neighbours

Living in Stratford for nearly half a year, I’ve started to feel the neighbourhood settling into me: the familiar routes, the friendly shops, and the strangers I somehow notice more than others.

One of them is the old woman who always stands in the same spot on the bridge between Westfield and Stratford Station. Same clothes, same bent posture, shaking a container with a few coins inside. Most people walk past without looking. Maybe they’ve grown used to seeing beggars in this city of immigrants. And with everything becoming cashless, her “income” must have dropped. I realised I was one of the few who still had coins to give, the leftovers from a rare cash purchase. It’s easier to tap a phone than to make the small effort of carrying change. 

Mercy now requires extra steps. But maybe something I can do. 

There were days when I deliberately shopped in cash just to have something to give her. Today, when the cashier handed me two pounds in coins, I walked out for ten seconds then turned back.

“Could you give me smaller coins? I want to give them to the beggars.”

I worried I was bothering her. This is London, after all, where everyone rushes and no one wants to be interrupted. I expected a cold face or an annoying frown. But to my surprise, she paused, looked at me, and asked gently, “Do you prefer twenties or fifties?”

Didn’t she also make an extra effort for a stranger?

If I hadn’t turned back, I would have missed two small moments: her kindness, and my own. Both made us feel a little better, in different ways.

Maybe that’s why Stratford is becoming more than “just the place”, with quiet observations and compassion stitching themselves into the rhythm of my days.