'I'm a person with a good heart'

Tsukudu (Sam) is a tall, burly, 42-year-old who has five children and loves to spend his time gardening or watching birds with a glass of Coke. He joined Pick n Pay in 1986 as a shelf packer and today works in the vegetable department.

But his real job is to charm. To banter with customers in Greek, French, Italian, Portuguese or even Chinese. He knows greetings and a few key phrases.

He delivers groceries to those too old to fetch them. He walks a blind man - John Chandler - home from the store and helps him unpack his groceries. Over a 10-year friendship, Tsukudu learnt to decode what groceries Chandler needs, because his wife has a habit of tearing off bits of the washing powder box, a lid from the pilchards tin or the top of a pasta container. Once, when it was pouring with rain, Tsukudu used his own car to drive John to the shop.

Tsukudu, overnight, transformed from being a long-time friend to a mini-celebrity inside the Bedfordview retirement village. The fame came after a stranger photographed Tsukudu walking down a busy road and carrying a frail 75-year-old resident on his back. The man Tsukudu rescued, Danie Britz, had missed his bus home and collapsed at a petrol station near the Bedford Centre.

But, in truth, anyone who has known Tsukudu in the 24 years he has worked at the centre’s Pick n Pay would know that the act of kindness was not extraordinary. It was just Sam.

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