Somewhere between good manners and humility. Yet, at the end of the day, it is one of the things about a person that can really mark them out as special.

A friend of mine had his "end of the day" . . . suddenly, shockingly . . .the week before Christmas. I don't know where to place Jim Greely in terms of friendship. I would say 'close friend' but the truth is, I have hardly seen him in the past few years since I got married and moved to the country. He, and his partner the dress designer Richard Lewis, were at my wedding but they had never met my five-year-old son. And yet when I read at 9.30am that his funeral was taking place in Dublin at lunchtime . . . my husband and I re-arranged our (crazy Christmas) schedules and left within 10 minutes to drive four hours through freezing fog to pay our respects.

We were rewarded with the Vard Sisters singing and Mount Jerome was standing room only with a heady mixture of the good and the glamorous. Glad as I was to be there, the truth is, I didn't drive across the country in freezing fog on Christmas week because Jim was attractive, or amusing, or clever . . . although he was all of those things. I did it because when I was a gauche young woman who had moved to Dublin in the early '90s to take the coveted position of magazine editor from a bonafide 'Irish girl' (I commit the sin of being a plastic paddy); when media and fashion people were sizing me up and requiring that I earn the right to be liked; when I felt alone, Richard and Jim were kind to me. They saw I was needy and instead of exploiting my ignorance they befriended me. They invited me around to their home and fed me soup and told me anecdotes. They told me who was who and what was what and made Dublin a safe, warm, friendly place for me to live. They made me feel at home in Ireland. When someone shows you kindness, you don't forget it. When they die it's what you remember . . . but sometimes it takes someone dying to remember how important it is.

There is so much artifice around these days, so many ways we invent to distract ourselves from the pain of growing old and the possibility of death.

'Looking fabulous' has to be the top of the list for ways which we package away the rawness of life.

The armour of fashion, the smugness of a welldecorated house, a face which never ages . . . a botoxfrozen face no longer able to express emotion. Jim Greely . . . in his capacity as Richard Lewis's righthand man . . . was the opposite of that. He worked in fashion and he loved it but he didn't care about it.

He cared about people and made everybody feel like his best friend. He didn't care what you wore or what you looked like or where you came from. And everyone . . . including and especially the fashionistas . . . loved him for it. Because kindness transcends fashion. It is one of the very few things in life that still has the power to do that.

I was glad I was there . . . even if I was the undignified, snotty, emotionally incontinent Kleenex clutcher at the back . . . and I took away one important truth with me. If I want to have a kickass, standing-room only funeral full of people willing to drive through four hours of freezing fog to see you off . . . better put 'random acts of kindness' over 'target weight eight stone' on the new year's resolution list.

We'll miss you Jim . . . keep smiling.