Kindness at Christmas
Merry Christmas everybody! I want to re-share a short xmas-related story that happened a few years ago, mainly because hundreds more of you have subscribed to this publication since then and won’t have read it, and partly because it’s a true story I’m fond of telling. I hope you and yours are having a lovely festive period! 🎄
IT WAS LATE DECEMBER 2011. Six months had passed since I’d left my hometown of Sheffield for a new life in London. People were starting to make plans for Christmas and I—with my newfound confidence and appetite for adventure—wanted to celebrate it on my own, somewhere different.
I can’t remember why I chose Barcelona. Maybe a friend had recommended it. Maybe it was the cheapest destination on the 25th of December. Maybe it had captured my imagination through its electrifying football team, which was, and still is, the greatest footy team I have ever watched.
A few days before my upcoming flight from Heathrow Airport, someone broke the news that neither the London Underground, nor London buses, operate, at all, on Christmas Day. The distance from my house share in south-east London to Heathrow was a portentous 20 miles. Taxis were sure to be unaffordable.
After some rather frantic research, there turned out to be a handful of Heathrow-bound coaches that were scheduled to depart from Paddington Station at various times of the day. But Paddington was itself ten miles away from where I lived, therefore presenting me with a similar logistical challenge.
Yet, the more I dwelt on it, the more I felt that the solution I’d been trying to avoid all along would be the best way, entirely in-keeping with the spirit of the trip: I would walk to Heathrow Airport. It would be interesting. It would show me a new side of London. It would give me a story to write about one day.
I calculated that the marathon-length walk would take me seven hours without stopping, so I gave myself eight. I didn’t have to worry about dragging a suitcase behind me as I only took a backpack. And, for added interest, I scribbled ‘HEATHROW’ on a piece of card to wield at passing motorists.
I tiptoed down the stairs of my house in the pitch-black hours of the icy Christmas dawn, tied my laces extra tight, and set off, briskly, with my hood up and chin down, waiting for my feet to warm up. I wondered how many hours I’d walk in the dark, and whether the sidewalks would last all the way.
But just 25 minutes later, by the big Sainsbury's on the Old Kent Road, my Heathrow sign attracted the attention of a passing off-duty black cab driver. He pulled up smoothly beside me, wound down his window, and said—smiling wryly and shaking his head—"Any other day of the year, mate."
As it turned out, as well as driving cabs, this man was an electrician, just like me. We chatted about life in London and Christmas in Barcelona. He drove me all the way to Terminal 2, refused my cash, told me to take care, and wished me Merry Christmas. And I was at the airport nine hours before my flight.
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Hey, it’s Harrison 👋 Thanks for reading my publication about the art of doing meaningful work.
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