayed (similarly sportsmanship, in the truest sense of the word). and I applaud the OP.
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Outstanding !
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Back in the 80's I was cycling home to lunch and found a full pay packet in the road, complete with payslip and over £250, a considerable sum back then. It was from my place of work so after lunch I handed it in to the main gate and thought no more of it. A couple of hours later a chap came to my lab to thank me and give me £20. He said the pay packet contained his holiday pay and he would have been stuffed without it and he had put it in his back pocket from where it had fallen out as he cycled home. As he turned to go, I noticed the same pay packet poking out of the same pocket from where he lost it!
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Well done OP. You've also refreshed your credit in the 'bank of karma & what-goes-around-comes-around international' !
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Well done. I agree, it gives a warm glow to all concerned.
If you ever do a good deed like that for someone who is ungrateful or takes it for granted, just try saying "So do you want the other things too?"
Or in a shop where the assistant keeps chattering to another customer and ignores you, say in a loud voice "I'm from camelot - it's about your lottery ticket".
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Good on you. I don't know if I would have driven 30 miles to hand it back-a bit closer, yes. But I certainly would make sure the owner got their wallet back intact somehow.
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I found a handbag in an alley in Covent Garden, central London.
It had been stolen from its owner in a nearby restaurant, rifled, and dumped.
There was some address details left in it, so I took a detour of about five miles on my way home to return it.
The owner had just broken into her flat when I arrived with the handbag. She was being looked after by sister and sister's boyfriend.
She explained she had no money to hand because it had been stolen, but insisted on taking my name and address so: 'I can send you something.'
Well, if she did, it never arrived.
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>>Well, if she did, it never arrived.
Hmm... I don't think I would have expected it to. Horrid experience for the victim, best put out of the mind. Being "looked after" so clearly in shock at the time. Add to the fact that she had lost some cash, keys etc. etc., no matter how helpful the person has been, the last thing she wanted to be is to spend even more cash with a tip for the helpful person.
I wonder whether under the circumstances the honest thing might have been to refuse to leave the name and address.
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...I wonder whether under the circumstances the honest thing might have been to refuse to leave the name and address...
Mapmaker,
I think when she mentioned a reward, I did say something like 'there's no need', but she was insistent.
It was either leave my name and address or leave on a sour note.
I accept the promise of a reward was made in the heat of the moment at a time of stress.
But having made it, I think it's a shade unfortunate she failed to keep her word.
It reminded me of my time doing motorway breakdowns.
Some customers had little or no money, but it goes against common decency to just leave people on the hard shoulder.
If it was something simple like a fanbelt or run out of fuel, we would do the job on a promise of payment in the post.
At the time the customer was ever so grateful, and most sent the money.
But a good few didn't.
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I must live in a different world. I'd feel insulted at being offered money for a simple courtesy, and I'd be very hesitant about offering it. I'd want to phrase it as "make a donation " to some good cause. Or in the case of a mother and child who recued our strayed shetland some years ago, I felt happier giving the mother £20 to get a treat for the girl as compensation for losing her new-found pony!
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>>I'd feel insulted at being offered money for a simple courtesy
Yes. However, I think a long drive out of ones way is well beyond a simple courtesy - petrol costs.
As for ifithelps' motorway breakdowns, some people are extraordinary.
Edited by Mapmaker on 08/07/2009 at 13:15
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>>I'd feel insulted at being offered money for a simple courtesy
The best solution I find is to tell the person you helped simply to 'pay it forward' and do a good turn or help someone else out of a predicament rather than turn a blind eye in the future.
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Well done that man.
Whilst on holiday in the states, I lost an expensive leather wallet which was full of money,travellers cheques etc. in Disneyland. I naively thought it would be handed in. It never was.I might have been pickpocketed, but the security staff there reckon that never occurs on site.I suppose they would say that.
On another occasion I lost my phone at the cinema. Unbeknown to me, my small mobile phone had slipped through a hole in the pocket lining of my trousers. When I arrived home, there was a message on my home phone left by a young kid about finding a phone. He had used my stored number to ring my home phone. He gave his home address, so I could collect it, which I duly did. He refused the £20 I offered as a reward. I am a great believer in "what goes around,comes around". So I am sure that I will be able to do a similar good deed for someone else in the future.
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Imagine what a wonderful place the world would be if everyone had the OP's honesty! And also the wallet owners decency to be grateful.
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Many years ago before mobile phones, my elderly father whislt driving his big Volvo estate was rear ended by a mini being driven by a young mum. The accident occured in the sticks. The mini also contained two small children in child seats. The mini is wrecked,the children and mum are distraught. My dads volvo is relatively unscathed. He swaps the child seats into his car,loads the mums shopping in and delivers them all to their home, some ten miles away. The next day he discoverd two of the childrens toys in the back of his car and again dropped them off at their house. The young mum and her husband couldn't believe the good deed my father did. The mini was a right off and his volvo required about a grand to fix.
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>>The young mum and her husband couldn't believe the good deed my father did.
Funny, I always think after an accident that everybody's in it together; blitz spirit. No amount of shouting can un-bend the metal.
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I haven't heard the expression for years, but my generation was brought up to believe that "honesty is the best policy".
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