From Rev’d Richard Coles, cleric and broadcaster:

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The Easter Bunny brought a special present this year: Millicent - a 1968 Morris Minor Cabriolet de luxe, almond green, soft topped; men of a certain age burst into tears at the mere sight of her. The AA man did on the M1 near Nottingham, which was as far as she could manage without mechanical rescue en route to our post Easter break in the Yorkshire Dales. First the top blew off, then the engine just gave up, fortunately leaving enough momentum to make it onto the hard shoulder, where our four hysterical sausage dogs were pacified with a Simnel cake so irresistible it would make Mary Berry throw her marzipan at the wall.

But rescue came, and soon enough – well, nine hours later – Millicent chugged through Yockenthwaite where the only other sound was of lambs bleating, new arrivals for Eastertide, wobbly in sloping the fields surrounding the farmhouse where we were staying

And another rescue – on a walk we found a little lost lamb, abandoned by its mother, lying down and ready to depart this life so recently embarked on. Back at the farmhouse, as the lamb was persuaded to take some milk, I persuaded my partner not to scramble the air ambulance but try first to track down Stewart the shepherd, who came on his quad bike with his dog and took the lamb away to stick it under a lamp where, we found out the next day, life all but lost was restored.

We may sometimes feel the Gospel stories are as antiquated as the Bodie and Doyle method of community policing; but then something jumps out of them as fresh as the dawn. On Sunday we hear about the good shepherd going after the lost sheep, but I’ll think of the AA man coming to Millicent’s rescue beside the M1, and Stewart on his quadbike chugging up Langstrothdale, and the celebratory pint we drank in the George Inn at Hubberholme on the Eve of St George’s Day, nature and culture in concert as fresh and as compelling as a new-born lamb.