WHY? (repeat as necessary)

Weaver has written a little piece on a childhood memory, and it made me recall some of my earliest memories as a child - it is funny how some things stick in your mind, even though they are not earth-shattering events.

Though it is not the very earliest memory I have of childhood, one of these events has stayed with me and can be recalled with absolute clarity, about 57 years later.

Close to where I was brought up to the age of about 4, there was a small yard attached to an adjacent property, and since I was old enough to be allowed to walk out of our house (but not old enough to cross the road, the other side of which seemed like a foreign country to me), I guess I was between 3 and 4 years old.

I remember watching a Catholic priest (as I now recognise him to have been due to the ankle-length, black outfit with collar) walking across the yard carrying a metal pail which was full of water. These were the far-off days when English priests still lugged buckets of water around, obviously. I noticed that as he walked, his free arm was outstretched to an angle of about 45%. As he approached, I asked him why he was walking with his arm out like that - I had no experience of carrying a full pail of water at that time, you understand.

He paused briefly, gave it a little thought, then said "I don't know", then walked on with his free arm uncomfortably and self-consciously down by his side.

This was probably the first of many questions about life that I have asked priests and received no satisfactory answer. It was probably the moment when I worked out that the most qualified and sophisticated theologian can be wrong-footed by a simple child as well.