Community members and social media users the world over have been starting their days off with quotes from the landmark BP Garage in Hyde Park.
Alison Billett who writes message-filled quotes on the two chalkboards every morning shared how her messages have impacted the community.
“In the morning I look at headlines about what’s happening in the world and sometimes it’s just about how I feel on that day. The messages mean a lot to people, sometimes they actually pull off the road when I’m writing and they come and speak to me and tell me stories about how what I wrote made them feel better. People have even bought me flowers a few times. I write a lot about kindness as I believe if everybody was kind the world would be a better place,” said Billett.
She said she and the staff have been there for 20 years but when they bought the garage, the boards were already there. The boards were started by a man called Dick Hutton, Billett and her team just continued his tradition.
With the emergence of social media, the messages were then shared on social media platforms which made them well-known worldwide.
“They’ve been shared all over the place. Ellen DeGeneres once tweeted one of my messages. I have followers all over the world. There was a man called Geoff Ramm, a motivational speaker in the United Kingdom, and he speaks all over the world. He came here to speak and when he saw the boards, he came in and interviewed me and he put me in his book. So, when he was speaking everywhere in the world, he would talk about them. So that was how they also got well known,” Billett shared.
Proving the above, just as Billett was writing the day’s (August 31) message requested by the Rosebank Killarney Gazette on the chalkboard, a passer-by stopped to compliment Billett’s work and encouraged her never to stop sharing these motivational quotes with the community.
Details: Follow @Pump_Oracle on Twitter and Instagram and Hutton Hyde Park on Facebook for more chalkboard quotes.
Tell us why you love your community by sending an email to naidines@caxton.co.za
ALSO READ: