General News
23 May, 2025
Kindness is my currency
If you ever wondered who returns wayward shopping trolleys to their trolley bays or keeps the streets clean from coffee cup lids, straws, and fast food wrappers, the Mail-Times has found Horsham's volunteer extraordinaire who does it all, and their reasons - just to make the world a better place.
Timothy Mudford moved to Horsham eight years ago and noticed discarded shopping trolleys in the streets, trolleys in the wrong bays and abandoned in car parks and decided Horsham could do better.
This led to a mission to make his part of the world a better place.
After a full day working at the Bull and Mouth Hotel as the resident 'jack of all trades', he spends at least an hour and a quarter every evening circling the shopping centre car parks, sorting shopping trolleys and returning them to the right bays, all the time picking up rubbish as he goes and dropping it into bins.
"I just do it because it makes the world a better place," he said.
I have worked out a configuration; I loop the shops and the car park, and it saves me going back over my tracks.
"If I don't do it every night, it gets on top of me because there are so many trolleys left in the wrong places," he said.
Mr Mudford admits he likes order and efficiency, and says with his routine, he can keep the area around that part of Horsham neat and clean.
"I did a quick calculation when I knew I was going to be interviewed, and I think conservatively I have done that loop about 1400 times. I have it down pat now, so it doesn't take me long."
Mr Mudford believes variety in life is essential, especially in your working life; so at the end of the day, his shopping trolley duty, all volunteered, is his exercise.
"I don't go to the gym because I walk quickly for over an hour on my loop and I'm pushing trolleys and bending down to pick up rubbish, it's my gym time."
Mr Mudford can often be seen washing businesses windows, which he says he does for fun.
"I just do it for businesses that need it, and it helps them out," he said.
"Everyone needs help sometimes, and if I can do that, it makes their world a better place."
He noticed some graffiti on a building on one of his regular walks and had a quick chat with the building owner, and he located some left over matching paint so Mr Mudford painted over the graffiti so it looked better.
"Well, you could see it when you walked past, and you can't have that," he said.
"It's not hard."
While he will gather up trolleys whenever he is around, he says the best time is after 6pm, because most of the cars are gone and its easier to get the trolleys sorted and its a clean start for everyone the next morning.
"I do a big clean up on Christmas Day and Good Friday because shops aren't open and the car parks are empty and I can just work all day without interruption and tidy the place up, - it's not hard," he said.
Jobs that most of us walk past are his enjoyment, and he likes keeping busy.
"I meet good people.
"However, one lady said to me I didn't have to do it because I wasn't being paid to do it but I explained, I deal in kindness and it's not hard."
He has been a part of Tidy Towns for the past three years, and with others, he works on keeping the parking bays just outside of Horsham neat and rubbish-free.
For relaxation he heads off to the movies.
"I love the movies but it's the cinema experience that I love most," he said.
"I sit four rows back from the front in the centre and seriously it's just like being home watching TV but bigger."
He thinks paperboys should be brought back, selling papers in the street.
Being a paperboy was his first job when he was 10 and he loved it but the job he remembers that had one of the biggest impacts on his life was picking watermelons.
"Dad got me a job picking water melons when I was 15 and that was the day I became a man, that was hard work but I liked it."
"I learnt how to tap the melons as I walked between the rows and I could tell if a melon was ripe enough to pick. We'd pick 20 ton in a Saturday morning and 70 ton if we worked all day," he said.
A while ago he bought a hand blower and regularly uses that to clean up the streets and gutters.
He has a high regard for the Horsham council.
"They keep the gardens neat and they always look nice; I am proud of our council," he said.
He thinks nothing of the volunteer hours he contributes to the community.
"It's not hard."
He believes to have a true heart for kindness you have to have suffered a trauma or problem in life.
"Once you have suffered you have a different outlook on life and people, he said."
His motto in life is simple.
"Filth encourages filth, neat encourages neat, neat and tidy encourages neat and tidy.
"I lead by example and I help make the world a better place," he said.
