None of this pre-made costumes in my day I tell you. We’d be making ours for weeks but really, it would be witches, wizards or ghosts mostly.

I have one particularly shameful outfit which I’ll save for later. 😀

None. Never went.

None. I’m not American.

Ditto. Grew up in the UK.

Really?

It was hugely popular in Ireland when I was a kid. I guess Halloween was a bit more of a big deal for us Celts. Certainly, it wasn’t anything to do with the influence from across the pond.

Oh right.

D’oh. Forget I asked then. 🙂

when we went trick or treating as kids my mam used to spend ages carving out the biggest Swedes she could find as there were no pumpkins around. Those things are solid, and they used to stink! I remember my sister dressing as Pierrot one halloween, **** knows why 😕 I always went as the incredible hulk, wouldn’t do anything else.

Halloween started in Ireland about 2,000 years ago with a group of people called the Celtics. They believed in a god called Samhain who was the god of dead and darkness

rather an apt name DD 😀

I’m from the West Highlands of Scotland and when we were kids we all used to go around the houses “guising” for halloween. You had to do a wee ‘turn’ of singing a song or reciting a poem to get your sweeties, the lazier kids would tell a crappy knock knock joke. I learned the full rendition of Lewis Carroll’s The Jabberwocky for my speciality, can still recite it to this day. It only became trick or treat in more recent years, when I was little Trick or Treat was what Charlie Brown did and was quite exotic.

Favoured costume was either a vampire or putting on a black bin bag, some safety pins and a plug chain, hey presto! A punk! 🙂

We didn’t have ‘Guy Fawkes’ night though. That was for “The English”.

Certainly, it wasn’t anything to do with the influence from across the pond.

No, it’s you guys who took over there. Which was fine by me, only thanks to the Simpsons/cultural imperialism, it was brought over here.

I’m waiting for when Brits start going on parades on the 17th of March dressed like this :

ernie, I only sent you that photo of me for private consumption. 😡

🙂

Aye, it was pretty popular with us, but as soon as me and my sister grew out of it (23 and 25 respectively 😉 ) my folks stopped taking guisers in, apparently there were kids getting bussed in from other villages as ours was seen as a ‘good gig’. He thought the costumes were crap as well.

My best was probably ‘Doctor Death’ although it borrowed rather heavily from the laboratory where my dad worked, including the fake plaster hand that i used to great effect to terrify a few neighbours 😀

ditto the carved out swedes. other than that, nothing. “Trick Or Treat” has only really become a big thing over here in the last 20-25 years.

But I do remember doing a hallowe’en gig in the late 80s, in costume. I was Dracula, modelled after Dave Vanian’s take on the image; the rest of the band were zombies IIRC. We did mostly original songs, including songs called “Night Of The Living Dead” and “The Bogeyman”, plus a cover of The Cramps’ cover of Goo Goo Muck. NOTLD may be on myspace somewhere, let me have a look…

correction, here’s The Bogeyman c1987

ah here we go: Night Of The Living Dead, also c1987

Just plastic masks here. Hallowe’en was popular early on because we have an American Base nearby so the kids introduced us to the theme.

actually, come to think of it, we didn’t go “trick or treating” whatever that means. we just went from door to door hoping for some cash/sweets etc.

Never did ‘Thanksgiving’ either, or ‘4th of July’. Teaches kids how to scrounge and beg though, so not all bad.
Bahhhhhhhhh humbug etc.

Neither did we Kevevs. Just went door to door. But it was every house. We’d come home with a stash of tooth rotting shite to last us weeks!

Sanny and I both went round the doors as kids – everyone I knew as a kid did (we both grew up in the West of Scotland). We had to do a party piece too.

While I remember dressing up as Arthur the caterpillar from ‘Willo the wisp’ (lots of orange crepe paper and stitched into it) Sanny apparently went round the doors as Alfred and the burnt cakes, when he was about 5. His mother has a lot to answer for. I’m off to rip the mickey some more…
:o)

I learned the full rendition of Lewis Carroll’s The Jabberwocky for my speciality, can still recite it to this day

‘Tis one of the greatest poems from one of the greatest works of literature ever written in the English language. Truly.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought–
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Excellent choice JoJo. If any kids came to my door and did that, I’d want to help fund them through university. 🙂

… I could do with a couple of quid now if you fancy backdating your philanthropy 😉

Heh! Not sure if it can be backdated JoJo! 😀

Ooh, it sends shivers down me spine, that poem. It’s flipping genius. I once gave a Russian lass a copy of Alice in Wonderland/ Through the Looking Glass as a gift; she said it was the greatest thing she’d ever read in English.

