Twenty years ago, when Simon was a whippersnapper presenter on BBC Radio 1, he received thousands of letters from listeners confessing their darkest secrets and worst misdemeanours, begging for his forgiveness. Every day, Father Mayo read out a confession - and then he'd decide whether to grant forgiveness or not.

Read a classic Confession below, then Send Simon Your Confession

Dear Simon,

Back in the early 1970s, I started a job as a pollution control officer looking after a well-known river in central Scotland (which rhymes with Slide). Jobs were hard to come by and the River Purification Board set very high standards for their employees - in fact they made it abundantly clear to me that if I didn't perform miracles during my six months probationary period, I'd be out on my ear. I was desperate to impress so the word 'failure' was eradicated from my dictionary.

One of my first jobs was to investigate the source of minor oil contamination of the pristine upper reaches of this magnificent river. I quickly traced it to a drainage pipe in the river band but couldn't easily establish which of three nearby oil-using premises was discharging the oil into this pipe. I dared not return to my headquarters without being able to report that I had traced and stopped the oil - especially as the local radio station and newspapers were pressurising my boss for a statement about the incident. I knew that one sure-fire way of testing if a premises was connected to a particular pipe, was to put a special harmless dye into a drain at the premises and see if the colour turned up in the pipe at the river - simple as that!

I had a gallon of concentrated fluorescent red dye in my van for just this purpose, so I set to work at once. I unscrewed the stopper and thought 'Hmmmmm, I've never used this stuff before… I wonder how much I should use?' To play safe, I just poured in half a cupful but when, after waiting an hour, the colour hadn't appeared at the river, I decided to slosh the whole gallon in.

Ten minutes later an incredible garish red colour spouted forth into the river from the drain, which turned the entire width of the river pale pink for about fifteen minutes before fading away to nothing. What a shock I had, but after regaining my composure, I felt quietly pleased with myself and marched confidently into the polluter's premises and gave them a right royal rollicking and got them to stop the cause of the oil discharge immediately.

I returned to the river bank in the certain knowledge that the oily discharge should have stopped and the river should have been perfect again.

Well the oil had stopped… but it wasn't perfect - it was blinding red in colour. The sunlight reflecting off it lit the whole valley up a rosy red - miles and miles of a gigantic fluorescent scarlet ribbon winding its way through one of the most beautiful landscapes in Britain. I realized what I had done - the first wee drop of dye caused the river to turn pink and an hour behind it came a whole gallon - it was just like the film The Ten Commandments when Moses dipped his staff into the sea.

As I mentioned earlier, the dye was harmless, but that was no consolation to thousands of pink fish, and owners of pink rowing boats, and several farmers who owned pink and black sheepdogs and cattle with pink legs and heads.

Best Wishes,

Chris