Opinion

Tom Kelly: Halloween has lost its magic - now it's about what you can buy

People used to carve turnips at Halloween - now it's all pre-carved pumpkins and Americanisation
People used to carve turnips at Halloween - now it's all pre-carved pumpkins and Americanisation People used to carve turnips at Halloween - now it's all pre-carved pumpkins and Americanisation

TOMORROW night is Halloween and you are either looking forward to it or, like me, hate it.

It wasn't always this way. As a kid I actually loved Halloween. Back then it was much more of a family event.

Maybe because of the Troubles and as fireworks were by and large banned, most activities centred in the home or the back garden.

Cheap plastic faces sweated the face like a personal steamer and the novelty new black bin liners made excellent cloaks for would-be warlocks or witches.

Ripped white sheets were a rarity but when they became redundant they would transform into ghoulish wraps before being recycled once again into dishcloths.

'Monkey' nuts were the order of the day and there wasn't even a mention of peanut allergies back then.

If you had to hollow out a lantern it was from a turnip. Pumpkins hadn't hit Ireland.

The downside for me was that you had to eat some turnip to get the outer casing and turnip was about as appealing to me as cabbage or Brussels sprouts.

We hadn't the luxury of doing food waste, so a brown bin would have been a redundant extra too.

Home-made apple tarts contained five pence pieces that were carefully wrapped in greaseproof paper - and which were inflation-indexed rising to the then-new twenty pence piece.

Each slice of tart cut would be eagerly scrutinised by ever-vigilant young eyes.

Unknown to us each slice of tart contained a coin but the expectation of disappointment was ever there.

Then a string of apples would be put across the sitting room, all measured perfectly to suit the stretch of the youngest to the oldest.

Hands would be held behind the back as mouths would hopelessly try to catch the swinging apples with your teeth.

Many's a black eye occurred as the uncooperative apples would bounce off both heads and faces.

Cheating was commonplace. Bobbing for apples was too tame for our house and it was replaced with bobbing for a fifty pence piece which was carefully perched on one of its sides in the washing up dish.

It was a slobbery game as younger siblings often approached it like catfish hoovering a riverbed.

Despite the age differences, we were an extremely competitive family. Losing was not an option.

Certainly being a teenager I hated being beaten by an over-enthusiastic seven-year-old. It had all the tension of a north London derby.

Fireworks consisted mainly of harmless sparklers. And still I remember my sister backing off from holding them.

Of course, despite the firework ban, a quick run up to the border would secure a few Roman candles, spinners, bangers and Catherine wheels which could be let off from the safety of the back garden.

It was hardly a spectacular but with an entire housing estate turned into Tivoli gardens for a night it was enough to keep the British army from patrolling the area.

Unsurprisingly, paramilitaries took the night off too - if only to display their dexterity at launching rockets.

Sometimes we went around knocking neighbours doors and running off. Most learned to ignore it but the cranky ones would chase you around the estate calling out your name and threatening to tell your parents.

The highlight of our evening was a simple game of spin the top. A small hexagonal brass top would be taken from my aunt's handbag and we sat around the table like a group of professional poker players.

The maximum you could lose at any time was two pence but it may as well have been a thousand pounds. The kitchen became the Casino Royale and I was the Cincinnati Kid.

But it is all so different now. Halloween has become a season - a retail season.

It's been hijacked, like most things, by Americanisation. There are no home-made costumes as a whole industry has been spawned.

There is a nightmare on every street as kids go door to door doing 'trick or treat'.

It's relentless. Offer an apple instead of Haribos and they are aghast.

Fireworks are set off weeks before Halloween, scaring pets and older people alike. The controls on the sale of fireworks are too lax or not enforced at all.

Halloween was once about enjoying time with the family and the preparation was all about imagination and excitement.

Now it is about what you can buy. Even the pumpkins come pre-carved.

Maybe Halloween has returned to its pagan roots, and the god is Mammon.