THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS
I’m not a southern belle from New Orleans and the nearest I’ve been to streetcars were the Liverpool trams I went on as a very little girl, but last Sunday I had a Blanche DuBois moment.
We had had a lovely holiday in Pembrokeshire where we walked and swam, played lots of ridiculous card games and had a great time. We were on the way home via Portmeirion when BANG, we had a blowout on a tyre! Our car has no spare because the tyres are all run-flats, so that you can still drive on them after a puncture. We could not; too much damage had been done. So there we were stuck in a bus stop, me with 4% charge left on my phone and no charger, and DH with no signal on his.
He called the RAC on my phone who wasted precious time telling us how meticulously they were obeying the Covid rules – we didn’t need to hear this – we wanted them to get down to finding us before the charge ran out on my phone! Eventually they said someone would be out within 5 hours. 5 hours!
Two elderly ladies out for a walk stopped and volunteered to walk into the town to get a phone charger. Someone else stopped and offered to change the wheel, then a lad and his girlfriend zoomed up and also offered to change the tyre.
Louis and Clare (we were on first name terms by the time we said goodbye) got out their phones and with the skill that we lack, found numbers of garages, tyre stockists, break-down services and phoned them all up. Louis found a suitable tyre 22 miles away and said he would fetch it. No, I said, that was too much.
Clare called up the RAC again and told them we were vulnerable (did she mean we were on a busy road or too old to use mobiles?) Whichever it was they said they would send someone in 45 minutes and they did.
We proffered a bottle of champagne: Louis and Clare wouldn’t take it.
Tennessee Williams got it right. The kindness of strangers. Lovely people.
