There are easier ways to work up a bad temper, more serious matters over which to sink into a simmering sulk. But when someone messes with your Easter eggs, well…

It’s the hunt that’s done it. A particular and very specific hunt – this time without the prefix Jeremy – has whipped up a storm of indignant objection rising to the highest echelons of professionally practised objectors.

Cadbury has removed the word Easter from its national egg hunt. It’s an attempt to make it less of a turn-off to non-Christians – who’d probably never even thought about it. Why would they?

Funnily enough, Cadbury hasn’t yet considered removing the word chocolate from its eggs – which chocolate-lovers have thought about a lot, since the company went all American and abandoned commitments to a recognisable chocolatey taste.


Anne Pickles But that, along with the sacrilegious desecration of once yummy Fruit and Nut bars – a true travesty and no mistake – is another matter.

It’s the apparent sidelining of Easter that has left Cadbury and the National Trust, whose hunt this is, with egg on their faces. They have been lambasted by the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of York, among others, for deliberately downplaying the highest and holiest of Christian festivals.

Though I can claim to be neither high nor holy, I have to say this is my favourite time of the year. A little queer, I know, but this is my new year. Forget January with its darkness and pointless resolutions. Keep it. That’s merely a calendar thing.

Easter is different. It’s when hope springs with blossom, blooms, new life in gardens and fields. Daylight, sunshine and the promise of renewing warmth. But chocolate…?

I’ve never known what chocolate had to do with Easter. The symbolism of the egg is clear enough but even when, as children, we counted and collected chocolate eggs, bunnies and assorted novelties, lining them up on the sideboard with instructions not to risk so much as a nibble until Easter Day, I didn’t get it.

The new clothes we wore, along with shiny shoes straight from their box to pinch toes painfully as we walked to church with Mum – they were understandable. Fresh flowers in the house, a hearty lunch of lamb or chicken with family and friends. Easter. Lovely. Unless memory is playing tricks – and I somehow doubt that.

So, now it seems more than laughable that an archbishop should get so hot under the mitre over the predictable commercial branding of seasonal confectionery and an organised hunt for it.

“This is tantamount to spitting on the grave of John Cadbury,” said John Sentamu, referencing the Quaker founder of Birmingham’s answer to Willy Wonka’s favourite place.

A bit harsh, that. Not exactly relevant either – to anything, let alone religion or faith. But it shows how easily even a senior cleric can get worked up, when someone messes with his Easter eggs.

All in all, a storm in an egg cup, if I may offer my humbly irrelevant opinion.

But then, I’m not the kind who could be bothered to hunt down an American almost-chocolate egg, be that for the National Trust or the national debt.

Pretty silly, don’t you think? Faith festivals will always be understood by the faithful even when the name on the sweet-wrapping says something different.

As deals go, this unnecessarily indignant one isn’t a biggie. It’s disappointing that the Prime Minister and Archbishop of York should feel the necessity to make it so.

Easter isn’t under attack from commercial opportunism. Both will always exist, whoever complains about either or both. And I’d be surprised to hear anyone wish anybody a Happy Cadbury.

So let’s put all thoughts of spitting on graves and whipping up a scrambled argument for defending faith where they belong – in the bin marked “Just shut up”.

Here’s hoping for a truly happy and sunny Easter. Whatever your faith or whether you have none, renewal is worth celebrating. And if you must hunt for chocolate, make an effort to find the good stuff. You’re worth it.