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Share your kindness

YOU ran a story last week about donating old bikes and computers to help job club members get back to work and I thought your readers might like to know what happened next.

The response was both heartwarming and amazing with offers of bikes and computers coming in. This just confirmed the fact that deep down, most of us would make that random act of kindness to a stranger given the chance.

Your readers are truly wonderful people and I want to thank them for their kindness from the bottom of my heart.

I am very lucky in my various volunteering roles to meet some really special people who mostly, through no fault of their own, find the odds stacked up against them.

The single parents who desperately want to build a better future for their children within the hours they have available, the long term carers who suddenly find that their life has passed them by and those who have been told so often that they are worthless that they believe it to be true.

All I know is that when someone believes in them, they begin to believe in themselves and that is when those random acts of kindness can give someone their life and dignity back.

So if any of your readers happen to hear of jobs that have not been advertised yet or if they are the kind of employer who has the vision to look beyond what is and to see what these wonderful people can become, please send an email to me at positivethoughts@cheerful.com.

If we come together on this, your random act of kindness can and will change lives. Let’s do it!

RAY DAWSON, Serial volunteer

Republic won’t leave

FURTHER to Noel Gardner’s letter re the Irish border, the Republic of Ireland would surely not be interested in leaving the EU as they have been dragged into the 21st century as a result of EU funding over the last 40 years.

There is 500km of border to consider with about 300 official and unofficial crossings uncontrolled since the Army withdrew.

In the border areas the only way you know which country you are in is if road signs are in English and miles or km and Gaelic.

Post Brexit my concern would be that illegal immigrants could reach the UK via Ireland because we are still signatories to the Common Travel Area agreement and this is unlikely to be repealed.

MATTHEW MARRS, Ely Close, Toothill, Swindon

Too hot for some

UPON phoning Swindon Borough Council to inquire why my (and neighbours’ ) green garden waste bins had not been emptied – normally every other Monday for which we pay £50 a year – I was informed that, ‘it’s too hot for the men to work’.

Well, I am 81 and last weekend I refereed a football tournament for several hours each day. And that was HOT !

RODNEY J M WIRDNAM, Whilestone Way, Swindon