Trick Or Treat Fireworks

Week Five: Sunday 29 – Saturday 4 November

Having lived in the countryside for the last three years, and abroad for a couple of years before that, I had forgotten all about another example of the not so subtle Americanisation of British culture – trick or treat.

I always remember having a house party at Hallowe’en when I was young. If people came in fancy dress they made it themselves, they didn’t buy it from a shop. We lit candles, paid our respects to the living and the dead, and ‘dooked’ for apples, ate treacle scones from string hanging from the ‘pulley’, and played various party games.

I don’t remember going round the houses shouting ‘trick or treat’ and shoving a carrier back under the occupants nose in the hope of having it filled with chocolate (or ‘candy’, as the Americans say). I don’t remember ever having heard the term until I watched the film (or ‘movie’, as the Americans say) Halloween – and I only watched that for Jamie Lee Curtis!

I do remember going round the houses a few days after Hallowe’en, on the 4th November, to ask for a ‘penny for the guy’. You had to have made an effigy of Guy Fawkes and be carting it about in a wheel barrow to be entertained at all; you also had to recite a poem, tell a joke, sing a song, do a jig, or provide a combination of all four to stand any chance of getting any money. Even then, there were no guarantees. All money collected was handed over to an adult to buy you fireworks for Bonfire Night the next day.

But, this ‘trick or treat’ business is new to me; and I’m highly dubious. We knew all about Guy Fawkes and what what we were doing represented; we also had to work for our reward. I don’t think the vast majority of youngsters who chap doors and chant ‘trick or treat’, with a carrier bag thrust out in front of them, have any idea what Hallowe’en is all about. And they just stand there waiting to be rewarded with chocolate; like they don’t all eat enough of the stuff all year round anyway!

Anyway, the children who chapped my door on Hallowe’en weren’t the only ones getting muddled about their festivals. I let off a few fireworks when my door kept getting chapped every five minutes by children thrusting carrier bags in my face as I answered, and squealing ‘trick or treat.’

I asked the first few if they knew what they were doing, or if they knew what Hallowe’en was about. After a few awkward shuffles and embarrassed silences they either repeated their mantra and thrust the bag ever more forcefully at me, or walked away with a bemused look on their face that I could clearly see even though they had a ghoulish plastic mask on.

After that I put a sign on the door saying ‘No Trick Or Treat – Unless You Can Tell Me The Significance’. Our door never got chapped again, and I think word has got round the neighbourhood that it’s true about Scottish people: they are mean!

Bah humbug! Or is that another festival that’s lost all semblance of meaning?