Humanity

Amongst other things, I'm reading Richard Branson's autobiography Losing My Virginity. About a third through a little snippet really touched me. It relates the story of the test flight of Virgin's very first plane:

Then there was a loud bang from outside. The plane lurched to the left and a massive flash of flame then a long trail of black smoke poured out of one of the engines. [...] We had flown into a flock of birds, and one of the engines had sucked in some of them and exploded. [...]
When we landed I was standing beside the plane trying to think of how to overcome this problem, when a press photographer came up to me smiling broadly.
'I'm sorry,' I apologised. 'I'm not up to it right now.'
'I'm sorry too,' he said. 'I saw the flames and smoke pouring out of your engine. I actually got a great shot of it.'
He looked at my dumbstruck face and then said, 'Don't worry though. I'm from the Financial Times; we're not that kind of paper.' He opened up his camera, pulled out the film and gave it to me. I couldn't find the words to thank him.