These days, Halloween is an all-singing all-dancing affair with everyone getting in on the act. It’s now the norm to see supermarket aisles jammed with fantastical gruesome costumes and plastic pumpkins. Even the estate agents down the road has taken to stringing cobwebs up in the window. To what end I’m not sure. The world’s gone mad.
As I plucked a bright green wig from the supermarket shelf for my daughter, I thought about how delighted I would have been to possess such an item. I pondered what Halloween was like for me as a child.
1. Pumpkins? Not for us. We had turnips. For all you root vegetable purists out there, they may well have been swedes but I was always told they were turnips so lets save that quarrell for another day. We watched excitedly as my poor dad summoned all his manly strength to carve out the practically concrete interior. I now feel his pain each time I am faced with the prospect of preparing such a vegetable for dinner. User friendly they are not.
2. Dressing up. Here’s the thing. You would just cobble something together on the day. Nothing ever seemed pre-planned to me. My mum would reach into the mysterious, bottomless airing cupboard and drag out a few thinning sheets then chuck them over our heads. A couple of holes were cut out for our eyes (which never stayed in place) and we were good to go. I thought I was hard done by until a friend confided she had only been given a bin bag.
3. Trick or treat. We didn’t pester the neighbours until we were old enough to go on our own. We just waited patiently in the window, in the dark, with our turnips, for any visitors to our door – if we could see them from beneath our shifting sheets that is.
4. Sweets. Dad used to bring home treacle toffee in a white paper bag. It was all sharp and too hard. Not unlike eating a broken plate. I tried really hard to like it but just couldn’t rise to the challenge. We did bob for apples occasionally but I found this equally unpleasant when the water went up my nose (or was that just my sister ‘accidentally’ pushing me over? mmm). I was far more interested in the toffee coated variety wrapped in cellophane. Now we’re talking.
Less hysteria more fun if you ask me. I might not be keen on today’s Halloween madness, but at least it gives me an excuse to hold off with the extendable duster for a couple of weeks. Those cobwebs can stay put!