On Friday 1st October, I was the driver who hit a garage forecourt wall in Wotton under Edge at the corner of Bear Street and Gloucester Street, which was wholly my fault.

I was on my way to a new job as a chef in Shropshire when I was distracted and the accident happened, but thankful that it was only my pride and a brick wall that suffered, as well as my car unfortunately being a ‘write-off’.

Only being insured Third Party, I was virtually left to my own devises, to arrange recovery and scrapping of the car there and then and then finding a way of getting to Shropshire, both seemingly difficult late on a Friday afternoon in an rural area.

Sadly, many passers-by thought my accident was funny and took images on their mobile phones and made remarks like ‘that will teach you’ and ‘oh dear, that’s a write-off’.

That may be so, but this is so unkind and not what you want to hear when you are badly shaken and find yourself totally ‘abandoned’ in a country you don’t know that well.

Nobody came to offer any real help or shelter, I was simply left to remove my case and recover all other belongings from the car into a shopping bag and stand and feel total isolated.

I had just finished speaking to my unhelpful insurance company when a lady came up and asked if she could help.

I said that I had some more calls to make, so she offered to return in 30 minutes, which she did.

There was nothing further I could do at my car and so she kindly offered to take me home, a short distance away.

Here the lady and her husband made me really welcome and helped me to make various phone arrangements I had not been able to do so myself and offered drink and food.

They then offered to get me on my way and having looked up train times, made time to take me to Parkway Station near Bristol to catch a suitable train.

They ensured that I had sufficient money and drinks etc to continue my journey and we said goodbye.

There are some really kind people in this world and the two people I know simply as Kate & Ken are two of them. I will be forever grateful.

Martin Bandura,

Church Stretton.