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.

I was born in the Seventies and remember my mother carving a swede. I don't remember seeing pumpkins except on American tv and films.

Also we didn't really do trick or treating.

Turnips (well, swedes) when I was growing up in S Yorks. I don't think anybody had ever seen a pumpkin by then.

We didn't go trick or treating though, it really wasn't a thing. We just let the turnip lanterns burn in the hearth, making the house smell of warm charred turnip.

Why should your gf's mum be wrong about her own childhood? Or do you think the world was only invented when you were born?

Yes, in Scotland they carved pumpkins (tumshies) and went guising

Why would she be wrong

Oh god. The smell of the turnip once the candle got going. really evocative of the turning year and, yeah as I got old enough to carve my own turnip. Blisters and sore hands.

DH is Not From These Parts and he still has fits of giggles at the idea of carving turnips to make lanterns.

I am of your MILs era. She is right.

Why would you doubt her? I’m 42 and didn’t carve a pumpkin until the 2000s! Before that it was a neep.

What's a "gf mother", and yes turnip lanterns were a thing.

70’s child with here & we carved Swedes. Was hell on your hands! I remember asking my mum for a pumpkin but they hardly existed on the shelves & according to her prohibitively expensive. When I carved my first pumpkin (as an adult) I could t believe the difference not cld I believe that my mum wouldn’t have just splashed out on a pumpkin (how expensive cld they have been??) for the sake of her DC!! But extravagance, throw away culture & the f

I'm in my 60s and grew up in the North West. We carved turnips/swedes and played bob apple (the apple hung on a string in a doorway and you had to eat it without using hands) or duck apple (same but the apple floated in a bowl of water).
We first heard of trick or treating in the early 70s from friends who had emigrated to America

@MatildaTheCat your post does not come across well. Many of us know our own experiences and it is patronising to suggest otherwise

Child of the 80s here. Halloween wasn’t much of a thing then. Def remember seeing some carved swedes! Don’t remember seeing a real pumpkin at all.

I'm 61 no trick or treating but carved swedes. It was like trying to hack through granite!!
They did smell nice though when the candle was lit inside!!
So you MIL was quite correct. Can't imagine why you would think she made it up?

Early 40s, my mum from the North East would carve a turnip/swede. I grew up in London though and my friends thought this was bonkers. There was never any trick or treating though.

I now, coincidentally, live in the North East and trick or treating has been huge here the last few years, I don't know if this is a post pandemic thing or itts always been like this. It still wasn't a thing when I left London nearly three years ago.

I'm 20 years younger than her and have no memory of anything to do with Halloween. No visiting houses, no dressing up, definitely no carving of anything. Wasn't on my radar at all or anyone else I knew.

I just asked DH, he carved pumpkins as a child and he was born in 1953, he lived in Berkshire

In Leicestershire in the late 60s / 70s, Halloween was not a big thing and we certainly didn't have pumpkins. Turnips with a small candle in was as much as we did.

That’s a well known rhyme, only it’s ‘Christmas is coming’ I’ve never heard it associated with Halloween before!

That’s a well known rhyme, only it’s ‘Christmas is coming’ I’ve never heard it associated with Halloween before!
Yes, definitely Christmas not Halloween.

Posted too soon….just to finish - the fashion for pumpkins was just not a thing then.
Did love the weird smell of a slightly burnt swede though on an autumn night! 🎃

Im mid 30s and we had turnip or swede lanterns. What a bugger they were to carve! I remember using an apple corer and getting in trouble for eating the raw bits.... i also thought the smell when they burned from the candle was wonderful! And yes to guising and never trick or treating. And the shit houses gave you a whole load of monkey nuts instead of sweets! I'm in Scotland.

Another 60:year old ancient relic from a bygone age who can categorically confirm hollowing out a swede (turnip) was the tradition, plus apple bobbing.
I used to have a couple of friends over and we’d go outside in the dark, an pretend we could see ghosts and witches.
no sweet begging in those olden times either

it would be so nice of you to acknowledge your error to her…. If it were me, I’d be happy to hear your honest and profuse apology 😂

I fear the gf mother (who's 61!!! Don't you know that means she's in her dotage???) will wait a long time for an apology.

Probably about as long as we'll wait for the OP to come back to the thread.

We had turnips when I was little. I'm 44

They were called Narkies up in the North East though!

Oh yeah, she's full of shit OP. You get her told

I’m from Somerset and can remember trying to carve a swede at Brownies in the early 70s. We didn’t go trick or treating though.

I am 55
Swedes, turnips and marrows
Dont think I ever saw a pumpkin as a child and I lived in an allotment rich rural area.