Chis Patten’s vivid account (“Out of the ordin­ary”, 21/28 December 2013) of his childhood – learning the Latin responses so as to serve at Mass, the May processions – evoked for me memories of my own, not dissimilar, early years in the parish of St Joseph, Stockton-on-Tees. His earliest memory, that of his dad kissing him good night while tracing the letters “INRI” on his forehead and praying, “May Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, preserve you from a sudden and unprepared death”, I found particularly moving. My own father traced those sacred letters on his own ­forehead, saying a closely similar prayer, last thing each night, all his life. During his years in the trenches, including the Battle of Passchendaele, it must hav