One morning, my dad was driving to work in London when he stopped at a petrol station to fill up. There, he spotted a pregnant girl, barely nineteen, holding a handwritten sign and looking utterly lost. She asked him for spare change, but he muttered something about only having notes and climbed back into his car, ready to drive off.
But thenperhaps feeling a twinge of guilthe rolled down the window and called her over. “Howd you end up like this?” he asked, in that blunt yet caring way Brits do. The girl, named Emily, explained shed fallen out with her parents over “life choices” (a phrase that covered a multitude of sins). Shed got pregnant, theyd kicked her out, and now she was sleeping on a mates sofa with no job and no prospects.
Dad raised an eyebrow. “No savings? No benefits?” She shook her head. After a pause, he fished out a business card. “Ring me tomorrow,” he said, in a tone that brooked no argument.
Emily did. A week later, she was answering phones at his officebasic stuff, but a start. Fast forward five years, and shes now a deputy director, owns a terraced house in Manchester, and sends my dad Christmas cards signed with far too many exclamation marks. Not bad for a girl who once asked for spare change at a Shell garage.
