Was Halloween a big thing when you were growing up?

[BiggyJ]

As in - did you carve pumpkins/turnips, go Trick or Treating, have themed parties etc?
I can't say I did, or can't recall it being a big deal as it is now for my own teen DCs.

(Born mid 70s so was a kid during the 80s )

I grew up in the 1960's/70's and Halloween was just a word we heard on American TV shows. It didn't exist at all in the UK. Bonfire night was "the thing" for kids and teenagers back then and a lot of effort and excitement went into it. By the time my son was 10 in the mid 80's Halloween had been sneakily imported and he used to go trick or treating with a few friends in our village. Even so, we didn't carve pumpkins, put up decorations or have parties.

No, I can't remember that we ever did anything at all. Complete non-event. Was a teenager in the early 70s. Must admit I find the current hype very tedious.

You said that you're bemused because it's always been a thing in your experience but then refer to the 80s whereas many posters have recollections of it not been a thing in England in the 50s, 60s or 70s which suggests that it hasn't always been widely celebrated.

Halloween and guising have always been huge in Scotland and Ireland but folk traditions around England had largely died out and the current celebrations in many parts of England such as decorated houses, trick or treat, shop bought costumes etc are clearly influenced by American tv and films.

Thought I'd quoted. I was referring to @Murpe's post

I grew up in the 1960's/70's and Halloween was just a word we heard on American TV shows. It didn't exist at all in the UK

It definitely did.

Well, how? This stuff wasn't on TV in the late 60s or 70s. We found out about trick or treat through American cartoons etc. I grew up mostly in South London and I'd never heard of the Guisers (sp?) till I came across it in a book much later. like the 1980s later. Not on the TV, not on the radio, not mentioned in books that I read and I read loads of book. No internet.

Honestly, not much if at all.

It’s not American though. I’m old and we went Guising (trick or treating is an import). Carved tumshie lanterns and did a joke to earn the sweets.

Honestly, not much if at all.

I don't know anyone can say it didn't exist just because they didn't experience it when other people absolutely did have Halloween in the seventies and eighties. It was a big deal when I was growing up.

I've just had a nostalgic Google for the masks I mentioned and they were pretty easy to find.

Apologies. I realise the Scottish celebrated it (although not sure it was called Halloween). Was it a thing in England in the 50's/60's or even the 70's? Were there ancient local traditions? It most definitely was unheard of in the South West where I grew up. As I say, it was just something we heard on American TV shows.

I’m 40 so a kid in 80’s / early 90s. My mum made fab costumes out of bin bags & crepe paper and we went round a few near by houses (usually the ones who had kids at school with me) was usually an orange or apple and monkey nuts 🤮 nothing like the massive amount of sweets my kids bring home! I do make bags up as well for the kids in our estate too.

we didn’t have pumpkins and our decorations were home made out of crepe paper and we dooked for apples. My mum also got us a bar of chocolate and some sweets.

My kids go to pumpkin patches, get on each & carve it. I make them little treat bags & they get quite a bit trick or treating. I make halloween dinners (usually the marks deal with some home made bits) & we always watch a halloween film too. My house has decorations inside & out & i HATE halloween but my kids love it and they are only into it for such a small amount of time!

All this! Scotland in the sixties and seventies. And for generations before.

I grew up in England. I'm English. It was called Halloween.

We dressed up. We carved a turnip. We went trick or treating. We sang a song on the doorstep. We also bobbed for apples at Halloween.

Everyone I knew went trick or treating dressed up. The streets were awash with witches and ghosts with a turnip lantern.

I was born in 1985 and throughout my childhood it was never a thing. Now it seems that each year it is getting bigger and bigger.

That's interesting. May I ask what decade this was and whereabouts in England?

Pretty big in my childhood of 1980s Glasgow

We’d go guising and have parties

Singed turnips, black bin bags and a cream filled Halloween cake were legendary, with the potential of actually swallowing a trinket

I believe it was called "Souling" in England when people went door to door. From when the church changed the dates. It definitely was a thing in England, I've got a folklorist friend who visits all sorts of historical sites with links to early Samhain/Halloween traditions. It just didn't remain as strong as it did in Ireland and Scotland, at least in some parts of England anyway.

This is an interesting site: https://www.history.com/news/halloween-trick-or-treating-origins

Wiki goes into more detail though, I'd have a look there. It's a fascinating topic!

I was born in 80 and we went trick or treating every year, had a couple of Halloween parties and used to try and carve a Swede which was mostly impossible. There weren't houses all decorated like there are now so you were blindly knocking on doors, also you tended to get money rather than chocolate etc. Halloween costumes were home made as well, black bin liner and cardboard witches hat for the girls, ripped up clothes with fake blood for boys (zombies) etc. Have many happy memories of Halloween as a kid and have taken all my dc trick or treating. Much easier these days to tell which houses actually want you to knock on their doors thankfully.

No. Born in 1958.
I remember going to a Halloween party when I was a Brownie in about 1967, but no trick or treating or pumpkin carving back then. I remember doing apple bobbing though.

Yes. Always loved anything spooky.

Dinner was always turnip, potatoes and sausages. The inside of the carved turnip. Sparklers as fireworks were banned during the troubles in NI. I didn't go rhyming though many others did.

My gran made the best ever apple tarts with 20p pieces wrapped in grease proof paper in it. Mine has the consistency of wall paper paste 😂

I loved monkey nuts and it was the only time of year we could get them. Never a fan of toffee apples but we did make chocolate apples with sprinkles.

It was a big thing, but not on the scale it is now. I grew up in Belfast in the seventies. We carved turnip lanterns, wore masks (occasionally a costume, but the mask was the important part), ate apple tart, bobbed for apples and lit sparklers and bengal matches. We went round the doors for sweets and a couple of coins, but it wasn't called trick or treating. The aforementioned apple tart usually had a ring and a coin hidden inside, wrapped in paper. The ring to foretell marriage and the coin for wealth. Nearly had a broken tooth a few times😆

Belfast in the 90s, dressed up at the end of term from the beginning of school, dressed up on Halloween, house decorated, turnips which turned to pumpkins at some point down the line, party for family and friends, apple bobbing, home made toffee, fireworks, sparklers and trick or treating, always an apple pie on Halloween, vegetable soup for an early dinner, monkey nuts, a coconut and sweets on the table and toffee apples as treats in the run up to Halloween.

I can never get over how year after year we have similar threads where we still have posters state quite categorically that Halloween is an American import and was never a thing in Britain/UK, despite dozens of previous posters recounting their own experiences and explaining the history/tradition.

I just remember it contained a lot of apple based games and foods, also spooky stories but nothing more than that really.

I know 😡.