May 2nd

If May 2^nd were to compare itself with May 1^st it might suffer an inferiority complex. Its slightly older sibling even has a special name, Mayday, and is a time of feasting, jollity, leisure, a chance to welcome the return of spring.

The second of May? Not quite such a bumptious occasion. It’s had its moments, though…..

In 1536, Queen Anne Boleyn was arrested and imprisoned on charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft. In 1568 Mary, Queen of Scots, escaped from Lochleven Castle where she had been imprisoned on the orders of Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth I. In 1945 the Red army announced the fall of Berlin.

Leonardo da Vinci died on this day in 1519 and on happier notes, Ichiyō Higuchi, the first Japanese female professional writer was born in 1872, the British actress Peggy Mount in 1915 and one of my favourite people in 1958.

But it’s someone else who was born on this day who I’m celebrating. When I was 10 I had a very bad bout of bronchitis and said to my parents that I wanted to read a funny book to make me feel better. Dad and Mum told me about the books they found most amusing. Dad enthused me by the idea of The Pickwick Papers but when I started to read it, I found it boring and decidedly lacking in humour. (Presumably I gave up before Sam Weller appeared.) My mother had been nowhere near as persuasive about her choice so I started reading her suggestion rather reluctantly. I laughed so much I choked and completely lost my breath. I’ve read Three Men in a Boat countless times since.

Jerome K. Jerome c. 1889

Jerome K. Jerome was born in Walsall, England in 1859. His father was an ironmonger by the name of Jerome Clapp and he added the name Jerome after Clapp for some unknown reason. I shall leave this with you and your imagination. Jerome senior admired the Hungarian György Klapka as a great general and patriot and named his son after him.

The family fell on hard times and moved to London. His father died when Jerome Klapka was only 13 and his mother two years later. He had to leave school, abandoning his dream of becoming a politician or writer, and went to work for a railway company, initially collecting coal which fell off train waggons.

Four years later he became an actor but he had little success and he gave up when he was 21. He tried his hand as a journalist but most of his pieces were rejected so he took various occupations including schoolteacher, a packer of goods, a solicitor’s clerk while still writing occasional pieces. Finally, at the age of 26 he had some success with a memoir of his years as an actor, followed a year later by his comic essays Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow.

Two years later he married Ettie, nine days after she had divorced her first husband. And thankfully, they spent their honeymoon on a little boat on the River Thames.

Jerome set to work on a new book the moment they got back from honeymoon. He wrote it in their apartment in Chelsea and he pronounced himself well pleased with it when he finished. It was published in 1889 became an instant success which has never been out of print.

It was not well received by others, however. Critics were lukewarm or  downright scathing. It was criticised for its vulgar use of slang and Jerome was said to have written it to appeal to ‘Arrys and 'Arriets – sneering terms for working-class Londoners who dropped their Hs.

It certainly did appeal. Its popularity was thought to have led to the number of registered boats on the Thames going up by 50% the following year and the river became a major tourist attraction.

In its first twenty years it sold over a million copies worldwide and was a great influence on writers of comedy. His publisher said, "I pay Jerome so much in royalties, I cannot imagine what becomes of all the copies. I often think the public must eat them."

Jerome spoke of this reception in his 1926 autobiography My Life and Times.

One might have imagined … that the British Empire was in danger. … The Standard spoke of me as a menace to English letters; and The Morning Post as an example of the sad results to be expected from the over-education of the lower orders. … I think I may claim to have been, for the first twenty years of my career, the best abused author in England.

Best abused, one of the most successful and the one who made the world laugh.