Memories of Halloween

Yes, turnips not pumpkins in the West Midlands. We didn't really celebrate Hallowe'en at all. Someone had a party one year and I remember apple bobbing and ghost stories just that once. We didn't have trick or treating but we did have 'Mischief Night'. I say 'we' but I was never allowed out at night!

It was called Tucking Apple night in our house, we had an old basin for our apple bobbing and apples hanging on strings, no one dressed up , but we did have toffee apples for prizes..

Guising..dressed in fancy dress, out alone, we knocked on doors. if asked in which was usually always the case we had to sing for our pennies.......

ps wisewoman...we carried a candlelit Neep...ie turnip

Thanks for your memories. Interesting to hear from you all. I never remember "bobbing" for apples when I was a child though I did it with my own children. Probably our parents wouldn't think of "wasting" good apples. When I see all the Halloween tat in the shops I feel sad for more innocent times where money (other than buying monkey nuts and sweets) was not involved.

I have no memories of Halloween as a child. It just didn't happen in my family, although my mother was Irish. Come to think of it, it might have been because she was Irish. When I was at university we used to tell blood chilling stories to each other late at night on Halloween, while scoffing quantities of toasted crumpets and mugs of hot chocolate.

We had bobbing for apples in a tin bath but the favourite game involved soda scones dipped in treacle and hung from the 'pulley' in the kitchen. Blindfolded children tried to get a bite from a scone but usually ended up covered in treacle.

We went 'guising' in little groups round our neighbours doors, everyone had to say their rhyme or sing a song for which we were given a few nuts or an apple. It was such fun deciding on our costumes, all made from old clothes and whatever we could scrounge from our mothers.

My mother is Irish too absent and I think she found these Scottish customs very odd.

Like baubles, we went 'guising'. We blackened our faces with soot from the back of the fire, lots of lipstick on our lips and cheeks and put on a variety of dressing-up clothes. We went round knocking on the neighbours' doors and without fail, were asked in to give some sort of performance - usually a poem, song or joke. We were given sweets or pennies and sent on our way (quite smartish, if I remember rightly)!

I live about 10 mins drive from PENDLE HILL..!! whoooooooo spooooooky....lol

.....did we not have a Halloween Party last year, biker? Crikey, it doesn't seem like a year, does it?

yes Marelli we did lol...wow!!! yes nearly a year ago! where on earth has the year gone! (must have been a good one to remember it lol)

!!

We didn't celebrate Hallowe'en at all, if I remember correctly. Our house was spooky enough . Our current had a ghost when we first moved in, but he seems to have gone now.

Where are we going this year? I thought, how about the 'hellfire caves' but I can't remember where they are?
Can anyone? I'm referring to the caves used by lord Dashwood? For his 'hellfire club' should be spooky enough.
If anyone knows, can they please supply the GPS co-ordinates for sat nav equipped broomsticks?

If anyone is interested in our 2nd Halloween do, please sign the list below in bats blood!

I will then set up a new thread.

Buckinghamshire somewhere, I think jeni. Would it have been West Wycombe?

I think you should leave the bats alone. Use your own blood.

Didn't you suggest Highgate Cemetery a while ago, jeni?

Dad used to hollow out a turnip for us and mum cooked the bits so nothing was wasted.

I hate the new Americanised event.

I'll pop along on my broomstick to where ever you choose for a get together.

High gate cemetery it is!
Dress code famous people who are buried there?
Shall I start a new thread?

I'll come as George Elliot. I love the fact she broke with convention, lived in sin and then when her partner died went on to marry her toyboy.

Very different from the old days - in fact so different that I never knew of it being celebrated until I was in my thirties. Forty years on I still can't be bothered with it! It's Scottish I am reliably informed... not that that is against it.

Happy Halloween to all .

Off tonight to the DGC's homes to see them guising because weather is so foul they will only be going out the back door with turnip lanterns and round to 'chap' at the front. Then we will go through the ritual of astonishment that they have called, wondering who they are under the disguises, enjoying their performance and rewarding them with apples, nuts and sweets. At least a fourth generation tradition in our family.

What time tonight for the party?