The Good Deed Thread. Let's make the world a better place.

[rower40]

I seem to recall "The Tamworth Triangle" (whatever that means). 
The press were telling that us that there was an epidemic of falling out.
(So probably two in the same month, or something)

[Warning - this post contains railway-staff stereotypes of their "customers".]

Yup.  On a full-n-standing train, people would perch on the big bar on the inside of the door.  If you slid down that (possibly with alcohol-assist - Tamworth then being about 90 mins from Euston, which is when your 4 tins of Stella finally kick in), your bum would land on the doorhandle.  IF the door was hinged at the back (i.e. with the airflow ready to force the door open) then out you'd go.

One of the red-top papers tried to campaign about how unsafe it was to have door hinges at the back.  Possibly not realising that trains don't always travel in the same direction.  And how expensive it would be to build turning loops at all the London terminii.

So BR took the doorhandles off the inside of each door.  And didn't re-instate them when the entire fleet of Mk3 coaches was fitted with Central Locking.

Irish Rail (CIE) bought the Mk3 design; their coaches had power-operated swing/plug doors fitted as standard.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

I'm in the habit of offering to help people who look lost outside Tube stations, looking at maps etc.

In todays Metro on their letters page there was a thankyou from someone to the kind Scotsman who helped her get to an audition on time. I think that was me!
(She did say that at first she thought I was a pervert... might not be too wrong there really...)

[hellymedic]

I'm in the habit of offering to help people who look lost outside Tube stations, looking at maps etc.

In todays Metro on their letters page there was a thankyou from someone to the kind Scotsman who helped her get to an audition on time. I think that was me!
(She did say that at first she thought I was a pervert... might not be too wrong there really...)

 

[Kim]

Yup.  On a full-n-standing train, people would perch on the big bar on the inside of the door.  If you slid down that (possibly with alcohol-assist - Tamworth then being about 90 mins from Euston, which is when your 4 tins of Stella finally kick in), your bum would land on the doorhandle.  IF the door was hinged at the back (i.e. with the airflow ready to force the door open) then out you'd go.

So BR took the doorhandles off the inside of each door.  And didn't re-instate them when the entire fleet of Mk3 coaches was fitted with Central Locking.

Ah, I suspect that was before my time.  Makes sense, I suppose, in as much as designing a door handle without some sort of inherent molly-guard in the absence of central locking does.

[SandyV]

I handed over a twenty dollar note and was given forty dollars change.  They were most surprised when I pointed out the error. 

[clarion]

Not that I owe the banks anything at all, but we got a phishing email.  Quite an obvious one, since we don't bank with the insitution in question.  I rang up the bank it purported to be from, and htey were very pleased and gave me a dedicated email address to send it to so they could investigate.

Not that much effort, and gave me a warm glow

[her_welshness]

Good one Clarion.

We found a bank card outside the libray today so I cycled to the nearest branch and handed it in. Hopefully there is a chance that they have not cancelled it.

[Adam]

Walking down an alleyway first thing this morning, I spotted a large snail heading across.  Bearing in mind it would take it some time to cross, by which time there would be more people around, I picked the snail up and placed it in the undergrowth on the other side.

[Peter]

Walking down an alleyway first thing this morning, I spotted a large snail heading across.  Bearing in mind it would take it some time to cross, by which time there would be more people around, I picked the snail up and placed it in the undergrowth on the other side.

Good man, Adam!  I also do this (with worms and slugs, too) and dread warm, wet days, because a cycle path I use gets covered in them!

[CrinklyLion]

I treated myself to a well deserved feeling of smug contentment.

FTFY

[Arch]

This happened last week, but I didn't have the internet.

Just round the corner from the CrinklyDen (the place is immaterial, but I mention it to add local colour), I spotted an elderly chap sitting on the ground next to his mobility scooter. So I hopped off the trike, and helped him back up into it. Apparently it had grounded on the dropped kerb (bit of an odd camber), and when he tried to reverse, threw him off.

He was alright apparently, only a bit bruised.

[Ashaman42]

Good show Arch, too many people would have left him to it.

Is it the sort problem that could be reported on fillthathole by any chance?

[Arch]

Good show Arch, too many people would have left him to it.

Is it the sort problem that could be reported on fillthathole by any chance?

I was just thinking that it doesn't seem like much of a 'good deed', just normal decent behaviour..

Not really. The main issue seemed to be that the gutter at the that point is bare cobble, not covered in tarmac like the rest of the road. So although there's a drop kerb, there's a drop gutter in front of it, and it must have been just too steep a climb (and odd camber) for the scooter. He did grumble about the state of the roads, and I sympathised, but I'm not sure it was entirely the road's fault. The pavement is narrow, so he was probably trying to gun up the dropped kerb and turn at the same time. Personally, I'd have crossed at a different place. A few outings pushing MFWHTBAB in the wheelchair has taught me just how the slightest bobble can play hell with small wheels.

He did complain that the roads inside the city walls get all the resurfacing 'for the tourists and the university'. I didn't mention a) the university is all outside town and b) I live inside the city walls, and I've got a patchwork quilt of tarmac in one direction, and cobbles in the other!

[Jacomus]

I'm loving this thread

I was standing in the station the other night and was approached by an Italian couple, who looked pretty lost and Farringdon station at rush hour is a bit of a maelstrom!

We very swiftly worked out that:

a) I don't understand any Italian
b) They don't understand any German
c) They don't understand any English
d) I don't understand any Spanish
e) Both of us can say 'je ne parle Francais'

Via the International Medium of Pointing at Maps, we established that they needed to be at Liverpool Street. A bit more pointing failed to describe how they should navigate from the overland trains to the underground. They had taken a sensible guess - head down to the lowest level. Unfortunately for them, in Farringdon, the tube is open and high up and the train is low down and partially in a tunnel

So I guided them to the right place and saw them onto the correct tube and managed, I hope, to do a passable instruction of 'get out at the 3rd stop'.

I hope they managed to survive!

[Ashaman42]

Stopped to help someone whose car had died in the right hand lane leading onto a roundabout. The chap stuck behind him just reversed back and shifted in to the left hand lane and off he went.

As it was by the time I'd turned round at the next rab and parked in the industrial estate (as wasn't happy just stopping on a dual carriageway albeit a 40mph one), he'd got it going again and driveded off just as I was walking up to see if he wanted a push.

Still the thought was there.

[Basil]

Yesterday evening on returning from the pub (1 pint, honest) where I'd gone to meet a cheese maker who'd promised me some free blue, I came across a car with its flashers flashing and a chap standing looking imploring with his hand up.  The car in front of me just passed on by and I could see a car further up the road who'd obviously also not stopped.  So I pulled up. 
He came over and asked if my phone had signal.  I guesed, and later conversation confirmed, that he was on O2.  No chance of him getting a signal anywhere around here.

He'd had a blow out and didn't have whatever tool was required to remove the anti theft wheel but.  So I passed him my phone and asked him to be as brief as possible as I was payg. 
He phoned his road service people and then, held on and then, held on some more, repeat.  I'm wandering around the road side thinking that I should have phoned Mrs. B first.  Eventually he starts talking to someone.  Hurrah!  He explains the problem and then looks perplexed.  I must have only had a couple of quid credit left as it had just run out.  On dear.  I wasn't sure of how I could have been of any more help other than taking 4 miles down the lanes to use our land line.  I was just about to offer him this when my phone rang.  Was it Mrs. B to say " Your dinner's in the dog"?  No,  the road side assistance people had noted my number and had called back.  Good for them.
He manages to tell them the number of the B road we're on thanks to his sat nav, but when asked exactly where he passes the phone to me.  Luckily, I can spell Llanfihangel-ar-Arth and so they found it.

I then have to hang around to wait for a local (not very local) breakdown truck operator to call.

I've been with the guy over an hour and have no way of calling Mrs B to explain why I'm not back.  So as soon as I was happy that someone was on the way I left him to it to it, warning him that he may be in for a very long wait.

