Coco the Clown

When holidaying in the East Midlands last September - I was pitched near Stamford, on my way to the Peak District - I came across the grave of Nicolai Polakovs (the Latvian version of his name), alias Coco the Clown. He was born in Latvia (then part of Czarist Russia) in 1900 and died in in Peterborough Hospital on 25th September 1974, so that when I saw his grave in Woodnewton churchyard on 19th September, it was very nearly the exact fiftieth anniversary of his death. What an odd coincidence!  

The village of Woodnewton is in the green countryside between Stamford and Oundle: an area of farming and woodland, steeped in English history, in the north-eastern corner of Northamptonshire. But an unexpected place for a world-famous circus entertainer, and a foreign-born person at that, to retire to. Even though he and his wife had long become naturalised Britons, and clearly regarded England as their permanent home. Possibly there was some very practical reason for being there. But if one has a choice, one's last years are generally lived where the family is, or somewhere linked to past memories of great significance. What significance had Woodnewton possessed? 

The village is a pleasant place, but not especially remarkable. I went there twice. I drove around it. I got out and walked about. It has an ancient church and the remains of a medieval layout, but there is plenty of modern development. It's neat and tidy and faintly suburban in the way of a village whose professional residents mainly commute to larger places, such as Peterborough. It's not at all unrelentingly posh, but there are certainly some expensive homes. Here are a few shots, so you can see what Woodnewton typically looks like:

Well, it has become the home of Clownfest, an annual celebration of circus clowns, and I suppose you have to imagine hundreds of clowns descending on the village once a year and milling about in their costumes. Bizarre! The village hall, built with money donated by Polakovs and his connections, would be the nerve centre for Clownfest. I wonder what the residents opposite the village hall think, when they see the road outside thronged with clowns of all types? Maybe they love it. 

There's a blue plaque on the village hall to acknowledge Polakovs' help in creating - first - the smart recreation field behind, and then getting the hall itself built. I took several shots of all this, including some posters connected with Coco the Clown:

In the churchyard is this grave for him, complete with a small stone bust set in the headstone:

Did I ever see Coco the Clown when I was young? Well, no. I didn't like clowns. I was a timid and rather fearful child, and thought they were scary. I couldn't see what was funny about them. So if ever a circus appeared on TV - as it still might at Christmastime in the late 1950s and early 1960s - I didn't want to watch. 

I went to a real circus only once - it was Billy Smart's, in Cardiff. Dad took me. It was just he and me. (I don't know where Mum was at the time. Possibly she was having an operation for varicose veins, or recovering from one at home) I'd be eight, nine or ten. I remember the circus was in a huge green area. Lots of tents and brightly-painted vehicles and caravans. An immense white Big Top, with guy ropes all around: and being a clumsy child, I surely tripped on one. I could smell animals: a jungle smell I didn't like. It was noisy, confusing, and very strange. So many people too: circus people, but also a torrent of paying customers. The inside of the Big Top was vast. The tiered seats were hard and uncomfortable. The show itself, hosted by a commanding red-coated Ringmaster cracking his whip, with prancing horses in headdresses, with acrobats in sparkling outfits doing crazy things high up, with lions, tigers and at least one elephant, have all merged into a blur. The clowns seemed to be the main stars of the show, tumbling or flat-footing into the ring amid wild applause, shouting to the audience, looking jubilant one moment, then pathetic the next, and generally messing about with custard pies. It must have been very clever stuff, requiring split-second timing; the result of many hours of careful practice. But I didn't understand what was going on. It was spectacle after spectacle, loud and dazzling, but it didn't touch me. I didn't enjoy myself.

I came away feeling that I'd disappointed Dad in some way, by not being enthralled. We never spoke of it again. I never asked to see another circus. 

I thought of that long-ago experience when walking around Woodnewton, and when contemplating Polakovs' grave. I wanted to tell him that I'd been a strange and awkward child. A failed child, despite redemption in adult life. That my lifelong negativity about circuses and similar events was not his fault. It was inbuilt, a deficiency of my own. That if I hadn't been moving on to the Peak District I would have stuck around to see what happened in Woodnewton on the fiftieth anniversay of his death in 1974. Wouldn't it have made a fine series of photos? Maybe I'd shoot some custard pies flying through the air. Maybe I'd get besmirched by one. Wouldn't it make a great selfie? Wouldn't I laugh! Alas, it couldn't happen.

