A MUM who was given a heart-warming note commending her parenting skills has been reunited with the kind mystery man who left it.

Ken Saunders, 50, from Brinkworth, wrote a message to single mum Samantha Welch, 23, calling her a “credit to her generation” after watching her look after her three-year-old son Rylan on a train.

He signed off as “the man on the train at table with glasses and hat. Have a lovely evening”, and handed it over as he got off the train, along with a £5 note.

Samantha was so touched by the note she launched an online campaign to find the man, and the pair were reunited at his home yesterday.

Little Rylan gave the NHS IT worker a thank-you card and a cuddle and told him: “Thank you, I’m going to spend it on my mummy.”

Samantha had been visiting family in Crewe and was heading home to Plymouth last Thursday, changing trains at Birmingham.

She sat close to Ken, who had been in Leeds and was heading back to Wiltshire after a week-long training course.

Before he got off the train in Bristol he watched as she taught her lad good manners and gave up a seat to a fellow passenger.

He said he handed over the cash because Rylan reminded him of his own daughter, Romani, now 20, when she was younger, and he was impressed by Samantha’s attitude.

“She brightened up my day, and I wanted to brighten hers,” he said.

“The effort she put into tracking me down just to say thank you only shows what a lovely person she is. It’s quite overwhelming.

“This young lady got on with her little boy. He was a lovely, lively lad and he reminded me of my daughter when she was his age.

“She was doing really well on the train with him and all the paraphernalia – the pram and everything else. It’s not easy for any mum.

“Then he coughed and she said, ‘Put your hand over your mouth’, and he practised that for a little bit.

“Then he said ‘What?’ and she said, ‘No, it’s pardon’.

“Then the train split in half and it got much busier, with more passengers getting on, and she pulled him on to her lap and offered her seat to a few people.

“I thought ‘what a lovely girl – a really good role model to the little lad and for other youngsters’. Young people are much maligned, but she was great.”

When Ken left the train he pulled out his ticket and found a fiver and a scrap of paper so decided to leave the message “on the spur of the moment”.

The note said: “Have a drink on me, you’re a credit to your generation, polite and teaching the little boy good manners.

“PS: I have a daughter your age, someone did the same for her once. Hope when she has children she is as good a mother as you.”

n Has someone ever rewarded you with a random act of kindness? Tell us all about it at newsdesk@ swindonadvertiser.co.uk