A happy ending...

It's always good to read a story with a happy ending, and Stuff has one this morning:

When Peter Molan read how thieves had stolen a widower's car from a cemetery as he visited his wife's grave, he knew he had to act.

"I just sat back and thought about it for a while," the retired Whanganui trucking company owner said. "And then I thought, 'No, bugger it, I have to do something'."

And he has. He has offered Alex Tairoa a replacement car, an early 1990s Ford Laser, so he can continue to visit wife Margaret's grave in Masterton.

The "tidy little car" is registered, has a current warrant of fitness, four new tyres, and only 62,000km on the clock.

"It'll be perfect for him, and it will give him his independence back," Mr Molan said.

Reading the story of Mr Tairoa, a 77-year-old great-grandfather, had brought tears to his eyes.

"I thought the whole thing was disgusting. What kind of low-life would do something like that?"

He hoped to meet Mr Tairoa when he came to pick up the car in the coming weeks.

"He looks like such a nice man, and the way he loves his wife, and for some mongrel to take his car away . . ." 

And Mr Tairoa is blown away by the kind offer that has been made to him:

Yesterday Mr Tairoa, a retired slaughterman, was still stunned by the offer. "It's incredible, I got such a shock," he said.

"When the police rang up and told me, I didn't believe them.

"I said, 'Oh bullshit,' and they had to tell me, 'No, it's no bullshit'."

He was visiting the grave of his wife of 56 years, who died in February, at Masterton's Riverside cemetery last Friday morning.

He left the keys in the ignition while he chatted with his "special lady" about 20 metres away.

On hearing a noise, he turned and saw someone driving off in his green Mazda 626.

The car is yet to be recovered.

"It's pretty hard to believe that someone would do that at a cemetery," he said.

"But this shows that people care . . . for every bad one out there, there's a good one.

"A lot of people were telling me that someone might do something like this but I didn't believe them - I still think it might not come true." 

For all the unpleasant stuff that goes on in our communities, there are still plenty of people who are prepared to do a good turn for someone who's down on their luck. We salute Peter Molan, and we wish Mr Tairoa good motoring.