Derek has now learnt that beggars can be huggers!

When the chores are complete, Pour that cup of tea, Relax yourself with a book, Or perhaps some TV; No need for rushing now, Reward yourself, be pleased, Don’t make life a bustle, And it will be a breeze.

Derek did not look happy.

“I have always told my children not to give money to street beggars,” he told me. “I’m convinced most are con artists and spoil it for those in real need.”

He told me about walking down Buchanan Street when it was thronged with shoppers and losing sight of his grown-up daughter Stacey. As he scanned the crowd he started to worry. Then he saw her straighten up – beside a beggar.

“So, I said to her,” he continued, “‘I thought I told you never to give them money.’

“And Stacey looked me in the eye and told me: ‘ You never said I couldn’t give a poor soul a hug and wish better for him!’”

Derek’s frown was replaced by the smile of a proud dad as he agreed: “No, I never did say that.”

“DO you remember how exciting it was as a child,” Andy asked, “when you put your hand in your pocket and discovered a toy or a spring or a sweet you had forgotten was there?”

Well, of course I did! Even though the thing itself usually had no value for anyone else, as a wee boy I always discovered or rediscovered those items with the excitement of pirates digging up treasure.

Andy held up the small rucksack he carries wherever he goes.

He took a toy car and a piece of blue sea-glass from one pouch and a curiously-shaped stick and a bubble-wrapped snail shell from the other.

“Well, you get to experience it all over again as a grandad – and it’s no less fun the second time around!”

I STEPPED off the train next to a young woman on her way home from work.

Another woman waited for her on the platform with a wee girl who looked about four years old.

As the girl ran to her mummy, the woman who had been looking after her laughed apologetically, saying: “She still has ravioli on her face!”

It occurred to me that if I knew nothing else about that little girl – and I didn’t – I knew, at least, that she was loved by at least two people – and she was fed.

A voice in my head asked: “So what?”

And I replied that millions of children across the world lacked those things and would love to have them.

A little, all-but-unnoticed, moment of heaven on a railway platform.