Surely, in 2024, the great days of traditional circuses are long over. They don't fit into the modern digital world. I still see circus posters everywhere, but they are apparently small affairs akin to glorified cabaret acts, shrunk in performance scope to humans only - no animals. And totally geared to modern entertainment tastes. I don't want to see them. Circuses have become last-century, a relic, just as Punch and Judy on the beach has become a relic. It's kind of sad, but no matter what amazing performing skills are on display, they are not in tune with life in the 2020s. 

It was once common for pop songs to make references to circuses in their lyrics - to clowns especially: Cathy's clown; send in the clowns; ha! ha! said the clown; the tears of a clown; death of a clown. I hear those lyrics daily when I play my music, which is predominantly the music of my teens and early twenties in the 1960s and 1970s. I'm certain that clowns don't feature in lyrics anymore. They are no longer the kings of knockabout comedy. If anything at all, they have become the frightening stuff of shock-horror movies, the very opposite of what they once stood for.   

In fact, I do wonder whether any contemporary youngster has ever heard of Coco the Clown, and what he stood for, and what he actually achieved in real life. Dare I ask?

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The man who befriended a circus freak

It's late September, and I'm in Wirksworth, a Derbyshire town south of Matlock, and I'm walking about with LXV, my Leica camera, shooting anything that catches my attention. 

This is typically what I do on holiday. I look for interesting things: often topical, often historical, sometimes quirky. I look for striking scenes, unusual light effects, and shoot both beauty and ugliness so long as it makes a good picture. Although it's a boast, I think I definitely have an eye for a shot. I don't try to be clever or arty; the aim is to capture aspects of a particular place or occasion. Later on I'll create a file in my archive for Wirksworth, and the day's photos, fully captioned, will go into it. And if I ever return, more photos will go in that file. In this way I gradually I build up an ongoing record of places, people and other subjects, spanning many years, so that I can (say) compare the pictures I took in 1990 with what I took in 2000, 2010 and 2020. It's fascinating to see the gradual changes. Including how advances in my equipment make for a better, more informative record. 

Right now I think the results from LXV, my Leica X Vario, are the best I've ever achieved, rivalled only by the Nikon D700 that I was using in 2008 (and the extraordinarily good f/2.8 24-70mm zoom lens I bought for it). But I can carry LXV all day long; the big full-frame Nikon was always too heavy for comfort, and impractical for social occasions. Weight and bulk do matter. Not that LXV is itself a featherweight - its fixed zoom lens contains a lot of fancy glass - but it's unobtrusive, unthreatening, quick to turn on and off, and very fast to use.  

So there I was, walking about Wirksworth. And a large old town house with big windows caught my eye. Then I saw a blue plaque. I had to look more closely.

Sir Frederick Treves. Aha! This was the man whose innovative surgical skill saved the life of King Edward VII, who developed appendicitis in 1902. But also, as the plaque says, he looked after Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. He was in practice here for a while when younger.

Poor Joseph Merrick. He died aged 27 of a broken neck, having attempted to sleep normally, lying down. He was grossly deformed. A chromosomal abnormality - which one is still debated - led to excessive and horrific bone growth, plus pendulous warty skin, all from an early age, so that by his teens he was dreadful to see. He had a lopsided appearance, with a huge misshapen head, a massive right arm and hand, and bent leg bones. The rest of him was normal. He was highly conscious of how ghastly he looked. In the 1880s it meant social revulsion and rejection, and invited the taunts of the brutal and the ignorant. 

The only opening for him, if he were to make his way in the world, was to put himself on exhibition under a manager for the paying public to gawp at, at first in a circus, then in a London shop, where Treves first saw him. Treves' first reaction was disgust. But nevertheless he asked Merrick to come to hospital, and for a while he became a clinical curiosity for the medical students to study. Objecting to this role, Merrick left, but ultimately returned to live at the hospital until his death. In that latter part of his life, with his deformities getting ever worse, a kind of friendship grew between he and Treves. 

Merrick had to sleep propped up, his oversized and very heavy head resting on his knee. Lying down (as ordinary people did) risked dislocating his neck, probably with lethal consequences. And so it was. I think he knowingly committed suicide that way, and who can blame him.

He first came to my attention when the 1980 film The Elephant Man was released. I was 28, but still as fearfully imaginative and impressionable as I had been at 8 or 18, and the image of Merrick in the film poster - a figure hidden beneath a black cloak and black hat, with a face mask - troubled me greatly. I was living in London at the time, and those posters were everywhere on the Underground. You couldn't get away from them. I had nightmares, imagining that I would actually encounter that cloaked figure. I shuddered at the thought that this ghoulish being would approach me, touch me, and the mask would be lifted to reveal the horror beneath. Or worse, a sudden full-on confrontation with no possible escape.

