I am not religious (though I say that with a non-negligible degree of guilt and a quick glance skywards in apology because what I actually am is a long-lapsed Catholic, and Catholics are like Marines – dead, former, but never ex-). But thank God for Easter. It is the perfect holiday for everyone.

If you are church-inclined then, obviously, it has the biggest story – and some of the most sweeping re-enactments possible – in the calendar. Dying for your followers’ sins and coming back three days later is tough to beat. Christmas is great and all, but it’s an awful lot of travelling (that only really makes sense if you understand about municipal bureaucracy) before you get to the baby part. Plus the increasing worry with which modern children greet Joseph’s possible reaction to Mary’s insistence that she is pregnant by God makes me genuinely more depressed every year.

But enough of this! For we are talking about Easter, lovely, shining Easter which wraps pagans in as much delight as anyone else. For parents – even and especially of modern children – it provides a school holiday of the perfect duration. It is not a stupid, pointless week like half-term, which just interrupts the domestic routine........

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