The Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, refers to Roger McGough as “the patron saint of poetry”. Quite a plaudit, and a well-directed one, too, since McGough is a lifelong Catholic, but his Christian Brother teachers at Saint Mary’s, Crosby, in Liverpool (also the alma mater of Cardinal Vincent Nichols) drummed into him early that there is no such thing as a “living saint”. And so he modestly sidesteps the compliment when I bring up Duffy’s words.