Since my early teens I'd known about the terrible things done to prisoners and internees in wartime concentration camps, but this was something else. It was highly disturbing. I felt threatened by it. I found it hard to sleep, thinking about it. I was trying to pass some important Inland Revenue exams at the time: the thought of the Elephant Man waiting for me around the next dark corner couldn't have helped. 

Writing this hasn't reawakened anything. So, forty-four years on, I must have put away a lot of fears. I suppose the shock-horrors of the cinema - grisly aliens, frightening robots, horrible infections - have inured me somewhat. But I still avoid horror films and anything that might prey on my mind like this had. 

I am still amazed at Treves' spectacular rise to eminence. He was born in ordinary circumstances in Dorset. He was working as a GP in Wirksworth, a Derbyshire practice far from London, in the 1870s. Ten years later he was established as a specialist abdominal surgeon in London. Perhaps it was a case of talent, famous patients, and (I doubt it not) good connections supercharging a career in nineteenth-century circumstances. 

Well, despite his fame, he kicked the bucket at 70. I've outlived him. Ha!

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Orkney gets nearer - I've booked the NorthLink ferry!

Hurrah! I've now booked the NorthLink ferry to Orkney and back! 

In fact I did it this morning, before the Budget. I'd just got an email from NorthLink to tell me that they had now published their 2025 ferry timetables, something I'd been waiting for, and that I could go ahead and book my car and caravan on whatever crossing I had in mind in May. I decided to act without delay, in case VAT was, after all, increased in the midday Budget. 

Making the booking online was a doddle until it came to payment. The website then stalled. I wondered whether, despite taking great care, I'd made some error. Perhaps a huge crowd of people were thinking along the same lines, hoping to get in before any Budget announcement on VAT. Or perhaps commercial operators with delivery lorries were swamping the website. Their bookings would come before mine, if sorted in pecking order. As I settled down by the radio to hear Rachel Reeves' Budget speech, the NorthLink website still hadn't confirmed payment taken, and my bookings successfully made. I let it go. Reviving the laptop after the Budget Speech, I discovered that the booking hadn't gone through, and NorthLink had cancelled it. 

I immediately rebooked. This time there was no problem. Hopefully the original payment authorised by my credit card company, which they had marked 'pending', will now just disappear or be matched by a refund, so that I'm not doubly out of pocket. However, at the time of writing this, my credit card account is showing two payments pending, one for the booking that didn't go through, and one for the booking that did. Gulp! It matters, because the return ferry charge is a whopping £277.48. So as things stand, I have paid twice that, £554.96. Fingers crossed that I get that refund promptly!

Still, this glitch hasn't spoiled my day. I feel elated at the thought that my week on Orkney next May is essentially in the bag. I had already booked the pitch at Stromness last August; now I've booked the ferry too. I still have a long series of Caravan Club site bookings to make, to get me up to Orkney and back from my home in Sussex, which will be quite a task, a whole morning on the laptop. But I've done this before, as far as Caithness anyway, most recently in 2022. I'm not daunted. But I'll need to make those site bookings before the end of this year, to secure the pitches I want at 2024 rates. 

This is an important holiday. It may be the last time I go so far north, some 800 miles by road from home. It will be my second visit to Orkney, and my fourth to Caithness. This time I intend to 'do' both of these far-away places so thoroughly, so definitively, that a further visit won't be justified. I'm not saying that I won't ever return, but facts have to faced: I'm no spring chicken, and although my eightieth birthday is still some years away, long-distance caravanning is already becoming a test of stamina. I might after this go no further north than Inverness and Aberdeenshire. Shetland still beckons: but I think that'll be a different kind of holiday. I'd have to fly there, stay in a hotel, and hire a car. Or if taking Sophie, leave the caravan at home, use the overnight ferry from Aberdeen, and rely mostly on Travelodges and Premier Inns instead. 

The pitch at Stromness is booked for 6th May to 12th May, departing 13th May. The ferries are therefore booked for the early afternoon of 6th May and late morning on 13th May. The rest of the holiday will be built around those dates. 

