The milkmen of human kindness

Back in “my manor”. This time staying in a flat by the ‘rec where I used to play football when I was six or seven years old. So many memories in these streets – especially as much of the area seems to be a conservation zone and has changed very little in that time. Henry, the warden at these flats is from Belfast with a deep brogue and turns out to be one of the most helpful men I have come across. Within ten minutes of arriving he has set me up with everything needed to make tea (this is recognized as a fundamental Human Right in the UK - and appended to the British version of the UN Declaration of Human Rights), a fan (it’s the hottest day of the year – why do I keep travelling on record breaking heatwave days?) and offered me a towel, flannel, soap, shampoo. “’And will you have lunch with us tomorrow?”
Next morning I go downstairs out to the patio to have a smoke with my cup of tea. “Captain” Bob, one of the residents is having his breakfast there –a big bowl of muesli with fruit on top. He immediately offers to make me up a bowl and recommends that I take up the offer of a lunch. Other engagements prevent that. But I am struck by the kindness of ‘common people’. The people I meet living and working in this sheltered housing block are living close to the bottom of the economic ladder, at least by British standards. Living in one-room flats, with their own toilet and washing facilities. Other than that they have a shared kitchen, bathroom, lounge and laundry facilities. Pretty much student style – but they are mostly senior citizens. No luxury home to go to at the end of term. And, they are prepared to share the contents of their fridge or kitchen at the drop of a hat to a virtual stranger who just blew in from the street. I respect that. Enormously
Later that evening I get a spontaneous and informal counselling session from Henry who, it turns out, used to be a Jesuit priest and saw his mother through years of dementia. He lends me a book on Living with Alzheimer’s Disease even though he knows I am going to go and stay somewhere else and that he may never see me again. Sometime during our talk he talks about fear and the need to face it down because it is the fear that paralyses you, not what actually happens. He gives me some examples from his own life. And I see parallel examples in my own and how anytime we (I) find our(my)selves in unfamiliar territory (financial, emotional, health) that fear has the potential to paralyse us/me and make us/me act irrationally and not as we would want. The key is having faith - in ourselves (to be able to solve the problem) and in the universe (to support us). “”God bless ya son”. God bless you, Henry.