THIS INTERVIEW was going to take place in Mongolia, where the Christina Noble Children's Foundation has set up a home in Ulan Bator. As you may know, Christina Noble is an Irish woman who had a childhood of absolute destitution, an adolescence which included sexual abuse and rape, and an adulthood married to a violent man. In 1989, she went to Vietnam as the result of a dream that she should help the children of Ho Chi Minh City. Now CNCF has expanded into Mongolia, where many homeless children spend the winter in the relative warmth of Ulan Bator's sewers.

Mongolia is not exactly an easy option. A couple of weeks ago, when I was planning to go there, I looked up the weather on the Internet. The average maximum December temperature is minus 16 degrees Celsius; the minimum is minus 28. It was dark, snowing and the airport was closed. Then Noble fell ill (her health is not good and she suffered double pneumonia on a previous trip). So eventually we met one Sunday morning in Hong Kong at the Excelsior.

Curled up on her unmade bed, smoking non-stop, she looked sunken-eyed and exhausted. Her use of swear-words is impressively abandoned ('I say to the children, I can swear but you can't'). Occasionally, she burst into Gregorian chant, recalled from her schooldays (Noble once managed to persuade a Chinese immigration official she didn't need piffling paperwork by giving a rendition of Danny Boy at Beijing airport). Every now and then, she gave a big, throaty laugh. I liked her tremendously. Fairly early on, she mentioned Mother Teresa, with whom she is often compared. I met Mother Teresa a couple of years ago, and a wonderfully genteel, holy woman she was, but I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, we're talking different spheres of saintliness here.

'Mother Teresa with balls - no disrespect to Mother Teresa,' said Noble, when asked to describe any possible personality overlap. 'I met her in Vietnam, and I felt quite close to her, in a funny sort of way. I think she really believed she'd go to Heaven.' Will Noble go to Heaven? 'No, no, I'm going to be left dangling for a while, they'll be saying, 'Will we put her in the fire?' I'm a renegade angel. It's my intention to be me, and I'm a renegade, I won't give up.' Her intention to be herself must be clouded by the complexity of her character and life history. Her mother's maiden name was Gross, her second husband's name was Noble, and she has travelled the extreme distance between those two adjectives. She will be 54 in 10 days, and although she has three grown-up children she gives the odd impression of continuously searching for a happier childhood. When some CNCF helpers arrived in the room with bags of lollipops and whistles and balloons for the children, she inspected them with a kind of thrilled longing ('Can I take one out for myself?'). She travels with a cuddly toy, of which she likes to make a fuss, and she frequently talks about 'big people', as though her own perspective is still from knee-height. Several friends who had encountered her described her with the same word - 'sentimental' - and I'm sure she's the sort of amateur who is loathed by the big aid agencies.

But what she has done is - to use a quaint, unfashionable term - a miracle. And it's the tininess, the micro-nature of her set-up, which gives it force. She made several IDD calls while I was there, yakking in street Vietnamese, and fretting about the cost of the telephone. I suggested getting hold of a laptop from someone and using email and she said, quickly, 'Would you mention it? We need computers for the kids in Mongolia, they're dead smart.' She's trying to organise sponsorship of children's hospital beds for about US$25 (HK$194) a month and you find yourself, startled, thinking: that's nothing, let's all sign up immediately. Her strength is that she makes you believe you really can make a vital difference to a child's happiness.

While a little donation goes a long way for the children, however, the personal price she is paying is high. She is clearly not in the best of health. She carries around the ghosts of the past and the dreadful stresses of the present. 'I had a very bad dream last night,' she said at one point. 'I've left a situation in Mongolia which is a living nightmare, and I can't just pretend to myself that I'm here and I'm safe. Five children froze to death last week, they're only little fellas, little ones ...

You can't take those images away overnight, you can't.' What did she dream? 'There was this man, I don't know who he was, in a boat, handing me a sack of money, and I was in a little boat and I was reaching out, and I fell in. And all the money was floating on the water and I was crying, saying to myself, 'Why didn't you get a big boat?' ' I'm no analyst but I'd say that's the subconscious of someone who is flogging herself half to death, who can't accept her limitations. And, although she has been known to launch into odes before startled members of the public all over the world, she's uncomfortable in her own skin. 'I will not dance in front of people. I get very bashful. I, oh, I don't want to say it, I - oh God, I can't say it ... if someone says I'm pretty, I want to say 'F*** off', I can't take that at all.' The only time she dances, she says, is with the children. I imagine that must be when she truly feels complete. 'I say to them, 'Mama Tina is big tree, you small tree. You can lean on Mama Tina for a while.' You've got to do it step by step, give them education, health care, a clean bed to sleep in, clothing. And they all need a little bag with their name on it, to put their secrets in, that no one can take from them. And give them treats, like ice-cream and lollipops. What I say is Father Christmas goes away, but Mama Tina stays.' CNCF can be contacted on 2817-8646 or fax 2818-6124. All donations, large and small, are welcome.

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