It’s the time for ‘home invasion and pillage’ H

ANOTHER airport run, this time to Liverpool, meant enduring appalling traffic, roadworks and restricted speed limits while listening to the news on Radio 4.

My daughter’s flight was mid-morning, not that the time of day makes much difference. I suspect rush hour starts at midnight on the M62 and continues 24 hours.

I dropped her off at John Lennon International, paid my £3 fee for a stop lasting no more than three minutes, and was back on the road.

At least I could indulge myself on the return journey as I was alone in the car. On my MP3 player, I have a collection of Round The Horne BBC radio programmes, the comedy show was that was broadcast from 1965 to 1968, starring Kenneth Horne, Betty Marsden, Bill Pertwee, Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams.

The characters they play include the very camp Julian and Sandy (at a time when homosexuality was illegal), Dame Celia Molestrangler, J Peasemold Gruntfuttock (an elderly gentleman with an unhealthy passion for Judith Chalmers), parodies of ALLOWEEN, the time of under-age home invasion and pillage, is here again.

The “tradition” didn’t exist until America exported it to us and Michael Myers started killing teenagers in the 1978 Hollywood movie.

It seems like there has been a sequel every year since and original survivor Jamie Lee Curtis has returned for yet another update, 40 years later, to confront the now ancient serial killer who is again stalking the streets of Haddonfield.

Relax. I said Haddonfield, not Huddersfield.

While the film plays at the Odeon multiplex down Leeds Road, children will be on the prowl in fancy dress with baskets waiting to be filled with sweets.

Trust America: doorstep mugging for treats guaranteed to rot children’s teeth. But let’s not be cynical about how the occasion has been turned into a marketing exercise to promote everything from masks to costumes to confection (and possibly toothpaste and dental appointments).

I have grandchildren who thoroughly enjoy dressing up as witches and trolls and singing hubble bubble toil and trouble, which may be slightly different to Shakespeare’s original lines in Macbeth, but are more understandable to sevenyear-olds. Eamonn Andrews (Seamus Android), and folk singer Rambling Sid Rumpo, whose variations of ancient village folks songs include Green Grow My Nadgers Oh, as well as many others packed with double entendres.

Three shows later and I was home, the journey whizzing by, although I don’t know what other motorists might have thought if they saw me laughing out loud as I drove down the motorway.

What wonderful radio comedy. I recommend it to listeners old and new.

Still brilliant after 50 years. Yorkshire, by the way, is the most haunted area of Britain, according to property specialists Sellhousefast.uk, who checked with the Paranormal Database. Yes, there is one.

The area surrounding Huddersfield itself has quite a few ghostly spectres, from the chap on horseback called Mr Rimmington at Woodsome Hall Golf Club to the Grey Lady of Oakwell Hall at Birstall; Leathery Coit who drives his coach near the Fleece Inn at Elland where he was murdered, the devil dog of Milnsbridge and Jonah the porter at Huddersfield Railway Station.

I particularly like the story of the Cleckheaton landlord who wanted to be buried in a coffin filled with beer. His family denied his wish when he died which caused his spirit to haunt the pub.

So just be careful who you open the door to tomorrow night with your sweet treats at the ready. You might get an elderly chap looking for ale. Then again, I might have already gone to the pub.