Sir, – On Saturday afternoon, we took our three young children into Dublin to see the Christmas lights. As often happens, they weren’t as thrilled as we hoped they’d be and after a couple of hours of precious little Christmas spirit, we finally gave up and got the bus home. Our four-year old daughter fell asleep and after carrying her off the bus and laying her down on the couch at home, we realised one of her shoes was missing.
I went out to the bus stop when the next 11 bus was due and flagged it down. Our stop is the last one before the terminus and there were no passengers on board. The driver, a heavy-bearded Asian man, stopped the bus for several minutes while I explained about the shoe.
He immediately got on the intercom and passed on the information to head office. I left him my name and phone number and he said, “Don’t worry, sir, we will find the shoe for you”.
A couple of hours later, around 10.30 that night, my phone rang. It was the bus driver I had spoken to earlier. The line was bad, but he explained that this was because he was in the train going home after work. He said they had found the shoe and to run out immediately and flag down the 11 bus. I did so and the driver held up the shoe and said, “This what you’re looking for?”.
I called the original driver on his phone again to thank him. He said: “Times are hard now and anyone who goes to such lengths to find a child’s shoe must really want it back.” I asked him his name and he said it was an easy one to remember. It was Usman.
Mr Usman the Busman and your colleagues at Dublin Bus, thank you and Merry Christmas. – Yours, etc,