It’s been a good week for ... unexpected finds
Falling asleep on the train often doesn’t end well. There’s the possibility of missing your stop. Or waking to find your mouth agape and a thread of drool running from your chin to your chest. Just how loudly had you been snoring?
But a sleeping passenger on a train to Leeds awoke in rather more pleasant circumstances – on her lap was a napkin with £100 in notes hidden underneath.
Ella Johannessen had been talking on the phone to her mother about feeling "stressed and upset" over her finances. The stranger's gift will stop her from going over her overdraft limit.
The 23-year-old Leeds Beckett University graduate had got into debt during her final year after giving up her part-time job to concentrate on her studies. Calling her mum, she'd become upset about how little money she had and how worried she was.
On finding the money she started to cry as she was "incredibly thankful" for the kind stranger's help. "After a terrible 18 months where I lost my father and both of his parents it showed me that there is kindness and good people in the world," she said. "I would like to tell the person that they are a fantastic human being and it has really lifted my spirits and massively helped me out."
Perhaps you can depend on the kindness of strangers after all.
It’s been a bad week for ... unexpected finds
Two metal detectorists were celebrating after striking gold – a stash of 50 Roman coins. Andy Sampson and Paul Adams had been metal detecting in a field on the Suffolk/Essex border when they found the gold coins with pottery. Sampson said his friend started "shouting and jumping around and dancing" after he found the treasure.
But all that glisters is not gold. Their dream of cashing in on the haul, which they believed could have been worth up to £250,000, were dashed when it emerged the coins were fake, a prop for the BBC series Detectorists.
The show stars Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones as Andy and Lance, two metal-detecting buddies who dream of uncovering a priceless trove that would cement their place in detecting history. Alas, this big find eludes them.
As Oscar Wilde once said, life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
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