Sara Cox sits in

From comedian & Writer Paul Kerensa:

On a family outing to a DIY store (we spoil our kids), we bumped into my five-year-old’s old pre-school teacher. Our boy’s at school now, but a year ago, she was his favourite teacher: laughing at his nonsense jokes (that he gets from me), “getting” him, and helping him thrive as a “threenager”. When he moved schools, she welled up, so we did too, grateful for sacrificing time and trouble. A year on though, my son didn’t recognise her. As a schoolboy now, his former favourite was forgotten.

As we grow, teachers stick in the memory through brilliance or awfulness, and perhaps most memorable are those who lead by example. I give you Mr Turner, my first headmaster. In assembly, he’d award prizes: a free chocolate from a selection box... But never the purple ones. They were his favourites, and off-limits. All purple chocolates – perhaps globally – were property of the headmaster.

When I was my son’s age, I was in Great Ormond Street Hospital, for six weeks. My classmates wrote, my teacher visited, and Mr Turner, bless him, made the five-hour round trip to wish me well. Till my last day, I’ll remember: he didn’t bring grapes or any old chocolates. He brought: All. Purple. Ones.

A simple sacrifice – but such effort! This was the early eighties – long before a Wonka-like apprentice repackaged boxes of individual favourites. The only way to give an ill child thirty purple chocolates was to buy a load of tubs, and sift. Mr Turner sacrificed his favourite treat over several boxes, to show a poorly pupil how much he cared.

This teacherly example of giving up – not for oneself, for Lent, but for others – stays with me, a reminder to show others that they matter.

Jesus was a teacher, and not a “do as I say” but a “do as I do” teacher. I don’t think we need to be teachers to also be “do as I do”-ers, to show sacrificial love for others in our daily lives.

I’ve seen it in Mr Turner, and in my son’s pre-school favourite – who, back in that DIY store, was unrecognised by him, but thanked by us. And if my boy digs deep in his mind, I know he’d dig deep into that selection box, and give her his favourite chocolate every time.