My Halloween History

Halloween is a great time of the year with monsters, ghosts and tricks or treats, I know my kids love it and we decorate the house the week leading up to Halloween. growing up for me we didn't decorate the house and there was no trick or treat, this was something you heard Americans say on Halloween themed movies and TV shows, for me it was penny for Halloween or penny for the lantern. We used to knock around In a group (now called a gang) we got ready for Halloween by collecting a few turnips unwittingly donated from the farmers field, we then proceeded to hack out the flesh from the turnip, this was like spooning concrete after it had set (we were allowed to use a real kitchen knife and spoon with out the fears of self harm) the flesh was kept as our mams used it for turnip mash.

We then carved the faces mainly triangle eyes and nose with a pointed triangle teeth formed mouth, turnips were like etch a sketch circles were not doable the masks were from the cheapest place possible as they were disposable. Now we were set armed with a couple of turnip lanterns and our scary masks we canvassed door to door with the ever so repetitive words "penny for Halloween" or "penny for the lantern", younger kids like me were the ones who went to the doors the cute factor and all that, oh! and obviously you never just got a penny cause back when I was growing up we still had half pennies yey!. As not to step on the toes of others we always stuck to our own area which covered about 30 to 50 doors, excluding the ones who didn't answer and the ones genuinely not at home we happily came out with enough for an ice cream from the ice cream man and some sweets this was repeated for a few days up to and including Halloween itself. I remember my brother having a horror makeup kit and it did produce some pretty good fake scars and injuries.

I remember Halloween being a happy time we used to go out with out parental supervision and there was more of a community so everyone knew everyone else sadly something lacking in today's society.