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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Sally Howard

‘It’s hard not to get caught in the act’: meet the people who help total strangers

An illustration of a large bunch of flowers with a tag with 'Dear Stranger, have a lovely day' written on it with figures standing round smiling and smelling the flowers, and other human-like, elastic creatures weaving themselves among the flowers
Good Samaritans: would you leave money and flowers for a person you’d never met? Illustration: Laurie Avon/The Observer

A few weeks ago Marilyn Devonish buttonholed a stranger to compliment her outfit. It was a natty, colour-matched mauve jacket and pumps, but that wasn’t the point. Dashing home from a shopping trip, Devonish had noticed the woman’s harried look and slow, defeated gait.

“The weight of the world was on her shoulders, but she was dressed in such a lovely way and I just had to tell her that,” Devonish explains. But the subject of her attention was taken aback. “Just minutes earlier she had caught her reflection in a shop window and told herself how bad she looked.”

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