Hats off at last to Jerome K Jerome
Hailed by lovers of his writing as the Shakespeare of Walsall, Jerome K Jerome has, after a 25year campaign, been granted the honour he is due by his home town.
At Walsall Arboretum, the Jerome K Jerome Society unveiled a magnificent bronze bust of the author, best known for his 1889 comic masterpiece, Three
Men in a Boat, which tells the story of young men meandering philosophically up the Thames in a rowing boat.
Tony Gray, chairman of the society, said, “The day dawned dull and the sky and weather forecasters threatened rain. However, optimistic members of the Society recalled our hero’s tirade on ‘the weather forecasting fraud’ and sure enough the sun soon put in an appearance. The bust is a fine piece of work for which the local sculptor, Phil Kelly, was warmly applauded.” Another son of Walsall, the Hi-deHi! actor Jeffrey Holland, was on hand to entertain the crowd – stripy jackets, boaters and all – with a reading from Three Men in a Boat.
Jerome worked as a journalist, actor and schoolmaster before becoming an author. He was a fan of the simple things in life, writing, “Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.” Following the publication of Three
Men in a Boat he continued to write prolifically, producing at least a novel or a play a year until his death in 1927, but nothing quite reached the heights of his early success. During the First World War he volunteered to serve in the army, but was rejected due to his age – 56. Instead, he went to work as an ambulance driver for the French Army, and the unveiling of the bust has also been timed to commemorate his service on the Western Front a century ago at Verdun.