On … the kindness of strangers

day and asked if he had something precious belonging to her, he reached into his pocket and returned the ring.

Darling and her fiance, Bill Krejci, deciding to repay Billy Ray’s honesty, set up a fundraising page on the Give Forward website with the aim of raising $1000.

They never knew what they were starting. Once the story had been picked up by local TV, it took on a life of its own, and so did the fundraising page. The donations flooded in. As of yesterday lunchtime, the sum raised was $153,348, just over £100,000. The donations – from America, Europe (including Britain) and Asia –numbered 6487. And there are still 79 days left of the 90-day-long campaign. A local homeless charity says the money could do so much more when given to an agency but acknowledges that people feel connected to Billy Ray. Bill Krejci, who is stupefied by the success of what began as a simple plan to give Billy Ray a $1000 reward, met him last week, and discovered that their fathers both fought in Vietnam.

As for Billy Ray, he could now buy a three-bedroom house in Kansas City, though he may end up moving back to Texas, where he has family. He is baffled that so much money has been raised. “I don’t deserve it,” he says.

In the meantime, the connection grows: in the time it took me to type these 400 words, another few hundred dollars had come in. 1 Spiers on Sport: what to do with the Green Brigade? 2 Rangers chairman Malcolm Murray asked to leave “in best interests of club”. 3 Farage: Scottish independence is dead in the water and Sturgeon is out of her depth. 4 Cardinal O’Brien: Allow Catholic priests to marry. 5 A Chorus Line, The London Palladium. 1 Farage: Scottish independence is dead in the water and Sturgeon is out of her depth. 2 Pivotal role of culture in talking up independence. 3 Two-thirds vote No in student “indyref poll”. 4 Catholic Church facing “gravest crisis since Reformation”. 5 Steven Purcell breaks three-year silence to say: Glasgow must plan for “indyref” Yes.