2016 has provided a bumper crop of depressing man-made disasters: war, terrorism, ISIS, Brexit, Trump, ugly nationalism, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I don’t know about you, but a lurch to the hard right or hard left is not what I signed up for. You could be forgiven for thinking we’re all off to hell in a handcart. But then the smallest of kindnesses can restore your faith in humanity. Recently, Annie of Back to Bodrum reminded me of this when a dolly* driver went the final mile to get her home. Around the same time, I was having my afternoon cuppa in a local café when a man approached a woman sitting at an adjacent table. He smiled.

“Remember me?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t. Sorry.”

“Yesterday. You helped me. Remember?”

“Yes, yes. Now I remember.”

“Well these are for you,” he said, handing her a bunch of flowers.

The man had gone before the startled woman had a chance to respond but it brought the broadest smile to her face, as it did to mine and to everyone around us.

SamaritanThe flower man was elderly, white and local. The woman was elderly too and Asian, perhaps Filipino judging from her Imelda Marcos inflection and fabulous shoes. I mention their ethnicity and age only because I hear petty racism is on the march again, particularly amongst older generations. I never did find out what the good Samaritan had done to help the old man in need. Typically British, I didn’t like to ask. But it gave me a little hope.

Wishing us all a kinder and brighter 2017.

*Dolly is what I called a Dolmuş, a minibus used for public transport in Turkey.

Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as an indie publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.

12 thoughts on “The Good Samaritan”

  4. Love little stories like that. They restore your faith. Shared a post on my FB profile a couple of days ago – 99 Reasons Why 2016 Was A Good Year. That’s worth a read, too. Not a balance but tips the scales a tad.
    Wishing you and Liam a great Christmas and all the best for the New Year.
    Julia and Barry. 🙂 x

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    1. Reasons to be cheerful as Ian Dury famously sang. Funny isn’t it, how bad news travels fastest and furthest? Wishing you both a splendid Christmas and a prosperous 2017. 😀

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  7. Pingback: Praying for Time | perking the Pansies

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