Having spent last April 1st in Cornwall, on holiday with our daughters and grandchildren, it seemed a good time to initiate the little ones into this national day of fun. So we practiced with them what they might say to various members of the family, until they were word perfect.

The day arrived, and Natasha, aged nearly five, couldn’t wait. “You’ve a fly on your noses, Grandpa,” she squealed with delight.

“Fly on nose, Grandpa,” echoed Susannah aged nearly three.

“Oh, dear me,” said Grandpa, “they are such pesky things. We have a whole room full of flies, so I am not surprised. Why don’t you girls come and help me get rid of them?”

Both girls declared themselves to be scared of flies and all sorts of bugs, but not wanting the moment to pass, Natasha tried again. “You’ve a toaster on your nose, Grandpa.”

“You’ve a cupboard on your nose, Grandpa,” said Susannah.

“You’ve a door on your nose, Grandpa.” They somehow hadn’t got the idea that it was supposed to be at least feasible - the joke - but they went off feeling very pleased with themselves.

Casper, the owner of the farm where we were renting our houses was an old friend of our daughter Stephanie. He apparently makes a very big thing of April Fool’s jokes - and his intention was to ring his parents to tell them that the hall they had booked for their 50th anniversary was not available after all.

Andrew, our son-in-law, was coaxed into agreeing to call Casper, (as Casper might not recognise his voice over the phone) and pretend to be from the animal protection league. The conversation was supposed to go somewhat like this.

“We have found evidence of badger cruelty and have traced the vehicle involved to your landrover. Not only was the poor animal run over, but the tire tracks prove that it happened a second time. These sorts of incidents are taken very seriously indeed. You must be aware of the fact that badgers are protected in Cornwall.”

The reason this was supposed to be a good joke was that Casper had actually run over a badger by mistake - and got out of his car and threw it into the hedge. But before he could restart his car, the injured badger rolled back down in front of his car again - and inspecting it to find it badly wounded, Casper decided the kindest thing was to dispatch it with his second go.

Badgers really are protected, and farmers do hate them - especially dairy farmers like Casper who milks 600 cows. Because indemically affected badgers give the cows TB the newborn male calves cannot be sold on and therefore are shot at birth. Not only a financial problem for the farmers, who have a hard enough time of it as it is making a living - but they don’t like the idea of destroying life needlessly (unless it is a badger’s.)

Casper had also planned a hoax for his wife, Alice. But somehow the person who had been arranged to call her to say their cows had got out onto the A40, got the date wrong and called her on March 31st. So suspecting a problem, she called Casper and he had to admit that it was his doing.

But the biggest problem of the day happened probably not on purpose. Someone was cutting down trees at the top of the road and went through a power cable. We all had to face a day without heat (and it was quite chilly) and without hot water for tea or coffee, the houses being all electric. We were so upset by this turn of events that we went out earlier than planned for the day, and the rest of the planned hoaxes were shelved for another year.