S’bloody brilliant though innit? My art teacher in college once set us an assignment where he gave each of us a poem and asked us to interpret it with typography. I got Jaberwocky, and was well chuffed, cos it was me fave poem anyway! 😀

Has this bloke been on Haj to Mecca?

No costumes here. Up until my late thirties Halloween passed off without anybody in this neck of the woods noticing.

and John Lennon thought he was a bit handy with I am the Walrus. Garbage.

then Noel Gallagher with Champagne Supernova. Utter garbage.

Jabberwocky is where true quality made up shite is at.

I remember my sister dressing as Pierrot one halloween

I misread that and thought, odd choice…

Innit though? Jaberwocky is a work of genius, no mistake. Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass is proper warped and twisted if you sit down and think about it carefully. He was one ‘not very well little boy’ was Lewis Carroll.

But what mastery of language. Totally awesome.

all this stuff about trick or treating not being english, or even worse being american makes me laugh. do people think that all these things that we celebrate have been frozen in time since king harold or something ? we wouldn’t have the xmas that we have if it wasn’t for the germans and we wouldn’t have a fat red santa if it wasn’t for coca cola.

england’s a big cultural sponge and always has been.

that’s why we’re so cool 8)

edit: I’d remeber that muppetwrangler lol!

Art teachers and Lewis Carroll eh. spent a lot of my first year in uni hidden away illustrating AIW. got them here somewhere, should scan ’em in sometime. you’d be surprised. Everybody thinks Carroll through Tenniels images though. even now.

Seemed to get popular in england after ET was released. Can’t remember it happening when I was very young. Remember sweede lanterns and dressing as dracular at 8 which was 1984

sounds about right djglover, sameish age as me. it’s when I got into skateboards and bmxs as well. although being in north wales could be celtic influence. dunno really.

we had to pinch sugar beet from the fields and carve them out as lanterns. nobody had pumpkins!
then my mum would dress us in a white sheet which we had decorated with her poster paints,
she would then paint our faces with the same paints. they were really thick and smelly paints.
i think i was meant to be a ghost 😕

I don’t remember trick or treaters showing up at the door much beyond the last 7-8 years. It really is very recent round this neck of the woods (West of London).

Saw nobody tonight or last year either.

england’s a big cultural sponge and always has been.

that’s why we’re so cool

True dat y’kna rudebwoy….

Don’t hear people moaning about folk celebrating Diwali or New Year’s Eve or Chinese New Year etc etc etc….

Allow it. If people are having fun and it don’t hurt no-one, what’s the problem?

Maybe we should have a proper British Festival, where everyone is miserable and moans about everything…

Oh….

bang on. friend of mine has posted a pic of her kids on FB. the 2 girls are witches, boring traditional. The lad is Boba Fett! LOL! in future, boba fett and The Incredible Hulk will be badass mofo’s that come into your nightmares. Witches are so passe.

england’s a big cultural sponge and always has been.

“Cultural sponge” ? Bleedin’ cheek. It’s the other way round mate – British culture which has been exported and valued throughout the world, to the unending envy of our American cousins I may add.

Good governance, queuing, the British class system, manners, cricket, personal hygiene, business etiquette, and binge drinking, just to name a few.

don’t forget Golf.

“Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players (or golfers) use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes.”

if you don’t think that’s funny. you are a golfer!

OK golf too then.

I was also going to include the Stiff Upper Lip/Blitz Spirit, but then it occurred to me that represents a great British export failure.

what’s the opposite of a sponge in metaphorical terms anyway? a spouting geyser? I’ve often wondered this. “Cultural spouting geyser” doesn’t sound right but metaphorically it’s spout on. Culturally, we give as much as we take, ooh pardon!

Been trick or treat since I was a kid (25 years) and my brother remembers doing it too (so + another 8 or so years).

There’s some fun-suckers in this room, as usual!

The black bin bag monster was a very quick (and pathetic) last minute attempt at a costume in my house a coupla times when I was a kid.. Usually just before my folks realised it was dressing up day at school..