Sometimes you find yourself in a situation when you can do something for someone you don't know, for no reward, apart from a very grateful thank you. I want to share this with you today because I hope you can get the same pleasure I got yesterday for a little of my time.

I got a call at 12.30 from a very anxious lady called Rita, she was calling us as a dentist in Burnley to help her. Her denture was broken and she had an important family meal last evening. She could have come to see Mike, my husband here at Briercliffe Road Dental Practice and he would have said, yep that's broken, we'll send it to our technician and you can pick it up Monday. However, no denture meant no going to the family meal. I thought about a dental laboratory over the road, but he's on holiday so I called our Dental Technician Michael Fogg. He knows just what I am like :) I ended up meeting Rita at 2.30 outside TK Maxx and Michael met us there. Rita had no transport and Michael's lab is in Colne (what I thought should be 15 minutes away). Michael whizzed off to mend Rita's denture and said she could pick it up around 5pm. I couldn't leave Rita wandering round having to try to find a bus so I took her back to our dental practice which closes early on a Friday for a thorough strip down cleaning. She had a couple of cups of tea and read the newspaper whilst I made a call about my faulty printer. By 3.45 my printer was fixed and I was ready to take Rita to Colne for 4pm.

I had been bought a Spa voucher for my birthday and was meeting some friends at 4.15 at The Woodland Spa at Crow Wood which is about 15 minutes away from Colne. Rita was happy to hang around in Colne (as no one would know her there :) and her son could pick her up at 5pm when she had collected her denture. What I didn't anticipate was the traffic, we got into Colne around 4.25pm.

Rita is a lovely lady who I never would have met. Her son rang her and she told him what I was doing, he said she'd met a saint - I don't think so but I do love to help people when I can. She was so looking forward to her meal with the family, made possible by me. How good did that make me feel ? Incredibly so. Yes I was 10 minutes late to meet my friends but I can highly recommend the Spa, it was lovely.

What am I posting this? Not so you'll think what a nice person I am, but because we can all do things like this for not much effort that make such a difference to someone else. Michael, our dental technician also put himself out yesterday which he has done for me on more than one occasion. He was charging Rita just £20 for the repair despite putting himself out, obviously there was no charge to Rita from us. 

Rita said,how can I ever repay you, I said Pay it Forward. Next time you can do something for someone else, you can get the same pleasure I have got from helping you, now go and enjoy your family meal.

Here at Briercliffe Road Dental Practice, we do go the extra mile to help even for someone we don't know or who isn't paying us. If you think we can help you (preferably with dentistry!) , call us on 01282 415104

Helen Powell

Mike's wife and Practice Manager