Hi Reader,

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I'm writing this in the car whilst being driven to Colchester - some precious child-free moments in the middle of the school holiday struggle and juggle.

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​Last weekend me and my son Roscoe were at Womad festival. We go every year, but this year felt exceptional. The weather was great, dancing to the Ghanaian High-life legend Pat Thomas in the sunshine was a definite highlight, and Roscoe staying up late enough for us to watch Young Fathers light up the night with their blistering assault on the senses was something else.

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Roscoe's festival experience is quite different to most. He's a 10 year old autistic kid who loves to chat, is more interested in the big wheel than the music, and the map of the festival site in his head is more about the location of fans and lamps than it is stages and food trucks.

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His favourite lamps are in the Chai tent. They're homemade out of papier mache by the tent's owners, with retro lampshade shapes but swirly new colours. Next to the counter they have a huge standard lamp. It's Roscoe's favourite. We've been going there specifically to check in on this lamp for the past eight Womads now.

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The first year, that big standard lamp was his happy place. We'd visit it several times a day. It was a little haven for him, away from the hustle and bustle of his first festival (he was only nearly three at the time). I'd often buy a Chai tea there and we'd sit and chat to people, but after you've had a few of them it gets a bit hard on the stomach as well as the wallet, so the owners would just let us sit there without buying anything, just looking at the lamp, and Roscoe occasionally checking if it could be turned on or not.

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The second year we went, they remembered us. At the end of that second festival, we were just leaving, when the owner shouted over "No, wait! Don't go!". We turned back to see he had a box. Inside it were a bunch of the lampshades he'd made. He said most of them were broken, but that they'd been so taken with Roscoe, that he could choose one and take it home with him. So that year, we took a little bit of the Womad Chai tent home with us, and he told everyone who would listen.

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Every year, we return to the Chai tent, and when anyone in there asks us about Roscoe's lamp addiction, inevitably the story that he has one of the Chai tent's lampshades at home gets told. He tells all the staff. The customers tell each other. The owner comes out from the back to say hello. Lamp club is in session.

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From that single act of kindness seven years ago - giving my son a broken lampshade - has come hundreds of moments where someone tells that tale. When we're arranging to meet our friends, guess which tent we arrange to meet in. Guess where we all buy our breakfasts and cakes and Chai teas.

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That moment of kindness wasn't done for commercial gain, but nevertheless from it, the owner of the Chai tent has many new customers. And many of his existing customers feel slightly warmer about his 'brand' and perhaps spend a little more there or bring their friends in.

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Kindness helps us create the version of the world we want to be in, and it helps us demonstrate to our customers, staff and anyone else who might hear it that we care, we connect, and we want something more than just good numbers on a page. But luckily it gives us that too.

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Have a great week,

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Graham

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