I dream of Hallowe’en when we were children:

No transatlantic pumpkin at our sides

But turnip dug by dad from frost-streaked garden

And carved with care with chore-dulled kitchen knife

Till gaping, gap-toothed grin emerged. Then, skewered

By knitting needle, safe-secured by string,

With stub of candle craftily inserted

In hot-wax solder, to secure its grip.

 

Thin pins affixed the lid, cut raw and artless,

As pale-pink, trembling hands held high aloft

The leering lantern, bright amidst the darkness,

With stench of charring turnip on the drift

Of autumn air, to chime with leaf-fall bonfire.

Ghost-children, clad with tattered, white-sheet rags

Would prowl around, performing knock-down-ginger

On primed relations, armed with paper bags.

 

Their generous gifts were treacle-fudge or toffee,

Home-made in time-worn, copper-bottomed pan,

Poured out to set in buttered, tinplate cake-tray

Cut carefully in squares by skilful hands.

Accepted gratefully, these simple sweeties

Would blacken teeth but. in those long-lost days,

No notion had we then of healthy eating,

Just after rationing had met its fate.

 

Those days held no commercial trick-or-treating:

Homely apple-bobbing was our fun,

With fallen fruit from orchard for our eating

Or set in rock-hard toffee by our mum.

We children rampaged round the sleepy village

With ghostly howls and whoops upon our lips,

Like hordes of Vikings out to spoil and pillage

But still more innocent than today’s kids.