\n<\/p>\n
I can readily confirm Martin Kettle\u2019s points (Need cheering up after a terrible year? I may have just the story you\u2019re looking for, 28 December). I tripped up while last-minute Christmas shopping in Nailsworth on Christmas Eve; couldn\u2019t move, very painful. The passersby and staff from a nearby shop were helpful and sympathetic. They must have been busy, but they freely gave me their time and cheered me up. The ambulance came quickly and the amazing paramedics correctly assessed my problem, getting me to Southmead hospital in Bristol. X-rays showed that I had broken my femur near the hip joint and needed a hip joint replacement.<\/p>\n
Surgery was successfully completed on Christmas Day. I\u00a0have been fully supported by all manner of services stepping up sequentially. It\u2019s been excellent all round, all of the staff and the public absolutely marvellous. The\u00a0best of\u00a0this country\u2019s people\u00a0and its health service. I needed cheering up after a terrible three years \u2013 cancer, major surgery, complications, financial problems, hospitalisations, the Guardian not publishing my (many) letters. Existential despair doesn\u2019t begin to cover it. I found my answer on a wooden plaque for sale from a narrowboat on a muddy pre-Christmas walk. It reads: \u201cLife isn\u2019t about waiting for the storm to pass. It\u2019s about learning to dance in the rain.\u201d I hope it helps someone, as Martin Kettle\u2019s piece will do. When we look out rather than in, we give kindness space to grow. Apropos of Martin Kettle\u2019s article, a couple of weeks ago I dropped my battered old wallet in the Royal Voluntary Service cafe at the local hospital. It was handed in and quickly returned to me by the volunteer staff. The wallet had contained \u00a390 cash from the nearby ATM. All cards, contents, etc were intact, but five of the \u00a310 notes had\u00a0been replaced with a single \u00a35\u00a0note \u2013 baffling. I recently discovered a leather purse in my garden with other debris that the fox who lives under my compost heap had left. It was full of credit and loyalty cards, cash and a driving licence. I\u00a0was able to return the purse to its owner. She thought it must have been dropped as she got off the bus. Not only should we be grateful for the kindness of strangers, as Martin reminds us, but\u00a0also of considerate foxes. Martin Kettle\u2019s article misses the win-win thing about handing in a lost wallet. Martin recovered his wallet, but Natalya will also have benefited from her good deed by feeling better about herself. Surely\u00a0most of us, given the chance, would rather find the angel in ourselves than the devil? Re Martin Kettle\u2019s article, I\u00a0lost my wallet (cash included) in Sheffield last month. In reporting the lost cards, a heritage organisation said that someone had already telephoned. \u201cBestwn\u201d (who turned out to be a Kurdish refugee) then returned the wallet\u00a0intact once I\u2019d\u00a0contacted him. A heartwarming\u00a0experience. I lost my wedding ring on my allotment in 1974. A couple of years later my successor found it, tracked down my address and drove 10 miles to hand it over to my astonished wife, leaving no name. After five decades, I\u2019m saying \u201cthank you\u201d. Encouraged by Martin Kettle\u2019s wallet-finding experience, can I set a challenge? Could the person who found my distinctive blue wallet, dropped at a rural lay-by in France last summer, please return it via the\u00a0Guardian. Thanks\u2026 Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I can readily confirm Martin Kettle\u2019s points (Need cheering up after a terrible year? I may have just the story you\u2019re looking for, 28 December). I tripped up while last-minute Christmas shopping in Nailsworth on Christmas Eve; couldn\u2019t move, very painful. The passersby and staff from a nearby shop were helpful and sympathetic. They must<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[12085,14922,4669,12086],"class_list":{"0":"post-40089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-kindness","9":"tag-rely","10":"tag-society","11":"tag-strangers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Phil Bloomfield<\/strong>
Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire<\/em><\/p>\n
Lyn Dade<\/strong>
Twickenham, London<\/em><\/p>\n
David E Hanke<\/strong>
Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgeshire<\/em><\/p>\n
Martin Cooper<\/strong>
Bromley, London<\/em><\/p>\n
Ian Lamming<\/strong>
Southampton<\/em><\/p>\n
Richard Brackenbury<\/strong>
Diseworth, Leicestershire<\/em><\/p>\n
John Bailey<\/strong>
St Albans<\/em><\/p>\n
Bob Epton<\/strong>
Brigg, Lincolnshire<\/em><\/p>\n