I was watching Deal or No Deal before my TV packed up (yes, I know, sad isn't it?) and the contestants were wrapped in bandages and covered in grey powder. I found it quite unnerving and in very poor taste.
I think Halloween is one of those things which should have been left in the USA. We used to have a good time on bon-fire night ( even the nuns didn't complain athough we were celebrating the death of a Catholic). We would collect wood for weeks beforehand and have a big fire on the 'croft' which was a cleared bomb site. The mothers would make parkin and treacle toffee and we would roast potatoes round the edge of the fire. All ages took part, the older people having chairs brought out. Nobody could afford much in the way of fireworks, but some of the boys did manage to get hold of 'bangers'.
One thing which would be frowned on today, if not illegal, was the 'nigger troop'. Children would blacken their faces and go from door to door, like trick or treat, singing 'Give us a penny, we'll go away.....'. It was the down market version of carol singing. None of us had ever actually seen a black person - the only person of mixed race was a girl with a Nigerian father and an English mother, and she was treated as some exotic pet. She was never bullied or mistreated in any way.
