A CHANCE FOR KINDNESS
When I was a student I seemed rather prone
to being accosted by panhandlers –
which conflicted me. Was I being kind,
or conned? I remember one incident
particularly – at Liverpool’s Pier Head –
that was an impromptu lesson about
the British Empire’s maritime past.
I had disembarked from the Woodside Ferry
and was crossing the cobbles to the bus
for the Student’s Union on Brownlow Hill
to join some friends for an evening of Guinness
when a man, old enough to be my father,
stopped me politely. He was wearing a tie,
but ill-matched jacket and trousers. He explained
that he was a Lascar from Chennai;
showed me his Merchant Navy passbook
with lists of ships he had sailed on, and ports
he had travelled to; showed me the long, deep scar
livid on his right leg, that had stranded him
at the city’s Merchant Seamen’s Mission;
and that I had a very, very kind face.
I cannot remember how much I gave him.
It took me many years to realise
that to be kind is to be privileged.
Jeff Teasdale
May 2, 2025A lovely piece David… My wife thinks it is better to risk the con because the non-con needs the help.
Two examples:
In a village in Morocco in 1970, eating on the veranda of a simple restaurant, a tiny girl, begging at the tables, was kicked back into the street by the owner. Still in a state of shock at seeing this, some minutes later I felt a pull on my shirt from the street. It was the same girl holding her hand out. I gave her a few – to me – almost worthless Moroccan coins. Had I been ‘done’? I carried on eating our substantial meal. Another pull on my shirt from behind. The little girl, accompanied by her mother, with a wheelbarrow full of vegetables that my ‘worthless’ money had bought. She was in tears and thanking me profusely… Never forgotten it.
Second example to follow… our train is now approaching Macclesfield!
harvey lillywhite
May 3, 2025One of your best. Moving poem. Gave me chills. Thank you.
Jeff Teasdale
May 9, 2025Part 2 of ‘chance’. When I was about 20, 8 of us went camping to Tenby in a rented frame tent. It leaked and the zips didn’t work. And the weather was terrible, During the first week, 6 of the 8 went down with food poisoning, Adrian and I being strangely immune, prompting the others (in those long dark hours of no sleep, driving rain, and constant use of the buckets) to think we were gradually poisoning the others with hedgerow potions. Moi? Quelles illusions. It was no fun for us two either. On Saturday morning they all went home. By 2.00pm the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, so we went for a swim (salt water was a nice change from rain water).
In the sea I bumped into something, quite far out which looked something like a stick. It turned out to be a bundle of £10 notes.
What to do with it? Scrap the tent and all their wet clothes with it and have a nice week in a hotel…? Or… take it to the police station. After 3 hours of intense discussion the latter prevailed. Were we just going to hand over hundreds of pounds to the police Christmas fund?
At the station, the desk sarge went through a ledger… “Ah, here it is. Someone lost this yesterday two beaches down from where you found it. Would you come with me to return it?”… Guarded “OK…” A trip in a panda car sounded fun (ANYTHING did after the previous week). We arrive at a campsite in Saundersfoot to see a family taking their holiday to pieces… a large tent… very sad, and going home that afternoon after only 1 day, all holiday money lost.
Then ecstatic… found, and the holiday could continue… the sergeant apparently telling them that not all youths were thieves, (pointing to me) as they had implied … they thought that it had been stolen, and not merely lost.
Chance encounter with a roll of money has left me with a memory of someone else’s joy and gratitude… Had we just spent the money there would be no memory of it now although Adrian, 60 years later, still wonders how nice the hotel might have been!
Choices, choices!