A bit of a “feel good” post for the weekend … and absolutely NOTHING to do with maths!!

Tomorrow is Fathers Day (EDIT – Actually just found out its next weekend!!) , and 12 months ago I lost my Dad, so its tough! I know it doesn’t sound like it, but bear with me  …

As I approached a roundabout in the next little village to where I live I saw an “old boy” stumbling on the pavement but just assumed he was a bit “doddery” on his feet – as I came back around this guy was stood in the road, waving his arms. I couldn’t drive off and leave him there. I just couldn’t do it so pulled up on the pavement and got out. He looked dazed, confused and possibly a little bit drunk (I did have a little chuckle at the thought of this, as my dad once went down our local with my brother and got very, very, very drunk at the ripe old age of 84! I took great delight in cooking a big fry up the next day for them both). 

Anyway, this old boy, reminded me so much of my dad even down to his clothes: navy suit trousers with a black suit jacket (black and navy!!!), V neck jumper, shirt and a rolled up tie in his hand that he’d just taken off – he must have been roasting hot! I asked if he was ok, and he proceeded to tell me that he had just missed the bus, and he didn’t have enough money for the bus fare, so I did the obvious thing and offered him what cash I had (as it turned out all I had was the shrapnel in the car!). I asked where he was going and apparently he needed to get to Stratford – he then asked if I would take him. By now it was obvious that he wasn’t quite “with it” and I rang the obvious person for advice … my husband and was told to ring the police.  Whilst on the phone to them, I had to stop this guy from walking into the road … he did flag down a couple of cars, all of whom wound their windows down, and when he asked them to take him into town all of them politely said “no” and drove off. We weren’t in a quiet lane and the way my car was just pulled up on the side of the road it was obvious that something out of the norm was going on!!

I was explaining to the police what was happening and a young lad pulled up and got out – he approached me and asked if I was ok? I explained that I was on the phone to the police and we just needed to make sure the “old boy” didn’t get himself killed by “playing in the road”. He then spent some talking to my old boy, and I spotted a police car approaching so jumped into the road and flagged her down – coincidently a community Police Officer was driving through the village on her way back to base at the end of the shift, and it wasn’t as a result of my call!.

After 20 minutes, several radio calls back to the local cop shop, and the young lad ringing his mates in all the pubs in the village to see he anyone had “lost” a customer, we were able to work out that “Ronald” (it turns out he has a name !) does this quite a lot and goes walkabout. Eventually the PCO then said that she would take him back to base with her, and Ronald was bundled into the back of the car (after he’d got into the front and kicked off about us not knowing our “a*%£” from our elbow, when we had to move him) and off they drove. I just hope he is now home safe and sound.

Sometimes as a teacher, its easy to lose sight of our students as anything other than “children”  … well!! let me tell you … when I said thank you for stopping to this lad, he said “I would hope that if my granddad was found wandering, that someone else would stop and look out for him too” … given the reaction from the other drivers who just drove past, this single comment has restored my faith in young people!! Not that I’d lost it but it served as a nice reminder!