All the staff of the Aquarius chip shop on Kingshill Avenue in Hayes. Horrible town, pretty nasty, greasy, hot and abused-by-cunts job, but they're lovely, lovely people and always had a genuine smile for people. They were friendly but respectful of boundaries, and remembered your typical order even if you hardly ever came in. You know when people in shops and such wish you a good day and you can tell they mean it? They were all like that. Top blokes, and their chips were good too.
My old, now retired vet. A lovely bloke with a very dry and subtle sense of humour, who clearly cared about the animals he worked with, but wasn't at all squeamish about pinning them down or slicing them open if necessary. And he was nice to people, too - more than once, he refused to charge us when there was nothing significant wrong with our cat or dog, and he sometimes performed minor operations and such for free, without notice. The receptionists there were lovely as well, come to think of it.
The two blokes who cut short their holiday and walked across a busy motorway and just stood obstinately in front of the speeding cars until they stopped, so that they could come and see if anyone was hurt when my family's car's tire exploded, lost control, spun around a couple of times and crashed into the barrier, wrecking it completely. They made sure me and my sister (then about 8 and) were okay, calmed my panicking mum down (not an easy task, as I later found) and sat us all down while they arranged for someone to come and pick us up. They stopped the traffic again and pushed our knackered car (it looked an absolute state, seriously. It's amazing we weren't hurt) across the road out of everyone's way, and got us all safely to where we were going and our car carted off appropriately, all for nothing at all, while hundreds of other people just drove straight past. I have absolutely no idea who they were.
Also the off-duty nurse who happened to be driving past when I got my head split open by a rock and would have bled to death if not for her. I can't even remember what she looked like on account of all the blood in my eyes, and I pobably traumatised her young son by bleeding all over the place about a foot from where he was sitting.
Everyone who ever tried to be nice just for its own sake. Because:
Quote:
Among the small but endlessly abundant and therefore very effective things that science ought to heed more than the great, rare things, is goodwill. I mean those expressions of a friendly disposition in interactions, that smile of the eye, those handclasps, that ease which usually envelops nearly all human actions.
Good nature, friendliness, and courtesy of the heart are ever‑flowing tributaries of the selfless drive and have made much greater contributions to culture than those much more famous expressions of this drive, called pity, charity, and self‑sacrifice. But we tend to underestimate them, and in fact there really is not much about them that is selfless. The sum of these small doses is nevertheless mighty; its cumulative force is among the strongest of forces.
Similarly, there is much more happiness to be found in the world than dim eyes can see, if one calculates correctly and does not forget all those moments of ease which are so plentiful in every day of every human life, even the most oppressed.