HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Halloween is an ancient festival marking the end of the harvest, the onset of winter, the loosing of demons on the eve of All Hallows on 31 October and the honouring of the dead on All Hallows Day itself on 1 November. Much Americanised by the introduction of “Trick or Treat” in the last 40 years, some old codgers may resent persistent child visitors and noisy fun on a dark autumn evening but I say any excuse for a bit of unbuttoned revelry is fine by me and I hope youngsters have a great time.

Halloween - Snap-apple Night- in 19th century Ireland

In my childhood in the early 1950s, my rural Scottish prep-school made a big deal of Halloween. Every boy made his own “neep” (turnip) lantern in the preceding days, (the turnips donated by a local farmer), hollowing out the hard raw turnip and over-eating this delicious but rather indigestible vegetable. Ghoulishly carved and painted with a candle inside, they made an impressive sight arrayed on shelves and tables, decorated with witches, bats and “bogles” (ghosts).

Turnip Lanterns

  

Pumpkin Jack o' Lantern

If memory serves me right, we ate traditional potato scones that night and had fruit cake adorned with my favourite marzipan. We ducked (“dooked”) for apples, a wet activity as you had to spear the apple floating in a bucket of water with a fork held in your teeth – or if you were daring, you immersed your head in the bucket and tried to bite your target apple. If there was a bonfire, you were treated to hot roasted chestnuts. Sometimes people went “guising”, going from house to house in weird or comic costumes and being rewarded with a cake or a small coin.  A good time was had by all. This kind of Halloween was most celebrated in once rural societies in Scotland and Ireland but rather less so in England.

The only unkindness I recall was when the Sun newspaper dubbed England’s football manager, highly competent Graham Taylor, Turniphead in 1993 after a run of dud results caused England to fail to qualify for the World Cup.

Graham "Turniphead" Taylor

The US, with its farming tradition, had long celebrated Halloween and the festivities spread to urban citizens. Pumpkins were used for lanterns rather than turnips – much easier to hollow out the soft seedy interior and pumpkins are larger and more impressive. Unknown in the UK till recently, I believe American make a soup and a pie from this useful comestible. The “guising“ tradition morphed into the rather more aggressive “trick or treat”, young visitors threatening mischief unless bought off with candy or cash (or both!).

Inevitably the ghoulish side of Halloween became heavily commercialised and ushered in a new genre of “slasher” movie epitomised by John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween about the return home from 15-year’s confinement of child-murderer Michael Myers. It was a box-office sensation, creating its own franchise and spawned similar gruesome productions like Friday the 13^th or Nightmare on Elm Street.

Michael Myers dispensing horror in Halloween (1978)

The Halloween festival no doubt encourages superstition, but it should be a joyful and warming family holiday. I despair when I hear about supposedly homicidal characters dressed up as clowns terrorising neighbourhoods and the purpose of the lantern is to scare off demons, not to frighten the populace. The children should have innocent fun and the adults should eat, drink and be merry.

It is not easy to shake off gloom at present – Brexit worries, Syria’s agony, Russian aggression, the prospect of a Hillary Clinton Presidency, Arsenal’s erratic form – I found myself robotically researching Suicide on the internet last week. Nothing is actually further from my mind and I wish you all a safe and Happy Halloween!

S.M.D.

26.10.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016