By

Thomas G Richardson

My daughter had been at primary school for only 3 days on Wednesday she came back in tears. When my wife and I asked her what was wrong she replied “Everyone has a friend but I haven’t any”

For a while I ponder what I could do. At the time I was in my early twenties but already had a degree in psychology. I took her by the hand and told my wife and son to follow me to her bedroom. At the time my daughter was going to a strictly catholic school and in those days it was strict. Brain washing could take lessons from the Catholics.

Once we reached the bedroom I knelt down and asked them to do likewise. I then closed my eyes and started to pray. It went along the following lines. Dear Jesus please make sure that Theresa gets a friend and always has friends from now on” I then solemnly got to my feet and declared “that’s it then I bet you get a friend soon Jesus always answers our prayers” behind my back my fingers were crossed. Jesus knew they were crossed so I wasn’t really a hypocrite.

On Thursday night my daughter came skipping home and declared I have got a new friend her name is Carla Rossi. She was the daughter of one of the local ice cream magnets her family were millionaires when being a millionaire meant you had money if you know what I mean. Let’s face it today a millionaire is considered short of cash these days! We seem to talk in multi or better still billions.

The strange thing (or should I say obvious thing) was that from then on my daughter had lots of friends and all were rich. When I was in the Army I was an other rank but all my daughters friends were officer’s daughters and sons. It did not matter where we went she always had top drawer friends. Although I do not believe in religion I do believe in God. I feel that God decided he had a purpose for Theresa and she need to have the right back ground with the appropriate contacts. For non believers this may seem like wishful thinking but let us look at some facts.

Today my daughter is a Harley Street Consultant in ophthalmology. There have been several times when she has waived her fees for people she knew would go blind if not treated but she knew could not afford her fees privately.

In one case a little old lady came to see her about cataracts. The lady was almost blind and decided she could not wait the months it was going to take on the NHS so she was going private. My daughter told her the cost would be £3000 and the lady hesitantly said she could just afford that. My daughter said to her “Listen I am running a survey on cataracts at the moment for a charity and I could put you in that if you wish. The lady asked how much that would cost and my daughter said not very much really no where near the usual cost.” She said a beam of a smile came on to her face that reminded her of her grand mother. The operation was performed a week later with a perfect result. The lady asked how much it would be and my daughter said give £50 to your favourite charity. The survey was of course bogus but my daughter had saved that old lady not only £3000 (which she had assessed were her life saving) but her pride and of course her eyesight. To that old lady her pride was probably worth more than the cash but she lost neither. She was of course not made wise to the fact that there was no survey.

As Dave Allen used to say “May your God go with you”

If Carla Rossi reads this please get in touch