I've already sketched out the long chain of caravan site bookings that will take me there and back again. At the moment it looks like a 28th April departure from home, and a 4th June return. Basically I travel north as quickly as I can, spending the bulk of my time on Orkney and in Caithness, and then travel south at a more leisurely pace, allowing time to meet up with friends on the way. Even so, I probably won't be seeing anyone I know for a whole four weeks. It's a good thing that I never feel lonely! In fact, I'm a great one for chatting with complete strangers - something that usually happens at least once or twice a day when on holiday - and it seems the remoter the place, the more likely it is that some cheerful and warm-hearted person will be intrigued by who I am, and where I've come from.  

I have to admit that it will be an expensive holiday, so much so that I may have to put off buying a new laptop until late 2026, when the purchase payments on my car Sophie come to an end. Verity, my hard-working but still capable Microsoft Surface Book, will be ten years old by then. But putting off buying her replacement may work to my advantage: more time to assess what I should buy; more time for a powerful 2025 laptop to come down in price. 

Meanwhile, I will be prepping for my Orkney holiday in the months ahead. The time will soon pass!

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Money frauds

I am always struck by the stories that victims of money scams have to relate. I've heard lots of them over the years on radio programmes such as BBC Radio 4's You and Yours and Money Box, and elsewhere, such as on LBC. 

The victims of big-money scams seem to fall into three main groups. 

There are those who are phoned out of the blue and told by their bank - or rather someone who claims to be their bank - that their accounts have been hacked and that their balances need to be shifted pronto into another account where the money will be safe. They are hustled by the caller, given no time to think, and of course the money is whipped away into the hands of fraudsters who control the 'safe' account, and it's never seen again. It's usually a successful sting - however sensible, level-headed or forewarned the victim has hitherto believed themselves to be. The correct response (I would say) is to put the phone down, travel to the nearest bank branch, and enquire in person with genuine bank staff. But I'm sure many people can't react so coolly when presented with a dire situation. (I dare say I would - or at least could - fall victim too: the psychological compulsion to take a safe and simple way out from sudden catastrophe, overriding all caution, must be overwhelming) 

Then there are those looking for a better return on their spare cash, who see attractive advertisements when searching the Internet, or on social media, and are enticed into a fake or worthless investment scam that sucks more and more money from them. The scammers intend to strip them bare, and if possible draw others in. I suppose it's hard to resist an apparently golden opportunity to make big money from trendy-sounding assets. Of course you have to possess a lot of cash to be attracted in the first place. (That theoretically means I should never fall victim of investment scams! All my small savings are for eventual necessary spending - the next car, the next bout of dentistry, the next pair of glasses. I will never now have a nest-egg in the background that I might risk losing) 

Thirdly there are the victims of so-called romance fraud. This is the cruellest scam of all, the victim being led up the garden path in the name of love and companionship and eventually asked to lend money to the person who has achieved ascendency over them. Oddly but typically, scammer and victim never meet: it's another online thing where all is taken on trust. The grooming process may extend to several months before the sting happens; but by then the victim may be too well under the control of the scammer (and his team) to refuse cooperation. I have met women - it's most often women who fall victim - who told me they immediately became wary as soon as money was mentioned. I've heard about women who questioned the reason they were being asked to give money to the scammer, but were cleverly and convincingly reassured, and persuaded to cough up just like the most gullible victim would. It's like a magic spell, and it all ends the same. They are left broken-hearted, embarrassed, self-doubting, and seriously out of pocket. (As I love my freedom, and never intend to give it up for the sake of having anyone special in my life, I'd like to believe I would be quite immune to romance fraud. But the sensible side of me says 'Remain on your guard!', and I am listening)  

There are many other types of money scam, big and small. But these three are the main ones I've heard about.

Now there's one thing that links them all: the victim has some money. And I've often wondered how the scammers know who they are, if they are trying to target those people who have enough cash to make an elaborate sting worthwhile. Have they, for instance, subverted amenable bank employees to put the finger on a likely sucker? If they can do this, it would be a very efficient way to select victims. I'm thinking particularly of the first kind of fraud mentioned above, where they impersonate the bank to panic the victim into moving funds to an account that the fraudsters control. But surely it would be a wonderful advantage to have a well-off would-be investor, or a lonely heart with money to spare, handed to them on a plate? 

Or do they leave it to pure chance, relying on the victim selecting themselves, either from greed or silliness? Such as responding to a social media advertisement, or to some YouTube video about how to invest very cleverly, or a great profile on a dating app? Cupidity and gullibility must work a lot of the time, human nature being what it is. Who doesn't pay at least some attention to the promise of a better return, or to finding the perfect partner? 

