THE Pope is being urged to confer sainthood on the Scottish biscuit maker who first had the idea of putting chocolate on a HobNob.
Devout Catholic Margaret Sinclair implored her employers at McVities to coat the underside of their crunchy, oaty biscuits with a layer of milk chocolate after a experiencing a vision of the Virgin Mary.
The Holy Mother appeared to Sinclair in Easter 1920 when she was having a cup of tea at home in Edinburgh with an original HobNob and a small, hollow chocolate egg.
Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, said: "At first she was sore afraid, but Mary said 'hush child', took the egg from her and gently smoothed it into the base of her biscuit, before using a small cake fork to create that distinctive ripple effect."
Sinclair would be the first biscuit maker to be canonised since 1905, when the French peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous was made a saint for inventing the Breakaway in 1858.
However, the move is likely to be attacked by the followers of Henry Brubaker, inventor of the Penguin, whose canonisation remains on hold 50 years after his death.
Catholic academic Dr Bill McKay said: "It could be argued that the chocolate HobNob, while certainly very appetising, is really little more than a chocolate digestive made from oats.
"The Penguin, however, has a chocolate cream filling, sandwiched between two chocolate flavoured biscuits, which are then enveloped by a delicious milk chocolate vestment.
"Did Jesus not say, 'if you are to be of chocolate, then be entirely of chocolate'? I think you'll find he did."
