James and Cindy Dutton are parents from London.
Recently, they took to social media to see if anybody had an old video Postman Pat videotape lying around.
Their “severely autistic” 19-year-old son, Thomas, had asked for the tape as part of his Christmas present.
However, James and Cindy were having a hard time locating one due to the age of the product, so they took to Twitter in the hope that somebody somewhere would have the tape their son wanted.
Dad James sent out the following:
Does anyone have or know of anyone who may still have this VHS? My severely autistic son Thomas has written it on his Xmas list…please let me know! pic.twitter.com/wAnE93dbMv
— James Dutton (@jdutton69) November 12, 2017
It wasn’t long before his tweet began gaining traction, being retweeted by the likes of Strictly Come Dancing‘s Brendan Cole.
It was then that Twitter user Jill got back to James with the goods in question.
She wrote that she had come across the exact video recently and she had planned on dropping it to a charity shop.
Thankfully, James got there first.
I’ve got one here! Can’t believe we were sorting through boxes in the loft & this was on the top ready to go to the charity shop this week. Dm me your address and I can post it to you ? pic.twitter.com/ac6BlHmSp1
— Jill (@jilly284) November 14, 2017
Understandably, news of the family’s Postman Pat-related success spread far and wide.
And rightly so.
Congratulations to @jdutton69, Cindy, @jilly284, @BrendanCole and everyone else involved who helped prove Twitter can be a force for good – pleasure chatting! https://t.co/fgMbpwBazJ
— Edd Dracott (@EddDracott) November 15, 2017
Twitter users are now tweeting the hashtag ‘XmasASD’ to help each other locate gifts that otherwise may have been difficult to find.
Maybe social media isn’t all that bad after all.
