I had my mobile phone snatched from me in the street earlier this week, by a man riding a moped.

It was shortly after 11pm and I was standing by Old Street roundabout in London, using my mobile phone to request an Uber to take me home.

As the biker drove up to where I was standing, the only thing that went through my mind was: “this guy is getting pretty close; I think he must want to ask me a question”.

Not a bit of it. Quick as you like, he reached out and snatched my mobile phone from my left hand. The thief was wearing gloves which had a rubber grip, so when he grabbed my mobile, I had little or no chance of holding on to it.

My immediate reaction was that of shock and disbelief. “Hey !” and then to try and catch him – I could see that the traffic lights a couple of hundred yard ahead were on red – so I chased after him, until he jumped the lights and sped away.

A few minutes later, I used my iPad to try and remotely erase my mobile, but it was already offline (it’s only possible to remotely erase a device when it’s connected to the internet). My main concern was in respect of the information stored on my mobile, rather than losing the device itself.

I was quite upset about all this.

A little while later, having reported the incident to the Police, blocked the use of the phone and changed all my passwords, I was better able to rationalise what had happened and be a bit more pragmatic. Thank goodness I wasn’t hurt – I wasn’t robbed or physically injured. Seemingly, this guy just wanted to pinch my phone – hopefully, to erase and then sell the device on, rather than something more nefarious.

However, I still can’t help but feel violated.

Why am I sharing this ?

Well, aside from the obvious cautionary tale and the ‘it could happen to you too’ warning – it struck me that the thief was probably not someone who would be on the bone marrow register. And he was probably not a blood or platelet donor, nor on the organ register either.

In other news, Margot’s little brother, Digby had a busy day yesterday & wore himself out.

It might sound a bit odd for me to think that, but if you consider: if you have embraced the “giving to help others” philosophy & frame of mind – i.e. that you want to register to be a donor of stem cells or bone marrow, blood or platelets, or organs – then it stands to reason that you’re quite unlikely to want to cause harm to someone else or to intentionally upset someone in this way.

Of course, I know nothing about the circumstances of the person who stole from me, nor do I know anything about you, the person reading this blog – other than, you are of course reading this blog.

Which is why I feel able to state: unfortunately, not everyone is like you.

Thank you for supporting.

Team Margot
Together, saving lives

Yaser

Husband to Vicki and father to Oscar (2007), Rufus (2008), Digby (2015), Humphrey (2017) & Margot (2012-2014)