It was a regular Friday night ritual, that I loved and loathed. My grandparents would arrive, armed with sweets and treats. But not to be given to hungry children for free. To get them, you either had to recite some poetry, or read a page from a book, or sing a song, or at the cruel end of the spectrum, perform some dance or mime. That’s the bit I hated. The bit I loved were the lollies. But O the torture in prizing them from my grandparents’ pockets.

Poor Bertie also knew the ordeal. Albert, the future King George VI, as a boy, remembered having to do the same. Except his was before an assemblage of royal relatives. And his included not just some English prose, but poetry in Greek and Latin. And his, no doubt, was not for lollies, but for some royal treats like cabbage-leaves and broccoli. No wonder it left the poor boy with a stutter.

How different that special Prince, who at the age of twelve, took not just his place, but centre stage before an assemblage of theological doctors and religious elites at a significant feast in Jerusalem. Plying them with questions and stunning them with answers and holding forth with clarity and confidence. It would have given any mere mortal the stutters, but not him, because he was not just a mere mortal, but the son of heaven, who had commanded angels, and was now on earth with human lips to bring the gift of love.