She buys coffee for people she has never met and picks up other people’s litter.

She leaves happy notes under random windscreen wipers and tidies up her neighbours’ front gardens.

In many ways, Bernadette Russell, owner of White Rabbit Theatre, is a 21st century Florence Nightingale.

Now, what began as a resolution to do an act of kindness every day has become a theatre show. 366 Days Of Kindness charts her year-long response to “the bad news we all receive, from global warming to corrupt politicians to population growth”, which started in August 2011 after the London Riots.

“I met this boy in the post office and he didn’t have enough money to pay for his stamp. There had been loads of footage of teenagers in their hoodies and he looked like the images I had been seeing all week.

“I thought, I bet he’s getting a really hard time at the moment because he looks like the people on television. But he was really sweet. I paid for his stamp because he didn’t have enough money.”

But why did she continue?

“I don’t know why, but after that I just thought I am going to do this every day. I didn’t know what I could do to respond to all the horrible things in the world so I thought I am going to do a little thing for someone I don’t know every day.

“You can feel there is nothing you can do. It doesn’t matter if you recycle your cereal boxes, everything is still going to go wrong. You can’t fix everything but you can do a little thing every day and everyone can do that.”

The idea soon snowballed. Once she started posting her daily deeds on social media sites, the Londoner’s actions were picked up by the media. But the general public must have been shocked at this randomer doing good turns?

“When I approached people, I would say I am trying to do a good deed. Everyone understands what that is. It doesn’t seem that odd. I used it so people wouldn’t think I was trying to sell them something.

“I would usually spend a lot of time speaking to people and they were usually interested in what I was doing, so I never found it difficult.”

For Valentine’s Day she made 50 cakes and cards and blew up 50 heart-shaped balloons.

“We ran around London giving them away. The last couple we met on Parliament Hill. The woman had just asked her boyfriend to marry her and he said yes. That was amazing. It seemed like one of those Merchant Ivory films but it actually happened.”

When her 366-day work was done (it was a leap year), one of her friends asked to take on the baton. Another of her friends took on the role to continue the project.

It has since been the focus of an interactive installation and exhibition, ukulele-playing Russell has appeared on BBC Radio 4 with Billy Bragg (who taught her the Milkman Of Human Kindness) and her Do Nice, Be Kind, Spread Happy children’s book has just been released.

“The best benefit is that it has made me realise people are nice. We are encouraged to think the opposite, encouraged by tabloid headlines to believe everyone is out to get us. It’s just not true.”