Exactly how April Fools Day started is unknown. It has been celebrated for several centuries however by playing hoaxes or practical jokes on others, often shouting “April fool” to draw attention to what was happening.

In Britain some people attribute April Fools Day to Chaucer, the 14th century English poet who wrote in Canterbury Tales about a fox playing a prank on a rooster 32 days after March began (ie: on 1st April).

A more likely explanation attributes April Fools Day to the Catholic Church, whose Pope Gregory issued a decree in the late 1500s, requiring Christian countries to adopt a standard Gregorian calendar. This moved the start of the year from the end of March to 1st January. People who continued to celebrate New Year on 1st April in ignorance or by choice, were mocked as “April Fools”.

In French speaking countries April Fools Day is sometimes celebrated as “April Fish Day”, marking the time of year when fish are more plentiful and easily caught.

Whatever the reason, April Fools Day is now widely celebrated in Europe, the USA,  Canada, and Spanish speaking countries in South America.

Traditionally it involved innocent pranking and shouting “April Fool”. In recent years however, newspapers, film, radio and TV companies have become involved. A BBC Panorama programme in 1957 about spaghetti harvesting in Switzerland, is recognised as the most memorable example of this trend.

The advent of home computing has enabled ever more sophisticated domestic hoaxes. A friend who had acquired a very wide screen state of the art tv of which he was immensely proud, received a very convincing letter in April 2015, apparently from the manufacturer and signed by one Avril Jayper. It warned that “when his tv was in standby mode, images and conversations from his lounge were being transmitted to a customer service centre in South Korea”.

He was advised to “converse quietly in the vicinity of his tv and avoid viewing programmes in a state of undress” until these issues were resolved. For all I know he may still be doing so!

What are you planning for April 1st 2025 dear reader?

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