I can certainly see why most banks have long resisted compensation codes (and now coming legislation) to restore cash taken from money fraud victims. They know how irrationally people will behave when pushed or lured, and compensation costs them dear. But they now also see that rapid no-quibble compensation is going to be the name of the game, up to an £85,000 maximum anyway. They'll be forced to tighten their procedures and checks, to limit the leakage of serious money to scammers. And that, of course, means yet more inconvenience and delay for the public, whenever any non-routine transaction occurs. As when buying a house or car. Each money transfer will have to be thoroughly checked out, more so than now. Let's hope that no important transaction fails because a bank took too much time to satisfy itself that all was genuine. 

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To pay or not to pay, that is the question

Sophie, my 2016 Volvo XC60 R-Design car - bought nearly a year ago from Caffyns Volvo Eastbourne - was a Volvo Selekt car, meaning that she was among the pick of vehicles traded-in for something newer, and was not only a good-looking, cared-for, low-mileage example, but was running particularly well and reliably, all settings correct and everything working properly. 

That made her a good bet if buying second-hand. However, it also meant a buyer would be paying more than the ordinary price for having such a car. I reckoned some £1,000 more. But I was in a hurry to buy a replacement for Fiona, my previous Volvo XC60, who was old and ailing, and I'd decided that if I could quickly find another XC60 with the right engine (that is, the biggest diesel option, suitable for hauling the caravan) I'd go for that. The price was secondary, although the financing had to be affordable. I was lucky. Caffyns had exactly what I wanted, and I secured Sophie as soon as I'd had the test drive.

Part of the Volvo Selekt package was a one-year used car warranty. I didn't give it a lot of thought at the time of buying, but after six months of ownership, I was glad that I had that warranty. A rear wheel sensor that monitored ABS and all sorts of related things packed in while I was away on holiday in April. Once home again, I had Caffyns look at it. The part was simple to replace, but its cost, and the technician's time to fit it, would come to about £300. Ah, I said, that might be covered by the one-year used car warranty! And so it was. It was all done while I waited, after Volvo HQ had authorised the work, and cost me not a penny. 

So for once I'd invoked a warranty and had had a satisfying outcome. The warranty hadn't been needed since. But the good experience last April had stayed in my mind. 

Now, in October, it was time to consider extending that warranty for another year. I was getting reminders from Volvo to do so. I had to act before 24th October.

Clearly it could be very useful. The warranty was basically for original factory-fitted parts that failed unexpectedly or prematurely for reasons other than customer misuse or ordinary wear and tear. The sensor that failed was a very good example. It was unlikely to break so early in the car's lifetime; and there was no way a customer could deliberately or carelessly induce failure. So no quibbling about covering its replacement. Mind you, the position for other parts might not be so clear-cut. And there were a lot of specific exclusions. 

So was it worth buying an extension to the warranty? After all, mine was a quality car made with tough components by a car company famous for its long-lasting products. Sophie had enjoyed a careful first owner, and was now being driven just as carefully by someone who tended to cherish her cars. Driver abuse could be ruled out. 

But chance mishaps and failures can happen. So it seemed to me that the answer was yes - that is, buy a warranty extension - if the cost were reasonable. Say £300 for another twelve months. But to pay no more than that. 

This decided, I responded to the reminders and filled in an online quotation form. Surprisingly, they asked me what Sophie's current value was. (Didn't they have data on that?) Sophie was first registered in April 2016, and her cash price then, when seven and a half years old, had been £19,500. Now she was a year older still. A quick glance at some same-age XC60s for sale on the Internet suggested that her current value might be £14,500. I put that in. 

The form completed, I asked for my quote.

£899.

What? £899 to extend the warranty for twelve months? It was far too much. Maybe a business executive, or a high-flying smart young professional on £90,000 a year, would pay that kind of money without hesitation, at least on a newer car, but it was beyond my income bracket. Yes, I did actually have the money in my savings account, but £899 would deplete those slender savings too much. 

If the money would cover the next three years, that would be different. But no, it was only for a year. 

Why so much? Well, I had of course already made a previous claim. That would bump up the premium a bit. And as Sophie aged, the likelihood of other qualifying component failures would increase. Yes, I could see why the cost might be high. And get higher. 

