To think my MIL is wrong?

[Bluemonkey18]

I was talking with gf mother (61) about carving pumpkins and she said that they didn't have pumpkins back in the 60s and instead carved turnips. She said they would put a candle inside and run around, rattling bins and scaring people. And that trick or treating wasn't a thing.

In the NE we carved turnips (you definitely earned any coppers you got) or turned glass jars into lanterns with coloured paper.

Child of 60s/70s here. The biggest event apart from Christmas, was guy Fawkes night. Does anyone remember penny for the guy?

We used to make scarecrow and prior to bonfire night wheel it in a wheelbarrow round streets and ask strangers for money to buy fireworks (which were sold to the general public). Most of the time we just dressed our little brother up in old clothes as the 'Guy'!

Ahhh, the memories

I remember the smell of warm scorched turnip like it was yesterday... but it was c.50 years ago.

I also remember apple bobbing, and the year when my brother had a baaaaad cold so we did the fork thing where you kneel on a chair and drop a fork to stab an apple.... and fairy cakes dangling on the washing line covered in drippy icing, no hands allowed, everyone picking icing out of their eyebrows when it dried.

Simple pleasures.

I grew up in Scotland in the 60s and 70s and carving turnips was definitely a thing. Then you'd put a candle inside it and go round people's houses asking for a penny for the guy. You usually had the guy in a wheelbarrow and were expected to do some sort of turn to get something from the householders.
I never saw a pumpkin in a shop here until years later and trick or treating is yet another American thing that's been adopted 🙄

Well, that's been a lovely 11 pages of reminiscence but when is OP going to come back and explain why he felt the need to ask the question?

Who is it you regard as incompetent idiots who can't recall their own lives correctly OP? Everyone over 60 / over 40 / only older women / all women / only women in your wife's family / anyone who disagrees with you when you make an ignorant assertion / anyone whose life experience is slightly different from yours?

We're agog to know... oh no, hang on, I'm only mildly curious, as I'm enjoying reading everyone else's stories. Ah well.

West Midlands, born early 60s. Dad carved the swede lantern (one of his least favourite jobs of the year) we dressed up, apple bobbing, games. No trick or treating. Might possibly have recognised a pumpkin if it landed on me from a great height

Guy Fawkes Night was more of a big thing with lots of us putting our guys outside so we could mug people on their way home from work, some organised public displays but usually family bonfires with a little box of fireworks, soup and potatoes baked in the ashes.

No trick or treating, in fact the whole thing was very low profile. DH says they used to carve turnips, we didn't carve anything.

I am older than your MIL, @Bluemonkey18 as I was born in the Fifties in England and the only thing we celebrated in October/November was Guy Fawkes Night on 5th November. Never any mention of Hallowe'en or carving of turnips or pumpkins. As far as I am concerned, Hallowe'en was imported from North America and we first celebrated it with Canadian friends when my child was young, in the Nineties.
Also, why would you think your MIL was wrong when she actually lived through it, well before you were born? Are people who talk about (for example) WWII and bombings and blackout and VE Day also wrong because you weren't there?

"Ooh
Our faces are crooked and green,
Ooh"

Glad I'm not the only one who remembers that!
Anyone else in East Anglia carved a sugar beet instead of a turnip? 😄

It was turnips in Ireland too. We did go house to house but you had to sing at each one

Halloween is coming and the goose is getting fat can you please put a penny in the old man's hat if you haven't got a penny a h'penny will do if you haven't got a h'penny god bless you and the old man too.

She's right. Turnios/swedes (the same thing but different names in different areas). were carved - and smelled awful if you put a candle in them.

The nearest thing to trick or treating I knew of was when I moved to Yorkshire in the 70s and the kids did Mischief Night - which back then was the 4th November.

Why on earth would you think your MIL is wrong?

