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.

Pumpkins and trick or treat are American imports.
In Scotland we carved turnips (swedes) and went guising... you were expected to do a 'turn'...tell a joke, tell a story, recite a poem or sing a song before you got a wee handful of peanuts, an apple, orange ,a wee bar of chocolate or a toffee apple.
We only ever visited family or immediate neighbours.

This was mine this year.
No pumpkins allowed. Moots (turnips) all the way.

Turnips or swedes were carved in Norfolk from at least the 1930s onwards, according to my relatives. Party games were a thing, but no trick or treating.

Yep, grew up in the Eighties and trick or treating was just beginning to come over from America. We dressed up (but like, a bin liner with a belt for a witch’s dress or a sheet with eyes cut out for a ghost - not these amazing costumes I see today. We (the three households of kids on our street) only ever went round four neighbours - mostly each others’ parents and the one dude who gave us a big tube of Fruit Pastilles each every year but they were always out of date so we’d thank him and then our parents would take them off us and bin ‘em 😂. Bobbing for apples and carving swedes. And cinder toffee. Definitely no pumpkins.

My mum gave me a butternut squash to carve some time in the early Nineties and everyone thought we were well posh 🤣

@Bluemonkey18 youre wrong ,
I’m 61 and your MIL is correct, we didn’t go trick or treating , and yes , turnips were carved

My mum would buy a swede and leave it to go slightly soft (so only took a year or so ) and carved that. T&T wasnt a thing when I was a kid in the 70's and 80's. It only really took off in the 90's onwards when American culture became more obvious via TV imported from there.

Yup, 70s and 80s in northern England we carved turnips, I don't think I knew what a pumpkin was!

I did it and I'm in my 40s!!

Yes as a child of the 80s we had swedes with string for a handle, candle inside and sent out for to ask for “Penny for Halloween” with matches in our pockets.

We’d get a mixture of sweets and money. There were no pumpkins. Invariably the flame would turn the lid black and burn through the string which would mean some roadside engineering was needed, and learning how to relight the flame when there was a bit of a breeze.

I did it, and I’m in my 50s!

Hallowe’en has become very commercialised. And lasts for weeks. Used to be just the one night - clue’s in the name!

Same here in Northern Ireland. We used turnips and dressed up but not in scary costumes. We dunked for apples and my Granny would make an apple tart with certain extras usually wrapped in greaseproof paper
A coin for wealth, a ring indicating marriage and a button indicating spinsterhood or bachelorhood.
We also had fireworks and bonfires.
No treats but my dad would take our gate off to keep it from being taken.
This was in the sixties.

In Ireland it was turnips because there were no pumpkins according to my mum and yes no trick or treating

That was us in the 80s in Lancashire. Not many people went trick or treating (although I remember envying them), but we'd all have had the huge effort of carving a turnip lantern.

Born in 1963, you say? You mean like Brad Pitt? (Or ancient Nigella Lawson, born in 1960.) Ooh, their memories are all gone!

What a totally bizarre thing to say.

I carved turnips in the 1980’s and trick or treating wasn’t a big thing at all

I’m 54, grew up in London. Hallowe’en wasn’t a thing. Moved back to UK in 2015 after living overseas, that was the first time I saw pumpkins carved.

How's that smug certainty feeling now OP?

Ha, yes! Walking around with the smell of burning turnip getting ever stronger.
We used to knock on doors and chant:
The sky is blue,
The grass is green,
Spare us a penny for Halloween.

That's what I was thinking. OP do you think she is lying? Or her memory is impaired?

No trick or treating where I was in the 70s and 80s and no pumpkins either. I think your MiL is right.

I’m 41 and this was halloween in Scotland in the 80’s. Guising all the way, and not trick or treating. Dooming for apples as well.

dooking not dooming of course!

This!

I early 80 to mid 80s in greater Manchester. We carved turnips, got dressed up, had halloween parties, apple bobbing, we did a small amount of trick or treating on our road.

How fucking patronising and ageist of @Bluemonkey18 and @MatildaTheCat Sadly you both lack the intelligence and imagination to understand that lives might have just been different before you two existed - shocking as that might be. Maybe try some fucking research before you show yourselves to be such gormless ignorant twats. Try looking at www.english-heritage.org.uk/members-area/kids/halloween-the-history-of-pumpkins/ which explains in simple language the history of Halloween in the UK which even predates your precious fucking pumpkins.