One act of kindness that befell British writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Then a student living just north of London, he spins the story of himself during a young, troubled, and disrupted time in life. "... my mother was in hospital and not expected to survive the night. "Get home, son," my dad said. I got to the railway station to find I'd missed the last train. A train was going as far as Peterborough, but I would miss the connecting Leeds train by twenty minutes. I bought a ticket and got on anyway. I was so desperate that I planned to nick a car in Peterborough, hitchhike, steal some money, something, anything. I just knew from my dad's tone of voice that my mother was going to die that night..."
