Lord Patten’s wonderfully nostalgic article in your splendid Christmas edition (“Out of the ordinary”, 21/28 December 2013) will have struck a chord for many of us. My Catholic youth was not so uneventful. As an altar boy, when lighting the candles on the altar on Whit Sunday I set fire to the flowers and so, aged seven, I was sacked. The first confession was also indeed a worry, not only the pro­cedure but also trying to think up some sins – any sins – worth confessing. Pulling my sister’s hair was the worst.We were taught by the formidable Canon Williamson in Chesterfield. But unfortunately he failed to teach me the procedure for second and subsequent confessions. So later before him, instead of intoning, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned