OPINION: Small acts of kindness can mean a lot

I have done some follow-up work, 25 years later, on a group of young offenders I studied during the early 1970s (see The Milltown Boys, Youth Work Press). Some have done surprisingly well in their lives, others have ticked along and some have remained firmly attached to a life of unemployment, crime and drug misuse.

When I go to the pub where the latter group still hangs out, I am introduced to those who do not know me as, "this is How, he used to look after us when we were little". It provokes some strange images in my head. The thought of anybody "looking after" these worldly wise hard men is virtually impossible to contemplate.

Moreover, I find it hard to remember ever actively intending to "look after" any of them, but it is surprising what they recall in terms of my having done so.

Mal is no longer part of that group but he, like others among the boys, holds to the same perspective about my role in their lives when they were young. Mal has held down regular employment all his adult life, is a homeowner and has two teenage daughters who are doing reasonably well at school.

When I met him again in 2000, his wife Jane greeted me enthusiastically with a peck on the cheek. We had, of course, never met, although they have been married for almost 20 years. She said that she had heard a lot about me. Mal thought the world of me. I could not understand why: he had been a relatively peripheral character when I had done my original study. But Jane said: "You went to court with him when he was 15."

This was absolutely true. I went to court many times with many of the boys. But Mal's experience was slightly unusual. He had been arrested on a football trip to Bristol for possession of an offensive weapon and had subsequently to appear at Bristol juvenile court. Now it is one thing to go to another city with a crowd of youths on a football special, quite another to make your own way alone. Mal's parents were disinterested: he was the one who had got into trouble, he was the one who had to take the consequences. Nothing to do with them.

I offered to go with him. For me, this was just a routine component of my research. But for Mal, apparently, it was much more than this. I helped him to get there, made the day a bearable trip, kept him company, explained the procedure. The 15-year-old on the football trip, an independent and tough hard man, was a nervous and vulnerable teenager on the day he went to court. I gave him support when he needed it, and he has never forgotten. What may seem to us to be small contributions to young people's lives can have a significance for them that is almost impossible for us to imagine.