Thornbury teen praised for replacing missing car hub caps

Matthew Checksfield, 14, collects discarded car hubcaps from hedgerows and car parks. He then cleans them up and then tries to match them to cars which are missing them.

The 14-year-old, who is autistic, memorises specific details about lots of things, including hubcaps and the cars they fit.

He enjoys spotting cars with lost caps, and replacing them with the correct type from his collection.

Recently, Matthew noticed someone's missing caps during a drive with his parents and later returned to leave a set of replacements next to the car.

As well as the gift, Matthew left a note, which read: "Hello there! My name is Matthew, I'm 14, I live in Thornbury and I love all things about cars - especially wheels and hubcaps.

“I also have autism, which in my case, enables me to notice and remember a lot of details, and easily tell the difference between various types of hubcaps and which car make and model they fit on."

He went on to say that he has a collection which he washes and ensures are undamaged, before saying: “My favourite thing to do, though, is to give them to people that have a hubcap missing.”

Matthew's mum and dad added a message of their own, letting the driver know that the gift was not some type of scam - just a passion for their son - and that they had ensured to sanitised the hubcap and bag for the driver's safety.

They wrote: "As a family, we follow Covid-19 guidelines very carefully, so we sprayed Clinell hospital-grade anti-bacterial spray on the outside of the bag, plus its contents, and wore gloves to deliver it.

"Thank you for helping us give our son something to smile about in these difficult times."

The driver of the car was blown away by Matthew's kind gesture and her son posted it online to Reddit, with a picture of the hub cap and the accompanying note.

He posted: “This got left for my mother. A HUGE thank you to Matthew, keep doing what you're doing!”

Hundreds of people praised Matthew following the post on Reddit.