Mrs B had, in fact, eaten dinner alone.  :-(

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

My pensioner neighbour likes to make a bit taking people to the airport.  He drove us when we flew back to the UK but just before my return flight he called to say his car brakes had failed!  It's a Ford and apparently the wrong hydraulic fluid destroys the system; the garage are suspected of using Renault brake fluid. Simultaneously the French Air traffic bods were on strike anyway.

So I drove back and reclaimed my air fare.  On arriving I'm told the neighbour now has no car as the repair bill was 5000 euros minimum and the car is scrapped.  Since they told me they did their last shopping trip on foot, a round trip of 16 hilly kilometres in rural France to a corner shop, they have been loaned my van for the time being.  They are embarrassingly grateful. 

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Gave blood.

[Jacomus]

Told a fellow cyclist that their rear light had come loose and was pointing at the ground.

[ian]

Got good-deeded the other week. A long hike had us wandering through a dark field a few miles shy of the nearest train station. Not the end of the world, we had maps and torches. A dog walker passed us and we had a brief a chat and he wandered on his way. About ten minutes later as we consulted maps by the side of a nearby road a car pulls up and it's the dog walker, who's been home, dropped off the dog and come back to offer us a lift to the station. Bless.

And he wasn't even a serial killer.

[hellymedic]

Matched some pilots for a blind tandem stoker, whose regular partner was abroad, a few weeks ago.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Am going to get my van back today.  The neighbour has bought a 'new' car.  Actually it is a 1997 Nissan Primera which has 4 good tyres, a new exhaust and just passed a 2 year (French) MOT.  He paid fifty euros for it.  That's right 50 euros..

[davelodwig]

Helped a blind chap (he had a white stick so could just be impaired I guess) to find the steps at new street station.

When I arrived he was trying to climb a bus stop sign that had been set into a lump of concrete about the same height as a step.

I tried my best to ask what would help, so firstly I asked if he needed help, and then asked if he minded if I held out my arm me guiding him to the bottom of the steps.

Once at the steps I asked if he needed anymore help to which he replied that he was ok and thanked me.

seemed crazy that people where just pushing past while the chap was trying to get into the station instead of asking if he needed a hand, took all of 3 minutes.

D.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Helped a blind chap (he had a white stick so could just be impaired I guess) to find the steps at new street station.

Reminds me. A little way back I was sat on train, opposite me is an obviously blind chap with a guide dog. We got chatting (turned out he teaches IT skills to the blind, uses a Nokia Communicator, remember them?). He asked me if I'd mind looking at his dog's eyes - they were a bit gunky and we decided a visit to the vet would be sensible. He was anxious; I guess checking the health of your own guide dog is a bit difficult.
I asked him what it was like navigating train stations - he said it was easy but regulations meant he wasn't allowed to do it unless accompanied and someone was booked to meet him at York.
Guess what, nobody turned up, so I became the 'guider'. 'twas odd and I felt very nervous that I'd do something wrong. People don't allow enough room, either, for two people (one obviously blind).

[barakta]

Guiding a blind/partially sighted person is astonishingly hard work.  I did a lot of it when I worked with two separate blind people and had to define specific limits on how much I did e.g. I couldn't do more than 5-10 mins of it cos it was so tiring and killed me balance wise.  I think I got left to do it instead of my team sharing the responsibility at first cos no one else knew how and our manager at the time didn't know how to "manage" so we could all learn. We could have had training and indeed asked our bloody colleague what to do... I googled it and asked... Eventually I complained at management and two other colleagues started doing more and discovered shared out the responsibility was not difficult *shocker* and that it was a useful skill to have acquired.

I too find it sad that people will let a blind person obviously struggling just blunder around (while at other times GRABBING them (off trains and stuff!) when they're fine) instead of approaching as you guys did and verbally offering assistance. I've also seen blind people asking for help verbally and being ignored...  I think I'm lucky my godfather is blind and my oldest friend's dad was blind so I know a fair few "blind awareness" things and have learned approach and offer assistance if someone is obviously blundering OR asking for help. 

New Street is especially horrid at the best of times, and now is not the best of times, horrid horrid monstrous mess of a station.  And yes, assistance is somewhat unreliable which is just not acceptable at all.