The latest service and MOT - just done - indicated all was good, with nothing likely to fail. So I might easily spend £899 for nothing - and then similar amounts year after year. Rather than feeling warm and happy from insuring myself against unexpected part failures, I'd in fact feel robbed and a little resentful. It made more sense to build up my savings account instead. Then if nothing went wrong, I'd still have the money. 

Episodes like this always make you feel you are exposing yourself to the whims of fate if you don't pay up. But nothing is ever entirely risk-free, whatever you do. I felt that Sophie had already proved herself to be a good reliable car, and not one of those unlucky cars that always need fixing. So it was rational to forego the umbrella of an extended warranty, and instead to accept a small amount of risk.

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The kindness of strangers

In my experience, most people will help you out if asked nicely. 

For instance, yesterday I was in Oakham, the small town that is the 'capital' of Rutland, England's smallest traditional county. I'd parked Sophie, and was walking into the town centre, when I realised that I had still had my car keys dangling from my neck. Living alone, I have to resort to 'key management', meaning that all my essential keys for house and car are attached to a lanyard that I wear around my neck. Without fail - I'm never lazy about this - I put my keys around my neck whenever I step out of my front door, even just to pop something in the recycling bin at home. And I will naturally do this if going out for while. It's a good habit that has become ingrained. So long as I have my keys on a loop around my neck, I know that I can't accidentally lock myself out of house or car, with nobody to rescue me. But of course, while this expedient is fine for a short time, I don't want to 'wear' a bunch of keys all day. In that case, I take them off, and loop the lanyard around one of my handbag straps instead. Thus tethered, my keys can if I want be zipped up inside the bag - certainly if it's raining, but also if the environment makes it wise to keep house and car keys out of sight.

Well, there I was, in Oakham and already some distance from the car, with a couple of hours ahead of me, and wanting to transfer the lanyard from my neck to my bag. 

Could I do it? No. 

I should explain that there were four things around my neck: the cross-body strap of my bag; the cross-body strap of my camera; the lanyard from which my bunch of keys was dangling; and Starfishie's silver chain. Either in the car when driving along, or when I'd put the straps for bag and camera over my head once parked, Starfishie (my silver starfish from Orkney) had somehow wrapped her chain around the lanyard for my keys in some complicated way. The silver chain was now in a proper tangle, and felt as if it might be knotted. At any rate, I couldn't free it from the lanyard by touch alone. I needed a mirror. But here I was out on a pavement. It wasn't an emergency, of course, but it was something that needed sorting out without delay, for appearance's sake if nothing else; although it was also best not to make the knot in the silver chain worse than it was. If I walked on, it might gradually tighten up so much that I would never unravel it.

But good luck sent me a suitable helper. A lady appeared. She was maybe in her fifties - so far as you can ever tell - so somewhat younger than me. But I knew at a glance that she was likely to assist. You just know. So as she came closer, I said 'Excuse me, could you help me please? I'm in a bit of a tangle.' She stopped and smiled. 'Of course. Gosh, you're right. The chain's wrapped around the cord a couple of times, and seems to have got knotted. Let me see...' 

So there were were, standing together on a sunny pavement, practically head to head. I let her ease the chain free. It took a couple of minutes. She was clearly patient and methodical, and not the sort to give up. Nor did she. She persevered. Starfishie's chain was quite a fine one, and it would take good eyesight, care, and nimble fingers to sort this out. I hoped she hadn't been in some kind of hurry. But if she had been, she said nothing. Such is the overriding importance of one woman helping out another. I don't think that, in general. men ever show quite the same solidarity. 

Suddenly the chain was free. I thanked her warmly, and she went on her way. I suspected that I had indeed delayed her. On the other hand (I philosophised) we had both had a psychological boost. I'd set her a challenge, and she had met it with success. She'd also had the satisfaction of doing a good and useful deed, plus my sincere thanks. As for myself, I felt a glow from having a stranger's instant confidence and assistance, plus of course getting Starfishie's rather nice chain freed without damage. An encounter to remember. And now to write about.

Perhaps it's a trivial thing, perhaps not. We are often told that manners have coarsened and that in the modern world we have all become selfish. Certainly there are some awful people around, especially people whose aim in life is to fulfil a personal ambition that will entail stamping on others. It seems clear that those who become prominent in public life, or become household names, or are any kind of celebrity, eventually lose a sense of humility and a willingness to consider others not so admired. But most of us, in ordinary life, have not discarded the impulses to be helpful and full of good and decent intentions. It's good to know that the better side of human nature is alive and kicking and hasn't been abandoned. It's not naïve or foolish to be kind.

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