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I’d be out walking our dogs, Puck and Chaucer, and Stephen would just happen to be driving along the same road.

In Geoffrey Chaucer's famous Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th Century, he said: "And on a Friday fell all this mischance".

Organisers said the trials can be traced to the 12th Century and were mentioned by Chaucer in The Wife of Bath's Tale in the 14th Century.

The British Library’s collection includes two of the four surviving copies of Magna Carta, the world’s largest surviving collection of Chaucer manuscripts and five copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio.

It seemed enough, perhaps, to make readers of Geoffrey Chaucer and his description of showery April in the Canterbury Tales, produce their own shower of tears.