IT is an astonishing story told on a special day. This Good Friday, we bring you the tale of the nun, the murderer and the crucifixion scene.

The plot could have been lifted from an Agatha Christie novel. Sister Agatha, the lively Mother Superior of the Bar Convent in York, befriended charming businessman David Davis on a snow-delayed train.

Davis later visited an art exhibition at the Bar Convent. He bought a £1,600 painting of Christ on the Cross and donated it to the Convent, where it remains to this day.

Subsequently, Sister Agatha discovered that David Davis was, in fact, Albert Walker, wanted by Canadian police over a £1.7 million fraud investigation. Walker went on to assume the identity of his partner Ronald Platt, killing him and dumping his body at sea.

Sister Agatha only discovered that Davis was Walker after police investigating the killing found the receipt for the painting and contacted her.

She invited the officer to York because the nuns "love a good detective story". And this murder mystery was all the more exciting as she was cast as one of the supporting characters.

The discovery of the true identity of Albert Walker must have left the Mother Superior with something of a moral dilemma. The Bar Convent is in possession of a painting bought, in all likelihood, with fraudulently obtained funds. Indeed, the Sister herself suspects that Walker was laundering money through the Convent.

But there was clearly no legal requirement for her to sell the painting and hand over the proceeds.

On this Good Friday, perhaps we can be forgiven for speculating that the Crucifixion scene is in the Bar Convent simply because it was meant to be there.

The painting may have been bought with stolen money by a murderer. But its donation to the nunnery was still an act of generosity, and one which shows that there is good in everyone. There can be no more appropriate message for Easter.

Sad lessons of war

WITH unforeseen symmetry, a party of York school pupils set out on a visit to the cemeteries of the Great War on the day that Nato began bombing Yugoslavia.

The youngsters were learning about the century's first European war as the last one was beginning.

During their tour of the French and Belgium battlefields, the 14 and 15-year-olds saw thousands upon thousands of war graves. The experience will stay with them forever.

Before the visit, the First World War had been one more chapter in their history books. Suddenly the human devastation of the conflict became clear. The sheer scale of their forefathers' sacrifice brought many of the children to tears.

Schools, under pressure to meet the demands of the National Curriculum, must find it difficult to make time for such field trips. But it is important that they continue to do so.

Students' minds are broadened by travel. Their experiences teach them what a lesson in a classroom cannot. They develop both intellectually and socially.

If the next generation is to avoid the mistakes of its predecessors, it needs to know the human cost of conflict. These youngsters, at least, have now learned the futility of war.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.