April Fools’ Day is the one day of the year when practical scheming is not just acceptable, it is even appreciated, and possibly, for those who have had their morning cup of coffee, expected.
As a weekly newspaper, the Peak is able to participate in April Fools’ frivolity only once every seven years, so when it came around this year, the newspaper’s staff were eager to participate. Over the years much ink has been spilt over the fate of the old arena site near Willingdon Beach, so that issue seemed particularly well-suited for the hoax.
Media outlets, after all, have a long history of publishing hoax stories on All Fools’ Day, as it is also called. One of the most memorable happened in 1957 when the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), the United Kingdom’s public broadcaster, reported that after a mild winter, Swiss farmers had a bumper harvest from the country’s spaghetti trees. Spaghetti at the time was not a well-known food in the UK.
While it seems people have been celebrating April 1 for centuries, how the day became official is something of a mystery—though many theories circulate as to its origin.
According to one, April Fools’ Day began when Pope Gregory XIII, in the year 1582, moved the start of the new year from April 1 to January 1. Although made public, the dissemination of information was apparently much slower in days prior to mass media and the Internet, so few people knew about the change. Those who continued to celebrate the new year on April 1 were jeered and called April fools.
According to a parallel theory, but not involving a pope, in France in the year 1564, people who celebrated the wrong day for New Years would have a paper fish pasted to their backs. The day was called poissons d’avril, April Fish. In France, Quebec and various countries in Europe people continue the tradition by attempting to attach a paper fish to the back of a person without their knowledge.
According to another account, one which comes from the Museum of Hoaxes, the day has its roots in a time when people would hold raucous spring festivals that featured ritualized forms of mayhem and misrule where people would play pranks on their friends and families.
Whichever explanation someone chooses to accept, it is important to note that the folly must wind up before noon on April 1. If someone plays a practical joke after the cut-off, it is they who becomes the fool.
