FORGET for one moment ISIS brides, horrific teenage killers and escalating knife crime and take a peek into the life of Tony Foulds.
He is the 82-year-old Sheffield pensioner who has spent a lifetime honouring the memory of 10 Second World War airmen whose plane crashed avoiding him and other youngsters in 1944.
The US crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress Mi Amigo all died during the Second World War. But Mr Foulds – who was just eight when the badly-damaged bomber limped over nearby homes and crashed into woodland – somehow believed he was “responsible” for their deaths.
As a result, since then he has travelled seven miles on foot almost every day to tend a memorial to the men. Last week, an amazing flypast by RAF and American planes over the site, was not only witnessed by him but by an estimated 10,000 local people.
This all happened after the BBC’s Dan Walker met Mr Foulds by chance and learned of his amazing commitment. The result was a story that put fresh meaning into the word “heartwarming”.
It also offered a remarkable boost to a public jaded by Brexit and in a week when the headlines seemed to be dominated by the worst of human nature.
Whatever happens next to this remarkable man, his example proves irrevocably that there is hope for the human race. Nor is he alone.
Not many people would have kept up this remarkable dedication to keeping the memory of 10 dead airmen alive and honoured. There are, though, still thousands of individuals who, quietly and with the same lack of fuss as he has shown over decades, help other people.
It may be calling regularly on a poorly relative or friend, doing shopping for a housebound pensioner or just informally taking on the care of someone else because they felt they should.
It may be aligning themselves to a charity or voluntary organisation that offers practical help and support to parents with young children struggling to cope, to visiting lonely elderly at home or in hospital or making hundreds of sandwiches for underprivileged children who wouldn’t otherwise get a lunch.
These are not “boring” or “sad” individuals who have nothing else in their lives. They are usually vibrant, interesting people who make space in already busy lives for others because they believe this is the right thing to do.
Bolton runs on the fuel of goodwill and caring that thousands of volunteers in every kind of situation employ.
They pick up litter to make our communities better places to be. They organise trips out for young and especially for older people who may not otherwise get out and about. They are life’s doers not whingers.
They don’t have time to check their Facebook account, if they’ve got one, a dozen times a day or spend hours trolling others or moaning constantly.
Like Tony Foulds, they just get on with it. They live life by their own code of decency, and perhaps so should we.
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