The Good Eritrean
could get up to. He accelerated past. It had been an
eighteen-hour shift at the hospital for the doctor
who next drove down the road. She was in no fit
state to do anything but keep awake long enough
to get home and to crawl in to bed. Compassion
flared momentarily as she drew closer and saw
what a state the businessman was in, but she simply
couldn’t face yet another patient. Reluctantly, and
with a heavy, guilty heart, she drove past. An
Eritrean asylum seeker, who by law shouldn’t have
been working at all, was doing night-delivery work,
reckoning that it was probably the safest way to go
undetected. It was terrible money of course, way
below what they called the “national living wage”
– but then he’d really work for anything when the
alternative was sitting around all day going quietly
mad. When he spotted the businessman in trouble
he pulled over, helped him ever so carefully into
his van, and drove to the nearest hospital, thinking
it was quicker than calling an ambulance to such
a remote spot at this time of night. When he got
to the hospital he gave the businessman his mobile
phone and his last £20 and promised to return the
next night to see how he was. After all, he himself
had been on the wrong end of violence like that
back home – although that had been ordered by
the government. Now which one of these three –
the JP, the doctor, or the Eritrean – proved to be a
neighbour and showed him kindness?
And what does that mean for you and for me?
by Nigel Rooms
O
ne night a businessman was driving down
from Birmingham Airport to Cardiff. The
flight from the conference had got in late
and there were no trains at that time of night. He
was tired and thought the back roads might keep
him more alert. Up ahead of him on a long country
road, probably built by the Romans, he spotted
a breakdown and someone waving him in to the
lay-by. For a moment he considered driving on, but
thought better of it and pulled in. The bonnet on
the other car was up and the driver beckoned him
over: “It’s knackered, mate, and I’ve no breakdown
cover – you couldn’t give me a lift to town could
you?” The businessman was just about to say, “Of
course,” when he was struck from behind – back
of the head, then kidneys, and a couple of kicks
in the ribs as he went down. He heard a rib crack
then felt it break a fraction of a second later. There
turned out to be three of them; they rifled through
his pockets, taking his wallet and phone, spotted
his laptop and sales gear in the car and took them
all. They then fled, laughing into the night, but
not without first making sure the businessman was
in no fit state to drive by administering further
violent blows on him. Slowly, and in pain, the man
propped himself up against his car hoping to flag
down a passing motorist. A magistrate was driving
home after a truly convivial Rotary Club dinner,
saw the man up ahead, and remembered the kind
of people he dealt with in court and what they
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