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Being educated by nuns, we were guided, those of us who liked to read, to material of a religious nature. Thus I had read a lot about the lives of the saints.

There’s something about Lent that I love. My fondness for it, and the whole lead up to Easter comes, I think, from the drama it injected into what was otherwise a very ordinary childhood. I loved the pageantry of it all, the sense of occasion.

First there was Shrove Tuesday and pancakes. A big treat to ease us into the 40 days of sacrifice. We took our Lenten sacrifice very seriously. We had to. We were made declare to the Mercy nuns who taught us at the start what it was we were going to give up. If our sacrifice was deemed insufficient (as was most often the case) we had more punitive ones imposed upon us.

Giving up sweets wasn’t enough. It had to include all treats (rare enough as they were those days.) Tea had to be drunk without sugar, there was to be no jam on bread, no ice cream. On top of that we were required to increase our prayers to include at least one decade of the rosary nightly.

I embraced these restrictions with great zeal. There was something about denial that brought out the sanctimonious in me. I really got into it. Being educated by nuns, we were guided, those of us who liked to read, to material of a religious nature. Thus I had read a lot about the lives of the saints. St Bridget and St Bernadette were two particular role models for me. I reckoned a life of chastity, humility, poverty and good works was just the thing for me. I was also relieved that they didn’t mention self flagellation. It seemed to be a big part of some of the others saints’ lives. In as far as I understood what it entailed, I reckoned I got enough beatings at home and from the nuns without adding self-imposed ones.

My piousness usually only lasted until we were allowed have our Easter eggs on Easter Sunday. Before that though there was Spy Wednesday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday to sustain my religious fervour.

I revelled in the story of the Last Supper. Mary Magdalen was now my hero even as I wondered just how effective it would be to dry someone’s feet with your hair. Maybe it was holier to use your hair, in which case I had to get cracking on growing mine. I was fascinated by the story of how Jesus was betrayed. I could visualise that cock crowing. The Agony in the Garden I played out in my head.

Then there was Pontius Pilate, the parade of Jesus through the streets and finally the Crucifixion. Stark imagery and heady stuff for an impressionable child with a penchant for drama.

We were off school during Holy Week but were made spend most of our time in the church. We’d be out playing, a group of us children from our street, in the fields behind our house, when the call would come on Holy Thursday for us to come indoors and get cleaned up to go to Mass. Most groaned at this. Some of the boys used it as a cue to make themselves scarce. I always went straight away to get ready. I had a vocation after all.

I always loved Mass on Holy Thursday. There was a sense of anticipation, like something big was in the offing. Yes, it was long, going on for nearly two hours. But I was thrilled by the sombre intonations, the different vestments the priest used. The sense of importance created. When I’d see the priest being handed the crucible I’d almost swoon. I’d will him to shake it hard enough that we’d been enveloped in incense back where we were sitting. I loved the smell.

We’d be back at the church twice on Good Friday for ceremonies, the Stations of the Cross being my favourite. The church would be so bare, stripped of all of its adornments. Every Good Friday when the priest would relate the story of the Crucifixion and talk about the altar curtain being rent in two after Jesus died I half thought it would happen in our church, heralded by a bolt of lightning and some suitably dramatic music. I’d hold my breath in anticipation. It never happened.

Oh well. There was always fish fingers to be looked forward to. My mother had tired of trying to feed her favourite fish, smoked haddock, to us on Black Fast days and now let us have fish fingers instead. Not with chips though. With mashed potato and the gloopy white sludge she’d have us believe was white sauce.

The excitement on Easter Saturday was huge as we waited impatiently for our eggs. Usually, they were kept hidden away until Easter Sunday morning lest we’d be tempted to have a surreptitious nibble. Another reason for our excitement was that we usually got a new outfit for Easter.

There was one last thing we had to do on Easter Saturday and that was to go to confession. I was less fond of this sacrament. I had a dread of mortal sins. Venial ones I could just about cope with. I would go over my transgressions in my head and do some judicious pruning before settling on a couple I considered would not delay me in the dreaded box. I had an irrational fear of inadvertently spluttering out some sin that would cause the priest to shout “You did what?” loud enough for those waiting outside in the seats to hear.

I was sitting in the seat one Easter Saturday, waiting my turn. As each person got up to go into the confession box, people would shuffle along the seats, the person at the end moving into the next seat until you were up beside the confession box. I was daydreaming, as was my wont, and didn’t move quickly enough to get up and into the next seat. The man beside me, a local Guard, who was as cross as he was pious, pushed me. I landed out on the flat of my back, sprawled in the aisle. I lay there, momentarily stunned. I was like an upturned ladybird.

Then, gathering my wits as mortification set in, I scrambled to my feet and scuttled into the seat ahead. Never mind, I told myself. Jesus was mistreated. He fell three times. Love thine enemies. Turn the other cheek. Forgive. It was no good though. My religious forbearance was tested and found wanting that day. I wanted revenge. Not a trait to be found in the virtuous. It seemed I would not be joining the ranks of the young saints after all.

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