DID you read about that chap of 65 who returned a packet of Jaffa Cakes he stole as a 15-year-old schoolboy back in 1960?

Not the original cakes – he’d eaten those – but a replacement packet.

John Bibby was working at a coffee bar on a holiday camp in Skipsea, East Yorkshire, when he succumbed to hunger and temptation.

He said: “I’ve always had a sweet tooth. I was hungry and thought I would have just one Jaffa Cake from a packet, but I ended up eating the whole lot and never told anybody about it.”

He has felt guilty ever since so tracked down his former boss, who is now 79, took him a packet of the chocolate confectionery and confessed his crime.

“I told him the story – the first time I have ever admitted what I did to anybody,” he said. “It felt like a weight off my shoulders. He was lost for words, absolutely amazed I had remembered this because he didn’t have a clue. We ended up having a good laugh about it.”

Was this a commendable act? Or should he have consigned his guilt to the follies of youth and forgotten about it?

It made me wonder if there was any guilt haunting my psyche about which I should make a confession, but I couldn’t think of a thing. This could mean I have been an amazingly law-abiding citizen all my life who has always told the truth or I have a cavalier attitude to the past and a capacity to forget awkward moments.

Besides, remembering my teenage years is like visiting another country. Anything I did then – including telling tall tales to impress young ladies – is well beyond the statute of limitations for prosecution or guilt. Besides, the tall tales never worked.

But how about you? Did you ever pinch a wine gum from the Woolworth’s pick ‘n’ mix and have been racked by shame ever since? Or were you ever given change for a fiver after you had only given a pound note? And kept it?

Confess now and share it.