James Martin and James Bay

 From comedian & writer Paul Kerensa:

With our kids, when a telling-off is needed, we resort to the Naughty Step. They sit and think about what they’ve done, for, let me get this right – one year for every minute old they are. Or it could be the other way round. Ah yes, the 2 year old gets 2 minutes; the 5 year old 5 minutes. I’ve started misbehaving hoping to get a sit-down for 37 minutes. No luck yet.

Recently I had to improvise. Out shopping, I threatened the naughty step, and had to carry through... but there was no Naughty Step. At home it’s at the bottom of the stairs – it’s where we keep it – but in the shopping centre... well let’s just say, avoid escalators.

Wherever we do it, the rule is: say sorry, we forgive, we forget, and the slate is wiped clean. The kids get it, and we hug it out... But now, sometimes, they’ve started putting themselves there. They’ve begun to know right from wrong.

As a grown-up I still do similar: sometimes I punish myself, on my mind’s naughty step – perhaps for longer than I ought to be there. It’s no 37-minute sit-down; it’s guilt, and self-resentment. We beat ourselves up for past actions. Us adults can find it just as tough as for the kids, to say “sorry”... and, as is so often the difficult bit... mean it.

It’s frustrating too if authority figures have that inability to say sorry, and bring closure. Before forgetting there’s forgiving, before forgiving there’s what seems to be the hardest word, according to wise theologian Sir Elton of John.

I think of prayer in terms of politeness – how very English. Most prayers seem to be ‘please’, ‘thankyou’ or, crucially, ‘sorry’. At the centre of the Lord’s Prayer is “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Poet Alexander Pope famously wrote: “To err is human, to forgive divine.” I will do wrong, but when I do, saying sorry – to God, to those I hurt – wipes the slate clean, just as by accepting others’ apologies, I can be a slate-wiper too.

So next time I put myself on that naughty step, I must remember that “sorry” takes me off it. And then I’ll run off, and try and play nicely with my brothers and sisters.