Short story READER’S

Today is the start of Children’s Mental Health Week, and we’re marking it with a heartwarming tale by Shirley McCulley in Camberley, Surrey, showing how a small act of kindness lasts a lifetime.

The woman sat in the sunshine, waiting patiently for her husband to return with their daughter. He had taken the child into a nearby shop for sweeties.

The woman sat quietly talking softly to her disabled son sitting in his special pushchair. The child took pleasure from his mother’s smile and her warm touch.

She was content to sit and enjoy the warm day and watch other families passing by.

A father sat near her and smiled at her son in the pushchair.

He also had a child, a lovely boisterous lad, the same age as her son, she thought.

She noticed that his little chap was wearing a bright yellow T-shirt with his name boldly emblazoned across his chest, the same name as her own son, Stuart. The father seemed friendly, so she plucked up the courage to ask where he had purchased the T-shirt, explaining her son shared the same name. He told her and then father and son set off with a cheery wave.

Minutes later she looked up to see the young lad standing before her, bare-chested, holding out his T-shirt and saying he wanted to give it to her son.

She fought back tears and tried to thank the lad and to say that she couldn’t possibly accept and that he would be cold without his shirt.

But the father said: “Please take it, my son wants your little boy to have it.”

This is a true story. I am that woman and my beautiful son, Stuart, will be 55 this year.

Even though it was a long time ago, I have never forgotten that child, who must be a grown man with children of his own now.

Submit your short story (up to 500 words) to siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk