Some things are just meant to happen.....

At work this afternoon, one of my staff came in and asked what we could do to help an elderly lady and her dog who were struggling to get home. In her 80's, she told us that she had been all over the place for around 8 hours and was trying to get home to somewhere not all that far (four or five miles maybe), but as there was no direct bus route, and taxis were either unwilling to take her with her dog, or they were all busy with the rugby world cup.

As we were reasonably quiet, I decided the easiest thing to do was to pop them in my car and take them home. She was a lovely soul, and her dog was as friendly as you could ask for, and on the way we nattered away about the local area and how things have changed..... she told me that her husband was a police officer in his day, but sadly that he passed away last week. She went on to tell me that her daughter was arriving from France tomorrow, so she would have plenty of family around her.

Before too long, we got to her house, but she had no key with her and nobody was in..... so, she said she would wander round to her daughters and get a key from her. However, it was starting to get dark and a bit chilly, and I was less than happy at leaving her by the side of the road, so we got back in the car and went to her daughter's house -- only, the flat that her daughter lived in was in darkness.

Now, during our travels, a few alarm bells were starting to ring - firstly, her husband died on Friday, then it changed to Monday (fair enough, its a stressful event), but then she was forgetting things that she had just told me, or we had just chatted about. Anyway, I suggested we go back to her house and speak to her neighbours and perhaps she could stay with one of them for a cuppa until her daughter came home.

We arrived back at her house, only it became the house next door...... I knocked the door (now utterly convinced that she didn't live there) and spoke to a lady who confirmed exactly as I thought and suggested I try another neighbour who may recognise the lady from the neighbourhood as the other neighbours had been there a lot longer than she had.

Onto the next neighbour, and at first no recognition from the chap that opened the door - - he went to get another neighbour who was in his house watching the rugby, and when she came out, she DID recognise my new friend.

It transpired that my mystery lady had in fact lived in the house she took me to, but had moved away in the late 1980's! After a bit of digging, they provided me with an address that they used to send Christmas Cards to all those years ago -- an address that was nearly 100 miles away.

So, I contacted the police and go them involved for assistance. About 30 minutes later, a lovely lady officer arrived, and as I greeted her to outline the story so far she informed me that my new friend had in fact been reported missing by her daughter, and that her daughter lived quite a few miles from where we were (although, not as many as the other address I had been given). The officer was absolutely lovely, and between us we managed to get my friend and her dog into the police car to go and see her daughter for a nice cuppa and something to eat for the dog. All's well that ends well thankfully.

I will be sending an email to the police later in the week, as every one of their staff from the call handlers on 101 to the officer that came out were absolutely first class; I am also grateful that I struck so lucky in knocking the right door - the people within were genuinely lovely, and we would all be happy to have them as neighbours.

Most of all, I am pleased that my new friend got safely home -- someone was certainly looking down on her this afternoon.

 

Ach, all I did was give her a lift really - her ex neighbours and the police did the real work. Bless her, she was a really lovely soul, there was no way I could leave her wandering about the streets at this time of year.

 

Extremely well done . We don't hear enough of good deeds like these.

We try to do these type of things as frequently as possible. Apart from being such a good deed it makes you feel good and, I'm sure, the police felt good. The thank you to the police will be greatly appreciated as they don't very often get thanks.

 

Awww, bless you all, and thank you - I only did what any reasonable person would do; it was thanks to the information from her old neighbours and the efforts of the police that we managed to get her back to her family.