Hi readers, it’s Emily and William here writing our article on April Fools Day, although it will be a bit later by the time you read this!
We were wondering whose idea was April Fools Day anyway, how did it all start? We looked it up and it still seems to be a bit of a mystery.
The most popular theory involves the French calendar reform of the sixteenth century. In 1564, France reformed its calendar, moving the start of the year from the end of March to 1st January. People who failed to keep up with the change had jokes played on them.
Also we learnt that the first time someone wrote about pranks on April 1st was Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales, written in 1392. In France people would secretly stick paper fish to people’s backs and then called them April Fish, which is still the French term for April Fools.
Another odd thing is how long you can play pranks for. In America you can play April Fools all day but other countries it’s only until 12pm. There was a rule in the 1700’s to say that you could not have any jokes after 12pm and anyone playing a prank in the afternoon was considered to be a fool themselves.
So readers, did you play a prank on anyone on April Fools Day this year, or did anyone do one on you? We didn’t but would love to hear yours!
One of our favourite ever April Fool pranks we is the Panorama programme of years ago when they did an article about spaghetti being grown on trees! It showed people picking the spaghetti during spaghetti harvest and was so funny. You can still see it on YouTube if you google it. We also wonder how many people actually believed it?
The writers of the Our View column are supported in their editing by People First Dorset - a charity led and run by people with learning disabilities with support from staff.