he best acts of kindness are the ones that aren't random On Monday evening I was in London for the night and found myself lugging a heavy case down the escalators at King's Cross. The rush-hour crowd sighed and tutted as I knocked their ankles, bumped their backs and became embarrassed, sweaty and cross. I finally made it to the platform as a train drew in, setting my sights on a seat by the door - the only place I could sit while keeping hold of a suitcase. A nimble young woman leapt on and grabbed the place before me, so I grumpily resigned myself to standing. Then a near miraculous thing happened; she looked at me and said: "Would you like this seat? It would be easier for you. I couldn't find enough ways of expressing my thanks. Yes, absolutely, I did want that seat, but - more than that - I realised I had a deep-seated and (so I believed) hopeless longing for people to behave with civility on public transport. This warm-hearted young woman's gesture was made all the more poignant by the fact there was no good reason for it; I wasn't pregnant, ill or elderly, simply tired and dispirited, and all the more touched for a stranger noting this. The encounter awakened a childhood memory from the nylon-tastic Seventies and my Brownie pack days. Back then, every last imp and elf made a solemn pledge to do a good deed every day. I wasn't a helpful child by nature, but I did grudgingly seek opportunities to be a bit more cooperative. I swiftly discovered that most pensioners didn't welcome an eight-year-old attempting to whisk them across a quiet village road, but almost everyone beamed at a child who carried their groceries, chatted to them, or picked up litter. I won't begin to pretend I was a paragon of Pollyanna-ish virtue from then on, but the Brownie lesson went deep. I feel better about my day and, let's face it, about myself, when I've helped a woman to take a pram down steps, or walked a lost tourist to their destination. The Nambour Chronicle of 1935 (amazing what you find on the internet) had it about right when a contributor asked why "Brownies and Guides are always happy, gay young people," before concluding: "They do it by making other people happy. That is to say they are kind to people and try to do at least one good turn a day. The kindness or good turn may not be a big thing - need not be a big thing. Exactly so. The good turn has been rebranded for the 21st century as a "Random Act of Kindness" (RAK) and a website was established in 2008 calling for a million such gestures. It's a wonderful intention, but you can't help wondering if the idea is truly flourishing in our secular society. My Brownie pledge to "help other people" was squarely built on a more solemn promise "to do my duty to God." I went to a C of E primary school and church every Sunday and, while I may not now be a true believer, I am endowed with a belief system. When you're brought up in such a world, kind acts aren't random, so much as necessary and ordained. Back here in 2013, there's rather less logic to a good deed when it's not part of any clear-cut code of morality. How does helping other people apply to the "me me me" world of The X Factor? It's hard to give your children a coherent value system when the wider society doesn't seem to have one. Is greed good, or bad? No one now agrees. All of which may help explain why a new study commissioned by a charity for OAPs found that nine in 10 Britons rarely enact a thoughtful deed for another person. My grandmother's generation must be spinning in their graves at the news of a society so disconnected that the majority of people admit to being incapable of knocking on an elderly neighbour's door to see if they want help. It's surely time to abandon the notion that goodness is random and to remind everyone that it's purposeful and, dare I say it, muscular.