Grabbing at straws?

Always amuses me how, if you're famous, where you were born seems to matter so much. The town of Walsall, which is not a million miles from where I live, has always claimed Jerome K Jerome as its own "son", purely on the basis that he was born there. The fact that he left before he was one year old, and apart from a flying visit towards the end of his life to receive the freedom of the borough, never set foot there again doesn't seem to register. Mind you, Walsall hasn't got much going for it...