An April Fool's prank carried out by an authority figure has potential for real menace, writes MICHAEL KELLY
I READ AN article in a newspaper about five years ago which reported that the Department of the Environment had moved to ban wooden floors on noise-pollution grounds. A Department official was quoted as saying that the initiative was a response to numerous complaints from residents of shoddily built apartments and three-bed semis who were lying awake at night listening to their neighbours plodding around on parquet floors. Carpet grants would be provided, he said, to help people move away from cacophonous timber. The whole thing was (of course) an elaborate April Fool's joke, but that fact didn't dawn on me for days, and in the meantime I had given serious thought to calling my local authority to find out more about that carpet grant. I'm not sure if that is a comment on my all-round stupidity or the fact that the Government has a considerable track record when it comes to hare-brained initiatives.
An elaborate April Fool's prank has most chance of succeeding if the person or organisation carrying it out is normally of stern demeanour. And if there's an air of authority or gravitas about them too, then that's even better. An April Fool's joke carried out by an authority figure or a pillar of society is one that has vast potential for real menace - a parent, for example, or a priest, solicitor or teacher. Ah yes, a teacher. Mr Walsh, my third class primary-school teacher, had authority in spades, and we completely idolised the man, which made it even easier for him.
Mr Walsh was a serious enough soul, which made his occasional displays of a sharp, laconic wit all the more startling. That April Fool's day, Mr Walsh arrived in to the class room, went straight to the blackboard and said "Right, everyone pay attention." Straight down to business. We all paid attention. "We got a letter from the Department this morning and they've informed us that there is going to be a substantial overhaul to the maths syllabus, effective immediately. I want you all to take out your copy books and take the following down."
A letter from the Department? This was serious. He went to the blackboard and attacked it vigorously with a duster. Mr Walsh always had chalk dust on his hands and it made the skin around his knuckles chapped. Having cleared the remains of yesterday's learning from the blackboard, he carefully plucked a fresh piece of chalk from a packed chalk box, aimed it at the top left-hand corner of the board and announced to the room: "The changes are as follows. We will start with the addition tables. From now on, one plus one will not equal two, but three." And to emphasise this new reality, there it was written in black and white. "1+1=3." Ructions. Cries of "BUT SIR?"
"No talking!" said Mr Walsh, glowering in our direction. "I know this is difficult but we will get through this together so just take these down. We will talk about them then." We scribbled furiously.
1+1=3? Bloody hell. If we suspected a prank, Mr Walsh's impossibly straight face seemed to suggest that he was as annoyed with the Department's meddling as we were. That made the whole thing all the more believable. "1+2=4," he wrote next.
Ah come on. How could 1+2=4? I remember the sheer, sweaty horror of the moment. The thought of learning these new addition tables when we had only recently got used to the last ones. Wondering how the whole counting on the fingers thing was going to work now. Mr Walsh kept writing. Down the board he went until eventually the whole blackboard was full of the Department's "new maths". As far as I remember, he had got as far as the "new" multiplication tables ("2x2=7") when he finally relented and broke the news with a robust shout of "April Fools!"
There was much giggling and chatting and wondering how we could have been so stupid and at lunchtime the brainy kids said "I didn't really believe it anyway." But they had believed it. We all had. I've often wondered over the years whether Mr Walsh was secretly disappointed that we had fallen for it. Did he wonder about our naivety? Did he consider holding us back for a year, deeming us too innocent for the heady heights of fourth class?
As for us, well we were even more awestruck by the man than we had been the day before. We now knew he could tell us that black was white or that the sky was red and we would believe him. We were utterly at his mercy. Imagine an entire body of knowledge - something so scientific, so fundamental - could be so willingly abandoned and all because of a crank letter from the Department? Classic.