In these uncertain times, at least we can be sure of one thing: a national crisis brings out the worst in some people.

But it also brings out the best, so let’s pretend, for a moment, that we don’t live in a society polluted by people who buy more food, toilet rolls and even medicine than they need, and concentrate on the many others who put a spring in our steps instead.

By now we are all aware of the dark forces driving some people, but more accounts of actions by much bigger-hearted people are filtering through the clouds, and we can take solace, comfort and even inspiration from the silver linings.

Last Wednesday I arrived home to find a curious thing sitting on our doorstep. On closer inspection it turned out to be a pebble, painted in strange colours and funny patterns. Where had it come from and what could it possibly mean?

I let myself in and found a small printed and laminated note had been put through the letterbox, solving the mystery.

The pebble was, according to the note, ‘made with love from the TLC at Crowdys Hill School. Our topic this term is to be kind, and we know this is a difficult time, so here is our gift.’

Your heart would have to be made of stone for it not to be melted by this little stone being transformed into something more beautiful and precious than anything you will ever see in a gallery.

But to understand the full value of that gift, you have to know that Crowdys Hill is a school for children who have learning difficulties.

The TLC mentioned in the note stands for ‘Thematic Learning Centre’, which is an initiative for the benefit of the school’s more complex pupils, whose needs cannot be met using our main curriculum’.

I have absolutely no doubt that Crowdys Hill pupils are dealt more than their share of unkindness by the ignorant, and for no other reason than they might be different to others, and to turn that on its head and make kindness their currency, instead, is a quite brilliant idea.

In fact, I doubt any of us have ever learned a better lesson at school.

So we raided our cupboards to find a ‘thank-you’ card to send to the school, and appropriately found one that our daughter had made when she was a girl. We also emailed the headteacher to find out how we can repay the children for their kindness.

These are challenging times, but fortunately we have a little breathing space in which to think about the sort of society we want to live in.

We will have to address those whose hobby is needlessly hoarding consumables and for whom community means nothing, and try to find out why they never learned about kindness when they were at school.

But perhaps the answer will lie in how those who do have humanity, positivity and creativity organise themselves. For a start we should resist the temptation to call the gift those schoolchildren gave us, or the caring actions of people to support each other during the current crisis, ‘random acts of kindness’.

There is nothing random about kindness. Properly harnessed, it is an ethos, a philosophy, and a way of life - and should be on everyone’s curriculum.

One day soon we are going to have to ensure that the humanity of the majority overcomes the selfishness of fools, and prove that kindness is even more infectious than any stupid virus.