We didn't really celebrate Halloween Tates...it was a sort of run up to bonfire night when he had the fire,fireworks, roast potatoes and apple ducking.
I remember my dad hollowing out and carving a swede(turnip) and making me a lantern. Then he'd take me out for a while before bed time just to walk about with it in the dark.

We had turnips (not stolen) and we went round the doors, not in costume, saying 'Penny for the Lantern*' in Northumberland.

*tho my grandma wouldnt let me go 'begging' she thought I was just going about.....going about the dark streets with a naked flame and a box of matches in my pocket

I love Halloween tho...now we ve more decorations for that than for Christmas coz we usually have a big party...but this year we are going to Chillingham Castle and staying in a nearby spooky cottage for the night

Sounds great Angel although I don't like spooky.  I work in a Children's Playcentre and they are as excited about Halloween as they are about Christmas. 


KATES.  It's a Turnip not a swede.    We don't do Guy Fawlkes Night.   Our Bonfire night is in June on the eve of St John's Day.

We didn't do much to celebrate it when I was a kid, but when my son was younger we used to make it a night to remember. We decorated the house, had the obligatory pumpkin, and had special halloween food. This was in the days before all the supermarkets would special halloween themed food so I had to be very creative, carving sandwiches into halloween shapes, making spiders out of tea cakes with kit kat legs, black jelly with red laces hanging out (I can't remember what that was supposed to be now ).

I miss it now he's older. 

I thought this Ducks but yesterday Son asked me to get a pumpkin - he lovingly carved it - put some kind of flashing lights in it and tonight placed it in the back of his car and went off to a "cruise" - dont ask cause I dont   apparently they had a competition for the best one

do they ever tire of halloween   he is 19

Maybe I should just buy one anyway then MrsH? I loved carving it.

I might try and do a more unusual carving.... been looking at some great ones on the internet.

Aw Ducks.    Aw MrsH.  

You've made me all maudlin now.  I love the car pumpkin thing.  Just goes to show we're all kids at heat.

Did none of you do knick knockin'?

No-one did anything to celebrate Hallowe'en when I was a child.  I always thought it was an American tradition, and I never remember anyone taking any notice of it until comparatively recently.

No.... that was just you Tates.

So not an American thing Growly.  They just commercialised it.

My mother who's 81 tells stories of stuffing turnips down chimneys and gathering up all the chickens, opening the door of someone's house and just letting them go..........

I think that was pretty much the case Growly. I first started making a fuss over it around 10 years ago, and it was virtually impossible to find any decorations for example. I had to make my own. Over the next five years I saw more and more things being sold every year. Now the shops are full of it.

I dont remember anything to do with trick n treating - I was allowed out to do penny for the guy though
trick n treating was in before I had my lad and the local kids used to come knocking but we moved then very rural but didnt have the knocking and used to take Son and drop him in the village to do it with his mates  but we dont have penny for the guy round here anymore - maybe as there are now more organised safer events to go to and less do it at home

So was it an Irish/Celtic thing?   I always say 'Trick' to the kids when they call to the door saying "Trick or Treat" ?  They look at me like I have two heads on me.

Would be interested in a Scottish outlook on this.

By the way.  Trick or Treat is not an old tradition.

Well, Halloween is definitely not an American thing, but it's interesting to see Tayto refer to "Trick or Treating", because I always considered that to be an American import.


When I grew up in Scotland, you went guising. The children dressed-up and went around the neighbours' houses (with young children normally escorted), but they would be invited in and expected to perform a party-piece in order to receive their treat. Young children would typically sing a nursery rhyme, while older children would often tell jokes or sometimes even play an instrument. 
Expecting to get something for nothing was frowned upon, and the concept behind "Trick or Treat" was an absolute no-no.


I remember once going round the house of new neighbours from England. They hadn't the faintest idea about this strange custom, and the mother gave us money to send us on our way. I remember my friend and I looking at each other is total confusion: we didn't want money - we wanted our fruit, sweets and monkey nuts!
[The school playground was always a sight the day after Halloween - totally covered in monkey nut shells!]


From what my parents tell me, they do get a few children still guising, but it's not nearly as big a thing as it used to be, and "Trick or Treating" has been creeping-in for a while.

Thanks for that EJ.

All we did was trick but we didn't call it that.  We just got up to devilment.  We played the games of ducking etc at home and then went out to cause the aforesaid devilment.

Ah right - well you did say it was really just "Trick"...


I must admit that I thought the Irish went guising too. However, after doing a quick search, it appears it's pretty-much unique to Scotland and the North of England.


As for party games: yeah, I forgot to mention them. Obviously they were a major part of proper, organized Halloween parties, but occasionally some of the neighbours would put them on when you went round.
The biggy was of course "dooking for apples", however another one which I think is peculiarly Scottish was the "treacle scone" game. potato scones (or similar) were covered in treacle and hung from the ceiling. The children then had to eat them with their hands held behind their back... Great fun!

Mine involved knocking on the door, saying half heartedly trick or treat (while chewing gum) and if they shut the door in my face they got a barrage of abuse. Quite normal really.

You're bloody mental you are What you doin that for? I'd shit meself

We 'ducked' for money or monkey nuts in a basin.  We also had a cake made which had 'charms' baked into them.  If you got money in your slice of cake you were going to be rich etc.  
Does anyone else have a Barm Brack????????

My mum makes that, but just as a regular cake or fruit loaf: it wouldn't have charms in it, and I've never associated it specifically with Halloween.

Blimey.

Is it something that people used to do more in the north than the south?    I'm sure if anyone had have been stuffing turninps down chimneys, I would have been up for that

We made our halloween lanterns out of swedes.

It's a flippin'  SWEDE

We did all the dressing up as witches and vampires stuff in South Wales too. And spend all afternoon carving a swede or turnip into a lantern, then go round all the neighbours' houses

Tayto, are you Irish?  The first time I heard about the turnip carving was when Toots told me he did it and I thought he was making it up, so I convinced him about an Irish tradition of carving out watermelons, which he believed hook line and sinker

We did the usual, bob the apple...and the swinging the apple from a string on a door frame (that's how most of us lost our baby teeth )  then the going around the houses.  But we never said trick or treat, it was Help the halloween party.

A swede is short for a swedish turnip.

Swedes have orange flesh, turnips have white.

I know, but the name 'swede' comes from 'swedish turnip'.
In Ireland they are just called turnips.

Apparently, they could be a cross between a cabbage and a turnip!

I am going on a ghost walk round historic portsmouth apparently it will end in a pub

  how very dare you, we embrace our Scandanavian heritage

I am Irish Temps.  We chattted about this one night on C4.  I'm live in a neighbouring to you.

That's a great story.  I'm amazed they didn't go out causing mayhem in the UK.  
I remember the first Halloween after we were married the kids came to our door and said Trick or Treat.  I hadn't a clue what they were talking about.  There were no kids left in the street where I had lived so I had never heard it.

I once went on a ghost walk where you live...Winchester, right? Twas fun but the pub after was better,