Forget fake Halloween and show me a turnip

IF you ask me, it all went wrong when we dropped the apostrophe. That’s right. Not so long ago, we celebrated Hallowe’en in this country, and a jolly good time it was, too.

We had turnips, not pumpkins, and we wore our carving scars with pride. We dooked for apples, rather than covering them with toffee.

We went guising, not ‘trick or treating’, which meant you couldn’t get away with simply rattling your bag of sweeties at the neighbour with a toothy grin but instead were made to stand in their front room and sing Cherry Ripe or recite a piece of poetic doggerel before receiving your hard-earned swizzle sticks.

And the outfits! I have a strong recollection of a Puss in Boots costume constructed out of a bin bag, wellington boots and the expert application of my mother’s eye pencil. Total cost: about 1½p.

Today, though, Halloween (no apostrophe) is an over-commercialised, pumpkin spice-saturated competition that’s become so over-the-top it makes Christmas look like All Saints’ Day. Almost.

This week, however, we learned that one Edinburgh primary school has banned fancy dress at Halloween because it ‘would not be inclusive’.

Parents are understandably outraged. Said one: ‘We were told the decision had been made to not let the kids dress up because some families don’t celebrate Halloween.

‘We’re living in Edinburgh, one of the most tolerant cities in the UK, but have been told our children can’t celebrate Halloween at school because “it’s not our culture”.’

Eh? Not our culture? Unless I’m very much mistaken, the Scots and the Irish have been marking the traditional Samhain since the tenth century.

Hallowe’en (note the apostrophe) is ours. It was invented here and has been celebrated for more than a millennium. If that’s not our culture, I don’t know what is.

Problem is, tradition has been watered down, almost to the point where it has become unrecognisable. ‘Trick or treating’ has taken on a life of its own, the new, Stars and Stripes version of Halloween far more popular today than the traditional Hallowe’en ever was.

Just four years ago the first pumpkin patch opened in Scotland. Now there are at least seven. At this rate pumpkins will be our number one export by 2023.

Perhaps it was inevitable. Last year Americans spent half a billion dollars on Halloween costumes. Not for themselves, you understand. For their pets. In the face of that sort of bonkers investment, it’s no wonder the hysteria has made its way across the Pond.

But there may be another reason for the school’s blanket ban on costumes. Last year, an email from the parent council advised against pupils wearing fancy dress at Halloween because of the ‘strain on family budgets’.

This is entirely understandable. Woe betide the child who turns up to school in a bin bag and wellies now. These days, fancy shop-bought costumes are

de rigueur, along with elaborate face paints and special pumpkin-shaped buckets to carry the loot.

So perhaps it’s time to draw a line. Campaign for a return to the Hallowe’en of old: the home-spun, slightly mortifying tradition we all remember of turnips, apple dooking, costumes fashioned out of bin bags and guising.

I reckon we could do worse than start with that apostrophe.