Yes we carved turnips! But is the old north/south thing of turnip verses swede at play here? Generally in the north of England and Scotland, turnips are big, usually purple coloured on the outside and yellow orange on the inside. Swedes are much smaller and have a more white I side. Further south this is reversed, so I can understand why someone who thought a turnip was a small white root vegetable wouldn’t make a good lantern,

You also had to put holes in the lid to stop the candle going out and the air was filled with the smell of partially roasted root vegetables! We did ‘Penny for the Lantern’ and waved our lanterns around someone’s door as the answered (probably to ward off spirits) but never shouted trick or treat at people.

Carved swede memories here too - parents came from NE England.

Pumpkins only came into my life in my teenage years when I had a friend who was obsessed with the American cartoon series "Peanuts" - Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and crew - which around Halloween always featured stories about the Great Pumpkin Patch

The modern version of Halloween is nowt like the old version, it's an American import.

Turnips that took most of the day to carve and you cut your hands to ribbons, then stunk to high heaven when a candle was lit.

On the plus side, turnip was free as my dad grew them in the garden. We used to Bob for apples, a big bin filled to the brim with water then apples added, you had to tilt your head upside down to get on. Apples were free too.

Looking back, we did a lot of stuff that was free.

Bonfire night was bigger, penny for the guy and I had loads of family nearby, we always hosted it and all my cousins would turn up.

I am old now but I would cut my right hand off just to go back to those days for a few hours.

Yes really. I’m also early 40s and never saw a real pumpkin as a child. Why are people questioning others’ memories?! By the way 5 years is not ‘a couple’.

Yes!!!!! And you would nominate old people to be given a parcel. I remember being really upset when my cousin got to give the basket to my nan rather than me!

I’m from the North East and we always carved turnips when I was a kid, not an easy thing to do.

Bonfire night was huge. We would have been DEAD if we had ever done penny for the guy...in so much trouble. Mum considered it begging.

We did spend a couple of weeks before hand collecting wood for the fire which we would have in the wasteground at the bottom of our street. I remember us knocking on people's houses and us carrying doors and planks out of their backyards🤣!
Then on bommy night everyone would go to the wasteground and set off their own fireworks and the bonfire would be enormous. Sometimes someone would throw a tire or something on it and the fire brigade would put it out.
Then at home we would have baked potatoes and parkin.

I'm 60. She's absolutely right. Halloween was nothing like it is now. I think my dad might have carved a swede or two, and he sometimes grew a couple of gourd plants in the garden and used those. We didn't have the sort of pumpkins like now - wartime food rationing was still too fresh in the memory of most adults back then.

Trick or Treat as a 'thing' came over here from the States far more recently. Prior to that everyone was far more geared up for bonfire night and Guy Fawkes, and we all did Penny for the Guy, and had toffee apples on sticks. I can't remember the last time I saw one of those.

At Halloween, you might have seen a couple of teenagers with sheets over their head running round the streets going "Wooooo!!" but that was it.

Yes always Bonfire night bigger than Halloween. We often combined the two .

In the 70s and 80s we carved turnips, no trick or treating. Me and my sister's used to make witches hats out of newspaper but that's as far as it went. Bonfire night was the Biggie, we had fireworks, hot dogs, bobbed for apples and toffy apples. Round us trick or treating started when my kids where very small in the late 90s.

@SliceOfCakeCupOfTea where do you live? Our pumpkins were £1.75 from Tesco! Made soup too as well as carving them.

I wonder if @Bluemonkey18 is currently carving a turnip as penance 🤣.

I am in my mid 40s and remember going to one Halloween party but it was a really new thing and unusual. Don't remember trick or treating. When I was in my teens it seemed to become a thing so we used to turn lights out and pretend we weren't in.
So much better now with people only going to houses that are trimmed up.

AIBU ... to be surprised by what my MIL told me?

There - improved it for you, OP - your're welcome!

'AIBU to be intrigued by something new I found out today? If you're in your 50s or 60s was this your childhood experience too?'