Random acts of kindness

When one chooses to lead one’s life in the public eye it must be expected that from time to time one will receive communications of shall we say, a dubious nature. Over the years I have had several letters, often hand delivered to my door, which can be of concern.

The communicants, in my case, are usually male, with a tendency to write to me making their point either in red or green ink, in capital letters and underlined. Clearly they mean business. For the most part this is of little concern to me, and contrary to advice, if they provide their contact details I do try to respond; if for no other reason than that one of the key issues that seems to occupy their waking hours is that no-one will listen to their concerns. On only one occasion, where the correspondent had contacted me in relation to a letter that had appeared in press, have I felt it necessary to alert the police, just in case.

My apprehension on arriving home this week to find a blue envelope on the doormat, in handwriting that I did not recognise, just saying ‘Dear Stranger’, was understandable. Imagine my surprise therefore that on opening it I found a typed message saying – ‘Hey there, we hope you are having a great day. We just wanted to brighten it up with this little card. Wouldn’t it be better if we could all did (sic) something to make somebody else’s day better? We started with you. Today we challenge you to show love to 3 other people and tell them to do the same. If you receive this message shout ‘I got the message’. Keep smiling :).’

Part of me was relieved that it was not something dreadful, part of me was amused, part of me wondered why I had been singled out, and by whom, and another part of me was grateful that it was not one of the ubiquitous email messages that do the rounds threatening dire consequences if I did not respond.

Whilst it did brighten up my day, I still feel that on balance I might have been more responsive had I known the identity of the message giver.