Did anyone else carve a turnip instead of a pumpkin as a kid?

[FlyingMonkeys]

I can remember my mum always used to carve a turnip for Halloween. Was this a thing for other people too?

Yes, turnips in NI (the kind that would be called a swede in England), which were the original jack o'lanterns, before Irish immigrants started to carve pumpkins in America. You couldn't get pumpkins when I was young anyway, they probably only came in around the late 90s.

Turnips were a bugger to carve but a few years ago we went to the Folk Museum on Halloween and they had a thing that quickly bashed out the middle of your turnip and then you could just carve its face.

The difference with a turnip lantern is you can take it with you round the doors guising. I might do one as well as a pumpkin this year.

Swede - Manchester in the 70s. I don't remember anyone having actual pumpkins then.

Yes we made turnip lanterns as well. We had a sort of system whereby we'd cut a grid of cubes into the solid turnip centre, then scoop out the cubes with a spoon - it took forever. All the spoons would be bent. And then the smouldering turnip flesh stank the place out. But tht looked great - agree with PPs they're much spookier than pumpkins.

We also used to thread string through them and carry them around with us.

Every Halloween I say I'm going to try doing a turnip lantern again but I can never be bothered!

We also did other fruit/veg - including a grape which we thought was hilarious (we just drew a face on it with felt tip )

PS this was Liverpool in the 80s. Halloween was always a big deal. And it wasn't all gory etc either - it was just witches, cats, spiders etc. Loved it - still do.

Yes, yes! So glad to see so many others in here with the same memories. We called it a Turnip Lantern and the vegetable has never been a Swede to me, although I now know that I need to call it that when talking to English people. The lovely smell of one with a candle inside, and taking it round the doors when guising. Aah. My Mum used to do the inside but then give to us to make the faces, yet another thing in a long list of things that I only realise now we’re bloody hard work in her part.
One year we did a melon instead though, as my costume was a spooky alien and we wanted something a bit unusual. It was so much easier!

We carved a swede. Can't remember whether we called it a turnip or swede though. This was South Wales in the 1980s.

I still remember the smell of burned turnip lid 🤢

i seem to remember my grandmother telling me.it was turnips(of some sort) in scotland and pumpkins over here.
pumpkins are native to north america ,so that makes sense.

We called them Jack-shine-a-maggies.
Little turnips were milk turnips.

I've just remembered - when they were growing in the field, my brothers used to go snartering i.e. pinching getting snarters (turnips) to make Jack-shine-a-maggies.

Always a turnip/swede in West Yorkshire in the 70s .No pumpkins here until Halloween became a big commercial affair. Turnips were the original Jack o'lanterns and much spookier.

Right, nostalgia wins, we are going to have a proper turnip lantern this year and if my arm drops off or I lose the odd finger, I'm blaming you lot :-)

We carved turnips (Swedes) in the north east in the 70's and 80's. ''Twas the original 'jack o lantern' until those pesky Americans pitched up with their weird 'not scary costumes' and pumpkins.

I remember many many bent spoons, copious blood and lots of swearing coming.l from the kitchen on 31st October. They were impossible to carve.

Fucking terrifying they were too. Look as this bastard!

Yes, we did this. I loved the smell of the turnip cooking as the candle heated it inside.

Swedes were for eating, where I grew up. Lanterns were carved out of Mangelwurzels borrowed from a field.

Thank god for this thread...sanity prevails! The North West in the 70s....it feels wrong even now to buy a pumpkin 🎃

Just had to google what a swede looked like and that's what I'd call a turnip  I'm so confused

There's a story that my nana used to tell me about turnip lanterns or Jack O lanterns.

A long time ago there was a wicked man named Jack from Kerry (not sure why Kerry specifically) who played a trick on the devil and made him promise not to take his soul when he died.

When Jack did eventually die, he had led to sinful and unrepentant a life to be allowed into heaven so he went to hell.

There the devil laughed and kept his promise refusing to take his soul and leaving him in the dark.

When jack asked him how he would see in the dark the devil tossed him a burning coal. Jack carved out a turnip (his favourite food) and put the coal inside to make a lantern and is now one of the lost souls doomed to stalk the earth for all eternity.

Yeh we always had a swede to carve and then we put a huge candle in and carried it in string. The candle always went out before you got out of the street.

Costume was always a bin bag and a paper witches hat from the corner shop. My grandmother bought me a broom one year and I was by far the best dressed witch.

Fast forward to my dc and it's a tenner each on a costume that most of the time I can't quite work out what it is. They carve a pumpkin each. We decorate the whole house from the beginning of October. We make Halloween crafts.

You also just got a token sweet when out trick or treating in my day. My dc get while bags from each door!

Where he keeps himself amused guiding travellers to safety or leading them astray to their doom in a bog, according to his mood. That story proper terrifies my DS and he insists in believing in Jack, as opposed to marsh gas.

Yup, I had a turnip on a string that dug into my hand when halloweening, and if that doesn't sound dangerous enough for a six year old, I had an enormous flappy bin liner witches dress. I was a walking fire hazard.

Yes! In the 1980s in Scotland we made turnip lanterns.. I was very surprised when I moved to England and found out they were known as Swedes down here.

I couldn't work it out as all things Swedish in my youth was basically Abba!

We always did swedes/turnips - we called them swedes 364 days a year, but the one day they were being carved, they were turnips. I'm a 70s child, and we're from the midlands,

One year, I remember proudly carrying my turnip lantern into brownies (on string, of course), to discover my friend's mum had gone off-piste and carved a marrow. Thinking back, this was genius due to the relative ease. No wonder my mum was jealous!

Ah yes, turnip lanterns in east central Scotland in the 70s and 80s, and we used to carry them around on a string whilst "guising".
Young children, out alone in the dark with lit candles. How very completely safe