Christmas came early for pensioner Joyce Boots when she thought she had lost £120 – and now she would like to find her mystery benefactor.
In an amazing gesture of goodwill, a stranger at a Doncaster supermarket insisted on paying for all of the 82-year-old’s shopping.
And to prove Joyce’s change of fortune was not a flash in the pan, an honest bus passenger handed in her missing bag with all her money.
Now Joyce, of Kirkstone Close, Bentley, would like to repay the mystery man or if he does not come forward she will donate the £65 he gave her to an African orphans’ charity.
Joyce’s daughter Rosemary Wilkinson said: “Those two things have completely restored our faith in human nature and shows there is goodwill around at this time of year.
“I was shopping with my mum but at a separate checkout when I realised she was upset.
“I was quite happy to pay her bill and offered to three times but this lovely man insisted he would pay it.
“He just put his debit card in the chip and pin and paid. We were so surprised we didn’t get the chance to get his name, all I know he was a man in his 50s and casually dressed.”
Joyce initially thought she had lost her bag with the £120 in it inside Morrison’s supermarket on York Road, Doncaster, or that it had been stolen. But a short while after Rosemary got home she got a call from the Stagecoach bus firm to say it had been handed in to one of their drivers on the Scawsby route. They had traced her through next-of-kin details on Joyce’s organ donor card.
Joyce added: “I couldn’t believe what this gentleman did. I was very distressed at the time and he just said he’d pay for it and was so insistent.
“He wouldn’t take Rosemary’s money. This was a complete stranger and I can’t believe his kindness.
“Now I feel guilty that I’ve got my money back and can’t repay him. If he contacts The Star I will send him the money but if he doesn’t I will donate £65 to a charity in Burkina Faso which Bentley Pentecostal Church supports.
“This shows there are still a lot of honest and kind people in this world and I am so grateful to them.”
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