This happened a while back. I was reminded of it today. I saw an old person finding it hard to walk who had a beautiful smile. Not bone structure. I don't mean that. Not that kind of beauty. It was the generosity in her smile which I mean; and what it showed of the person she was.

A pretty smile has persuaded me several times that a monster is otherwise; and most of the time, for most of our lives, we can find each other acceptable, but no more, possibly without thinking if we are speaking of appearances or behaviour. Don't you think so?

This woman today was not prepossessing.... 

Look at this. It doesn't show you what I want you to see; but perhaps it shows enough. For me, it triggers the memory I'll have to say to you, because there are no pictures of the important part. 

These kids here, all uncoordinated and really with half-formed minds, smell some herring I am carrying home from Penzance. We're in Penzance here. And around now, though the camera's not on him - well, it's timed out actually - one of them says Mister, you smell of piss; or something of that sort.

It was the fish; but what if I had smelt of piss? Would I want to!? Would I want to be *told in public?

I took out one of the fish and pushed it towards the young man, waving it around, using it a bit like a glove puppet, I suppose. They writhed away from it. They don't see anything ill or dying usually; and they live in an overly-perfumed environment where they can't even smell themselves. "Uuuugghhh!" was the response "You going to eat that?" They didn't know enough to realise I was buying what is now a cheap food; or they'd have mocked me some more.

What I really wish I had filmed, instead of wasting memory on them, though one only catches these things by filming at random, was the boarding of the bus by an extremely old lady. What happened when she had boarded. 

She was behind the children, of course. They wouldn't wait for her. I was on before her, and watched her progress.

She was arthritic. She had difficulty even with the low platform. The creases and wrinkles in her dry face made me think of how an unmade road gets when its been driven on and dried out only to be driven on again in the wet and then dried out again, ruts overlaying ruts.

I remember there being no expression except a suggestion of pain willed away, leaving a simulated mask.

It was as if she had been enlarged. Her ankles resembled the base of a coppiced tree.

She got up to the driver and started opening her bag for her old person's card, whatever that's called.

I don't need that, said the driver; but I'll tell you what. You look even more beautiful than usual. Give us a kiss.

And they puckered up and kissed. He said Thank you! with gusto.

The careless children couldn't handle it; but her awareness was remade, tears in her eyes and laughing at the same time.