Halloween & that damned Danny Baker

[Colwyn]

Well, I was all set to have a good old grump about Halloween. My idea of trick-or-treating is to pour a bucket of water out of the bedroom window onto the juvenile muggers. I had all the proper growls and grunts ready - "We never had this claptrap when we were kids", "It's a bloody American invasion of our country", "It has nothing to do with All Hallows Night" and so on. Then that damned Danny Baker on his Saturday show said "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know that. But the kids don't". The swine. Spoiling my super-charged grumpy rage. The blackguard is, of course, right. I have had to get in supplies of sweets. I nearly finished the previous sentence with a preposition; that shows how distraught I am.

[Marggie]

It might not have been an English thing but in Scotland we had great fun at Halloween.  For weeks before we would work on what we were going to be and make our costumes.  When we went into a house they had to guess who we were and then we had to do a "party piece", either recite a poem, sing or dance and then we got our reward - money, fruit, nuts and sweets.

[Scunner]

We were very poor and I remember the hard work involved in carving out a bloody swede - no pumpkins for us!

It was surprising with our kids - they hadn't experienced trick or treat having lived in Turkey till age 8. They went out the first Halloween we were back here, and absolutely hated it. Mind you, they're out now so it must have grown on them  

[Marggie]

We too made our lanterns from turnips, probably had never come into contact with pumpkins. 

[cheers]

We made ours out of turnips as well from the garden nursery my mum worked for.  Don't think I saw a pumpkin until I was about 40.  I led a very sheltered life   

[Fran]

Swede for me as well they are an absolute bugger to carve, and stink when lit with the candle.

[Shamless2]

We carved ours out of swedes, we were 6 children, our mother must have been dedicated to carve all them swedes, and of course Apple bobbing!!! Do they do that now? My sister used to make toffee apples, one year they turned out Blue!!

[kenkay]

There was an item on the news tonight about a cop car being torched in Liverpool. During that report I was amazed to learn that Halloween Eve is called "Mischief Night". What next??? I've omitted the TF between what and next   

[stoop]

Pumpkins are much more versatile  

[stoop]

There was an item on the news tonight about a cop car being torched in Liverpool. During that report I was amazed to learn that Halloween Eve is called "Mischief Night". What next??? I've omitted the TF between what and next   

Mischief Night was always 4th November in Leeds. Halloween never really existed back in those days - at least we knew nothing of it.