Answer:
Do you mean "A friend is need is a friend in deed" ?
If you do it means that when you have a need the sort of friend you want is one that will do something for you rather than just criticise you.
For instance I knew of a woman who was told to set up a new office somewhere. People came in to see her in the office and saw what a mess the place was. Nobody had used the room as an office for years, so it was really filthy with cobwebs and dust and all sorts of junk in it. They didn't stop to help her get it clean or tidy they just said that they would come back when she had finished.
The woman found the job so hard that she started to cry. At that point someone else came in. He knew her a little bit but not very well. He looked around and saw the mess and immediately started to clean the place for her. After a while she felt good enough to start again and between them they cleaned the whole place. The other people were her friends but he was a friend in deed (a friend in what he did for her) and this made all the difference to her.