Third Prize winner
In 1958 my world tour by scooter would have been cut very short if frostbite had taken my fingers while crossing the Persian Desert in winter.
My conscience has been troubled ever since because I was not able to thank the unknown man who stopped and gave me his gloves.
Letter
Dear Good Samaritan,
Do you remember the day we met? It was so cold. Snowflakes stabbed my eyes as the Vespa scooter bumped over those endless corrugations of the dirt road through the Persian Desert.
I was trying to go round the world on a scooter. You stared at the long front carrier with all the camping things and the great big box on the back of the scooter. That had all my food and all the clothes. But my poor hands! How stupid not to have brought gloves! I had never bothered with gloves. So I had put two socks on each hand and wrapped a plastic bag round that. Somehow it never worked. The cold crept in. So this was the beginning of frostbite. I would have to stop. The trouble was, if I stopped, would ‘Jemima’ the scooter start again?
That was when I saw you. Or rather I saw the tiny dot of your Volkswagen on the horizon of that endless flat desert track.
You got closer very quickly. And I became worried. This was Iran. I was a 24 year old Englishman from a rather sheltered background. What did I know of foreigners? Especially brown-skinned ones from a Muslim country. There was nobody else in sight. To me you were just another unknown person about my own age, muffled up against those sub-zero temperatures with sheepskin hat, sheepskin gloves, sheepskin coat.
Then you stopped your car in front of me and made me stop. I tried to get past you, but couldn’t You didn’t smile, but barked out something in Farsi. I believe I was rather pompous and told you to get out of the way. We both tried to get the other to understand but it was no good.
Then the most wonderful thing happened that has ever happened to me. Slowly you took off those giant sheepskin gloves from your own hands and gave them to me. You still never smiled – just got back in the car and drove off. I tried to thank you, but you could not understand.
We never met again. But in time life returned to my fingers and after that the trip went well. I have thought of you so often. Did you complete your journey? I wonder what sort of a person you really were. What sort of life have you had since? Were you a family man?
I married eventually and we had two children. I became a village schoolmaster, playing the piano for morning Assembly with the ten little fingers you helped to save. Every time I played I was grateful for your gift.
Moslems are supposed to help a stranger on a journey. Christians are supposed to help those in need, as the Good Samaritan did.
I never knew your name; so I just call you My Good Samaritan. Will you ever read this letter? I do hope so. I only wanted to say thank you properly.
Yours gratefully,
Ted Wheatley
