Strapped for cash? Money is tight for many people at this time of year and while we may long for a guardian angel or kind stranger to swoop in and get us out of the red, we generally have to just muddle through solo until payday.
But not 23-year-old Ella Johannessen, a Leeds Beckett University graduate, who woke up from a nap on a train to find £100 from an anonymous fellow passenger under a napkin on her lap on Saturday afternoon.
She had been talking about how "stressed and upset" she was about her financial situation on the phone to her mum while travelling on a Virgin Trains East Coast service to Leeds from Peterborough station.
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She had been trying to locate £35 that was meant to have been sent to her via bank transfer, before hanging up, taking a brief nap and waking up to find a wad of £20 notes.
Johannessen documented the fortuitous, heartwarming incident in a now-viral Facebook post, which has racked up more than 9ooo reactions and 7000 shares at the time of writing. She urged people to share the post in the hope that the kindly person would see it.
"After speaking to my mum I hung up the phone and went to sleep, I woke up about half hour later and noticed a napkin on my lap," she wrote. "Under the napkin was £100. I started to cry – this is because I was incredibly thankful for your kindness to someone you don't even know.
"After a terrible 18 months where I lost my father and both of his parents, it showed me that there is kindness and good people in the world. I will pass your kindness on. I want to say thank you to the person who gave me this gift, I hope you will eventually see this."
She had found herself in debt after quitting her part-time job during the final year of her course to focus on her studies, she told the BBC, adding that she had decided to volunteer at a charity to continue the chain of kindness.
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