Rewind and be kind: what happens if you do one act of kindness every day?

When Bernadette Russell decided to perform one good deed every day for a year, it made a difference to the world around her but also had a big impact on her own life

It has been nearly 14 years since a chance encounter with a stranger in a post office changed Bernadette Russell’s life forever. The date was Thursday 18 August 2011. For weeks, on the news, as a series of riots broke out across cities in England, Russell had been inundated with images of young people in hoodies looting, pillaging and setting buildings on fire.

Now, standing in front of her at her local post office counter in Deptford, south London, was a young man in a hoodie.