There was a street sweeper I’d see frequently about our neighbourhood in London. For the most part he seemed grumpy and aggrieved, muttering not so sotto voce to himself about “filthy bastards’’ as he cleaned discarded food, beer cans and much worse from our local streets and gutters.
His anger was, at times, a little frightening. I’d observe him warily, and I would often cross the road to escape his invective (I believe, in his eyes, any human was a potential litterer and therefore deserving of a harsh word or two). Glancing at him the wrong way could set him off so I’d always try not to look directly at him if we crossed paths.
One day, after noticing – and avoiding – him for perhaps a year, I saw him smiling and nodding agreeably to himself. But he was also doing something else. He was feeding coins into a parking meter, apparently to prevent owners of parked cars (presumably, he didn’t know them) whose payments had expired from getting fined.
In subsequent weeks and months I noticed him doing this again, once right outside our house. I couldn’t avoid him.
I nodded a greeting and asked, “Why are you doing this?’’
“What’s it to you?’’ he replied gruffly.
“Nothing really. Sorry.’’
As he walked away, voice trailing off, I heard him say, “Just kindness, innit?”
Over the next couple of years I saw him doing this again and again. As angry as this bloke was towards pretty well every other person he encountered, he seemed to me, paradoxically, perplexingly, like an embodiment of kindness with his repeated acts of anonymous generosity. Or maybe he just hated parking inspectors.
Did he really do it, I wondered, because it was just random kindness – an end in itself – as he’d indicated? Or because it made him feel good? There is a slight difference, I suppose, when it comes to a random act of kindness.
Regardless, he did make me feel happy every time I saw it, even if the bloke doing it was somewhat unpleasantly misanthropic. My witnessing him certainly seemed completely irrelevant to him. There was nothing performative about his actions. I think that as far as this bloke was concerned, he didn’t care if he was admired or liked. Indeed, he gave every indication he didn’t want to be either.
Yet there was a startling certainty – and instinctive goodness – about his actions that others might well dismiss.
In my mind, it was just distilled kindness.
Receiving a random act of kindness can be delightfully disarming.
I was at the supermarket a few weeks ago in need of a trolley. What is it about supermarkets and trolleys these days? You need a $1 or $2 coin or one of those plastic disc thingies to unlock one but you’ve never got change because who carries coins any more? And the plastic discs get lost or they break.
So, I was cursing the trolley in language that would make a convention of wharfies – or London street sweepers – blush, and I was rattling the unlockable trolley in front of me and there was no one – of course – on the supermarket desk to unlock it for me.
I must have looked slightly unhinged, abusing the trolley like that.
A young woman appeared and handed me a $2 coin.
“Here,’’ she said.
“I can’t possibly,’’ I said. “How can I repay you?’’
“You don’t need to. Just give it to the next person you see who needs it. Someone else gave it to me when I needed a trolley.’’
The kindness of perfect strangers can really stop you in your tracks sometimes.
• Paul Daley is a Guardian Australia columnist
