Restoring faith

[Gloria]

We read a lot on this site and in the newspapers about all the bad things that are going on in and around Sydenham. Only this week someone had his bank card stolen whilst he was trying to get some cash from an ATM machine. Well it isn't all bad. Yesterday I went to the ATM outside the post office in Sydenham Road and withdrew some cash, putting the money in my wallet and my wallet in my handbag. I had no need to look into my bag until the early evening when I found my wallet was missing. Like most people (foolishly) I keep all my cards in my wallet. Having read the earlier post I assumed my wallet had been 'lifted' from my bag. I then had the unenviable task of telephoning the police and all the card issuers to report and cancel the cards. To say I had many uncharitable thoughts would be understatement!

This morning there was a ring at my doorbell and there stood an elderly woman together with a young Muslim girl. The girl had found my wallet outside the post office yesterday. She did try calling the police but as it wasn't a crime there was nothing they could do and unfortunately she was in a hurry to visit a sick friend in hospital. Looking at my wallet in more detail they found my drivers licence which had my address and they just walked round to return it. Obviously in my hurry I had not put the wallet back in my bag and it had fallen to the ground.

[Eagle]

What a lovely story. Well done those people.

[mosy]

I'm so pleased to hear that your wallet was returned - it does happen sometimes I keep my cards separately in my bag and once five or six years ago after it was stolen it was kindly returned to me by someone who'd found it discarded. Sadly, I never got to thank him personally as I wasn't in. The cards were intact and unused and the police said it was probably just an opportunistic crime for ready cash rather than sophisticated cloning whatever. The return itself was lucky as I could have lost thousands on credit cards if someone of that mind had found my bag instead of an honest person.

I still have faith in people Often I put my purse on the counter whilst loading my shopping and other customers often point it out thinking I might forget it. Mind you, I keep notes and keys in my pockets, so my purse only has coins in it. This from experiences of pick-pocketing that was frequent when I worked and shopped in central London - nothing like as bad in Sydenham

[bensonby]

I can tell you a story of a young woman who rang the police station a couple of weeks ago on the off chance that her house keys had been handed in to the front office. Much to her surprise they had been the day before....I'm not one for endless pessimism. I am firmly of the belief that most people are decent and law-abiding.

[Rachael]

My husband lost his wallet on the way to work one day - he was cycling and it fell out of his bag. Someone saw it fall and called after him but he didn't hear them. That same person looked in his wallet, found our address from the driver's licence and brought the wallet back to our house, with cards and about £100 of cash intact.

[bensonby]

I once found someone's wallet, it had a driver's license with an address up north in it.... I found out a landline through directory enquiries, rang it, found out the chap was a student and the address was his family home. His dad rang him and he came and picked up his wallet. Job was a good 'un.

[Hissing Syd]

That was lovely to hear. As I've said on here before, I absolutely love Sydenham and a big part of that is that the vast majority of people in this community are really very nice.

Whilst standing at the bus stop on Sydenham Rd last week at about 11.30pm, a woman and her young child came up to me, having guessed that I was waiting for the 202, to let me know it had been diverted and wouldn't be coming. I had headphones on and it would have been the easiest thing in the world just to leave me standing there blithely unaware, but she went out of her way to do a kindness, and I strode down the hill afterwards with a bit more of a spring in my step. So there!

[Mr_Sheen]

Coming home knackered after a night shift I found a mobile phone on the wall outside my place. Rather than going to bed I charged the phone up but couldn't ring or text any of the numbers as there was no credit left. I did a bit of detective work by googling one of the contacts (an organisation rather than a person) and got an address (which was a good half hour walk away) and returned it. I didn't even get a thank you. I'd still do it again because I hope someone would do the same for me.

[leenewham]

I put a couple of posts on this forum asking for help and I had some lovely people come around to help shift some windows.

Sydenham has some very generous and lovely people living in it. Thanks for starting this thread Gloria.