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 must have been posh, we stuck spooky shapes made out of tin foil on our bin bag costume. I'm 54 and we did apple bobbing and hanging apples. We'd make our own toffee apples, cinder and treacle toffee, the latter being put away for bonfire night, most Mum's had a heavy bottomed pan. MNers would have fainted at the thought of all the kids biting the same apple. As said turnip/swede. I've got a picture of my DD in 1992 in her bin bag costume going trick or treating, it was a fairly new thing to do.

Depends very much on where you live. Halloween wasn't a thing when I was a kid in SE London and I have never lived anywhere that it is, but if a birthday was around the date, sometimes kids parties would have that as theme and I remember the cubs having a Halloween party when mine was small. No trick or treats though (for which I am glad).

I know they have guising in Scotland.

Your MIL is right. I’m 55 and grew up in Yorkshire, so I was a child in the ‘70s/‘80s. We carved turnips, put a candle inside. I Think we slotted a string into the turnip so we could make a handle to carry it. Pumpkins were unheard of. Trick and treating was unheard of. We did have Halloween parties at home. We did have a thing called Mischief Night, but that was in November and nothing to do with Halloween.

Turnips. Pumpkins are an American import, as is Trick or Treating - we went guising. You needed wrists of steel to carve a turnip with a spoon.
Why would your MIL be wrong about her own life experience?

I'm 36 and in Scotland. I mainly remember us getting pumpkins once I was maybe 10 or so - we didn't carve anything before then as mum was busy making all our costumes and caring for 4 small children! One year when I was about 15 we left it too late to find a pumpkin ( I don't think the shops had mountains of them like they do now) so my sister and I tried a turnip. My god, respect to anyone who can manage to carve those, we gave up!

Pumpkin carving is more of a US thing and I don't remember people doing pumpkin carving in my childhood (1960's) or seeing mounds of them in the shops. Trick or treating wasn't such a big thing either. So mil is mostly right

Your MIL is right. I am nearly 60 and didn't see a pumpkin until I was 12. Trick or treating years after that. And yes, swedes or turnips to carve with a proper candle in.

Is op not coming back now that she knows mil was actually right after all?

Why on earth should she be wrong? pumpkins and trick or treat are from America. We had turnip lanterns, dooking for apples, all sorts of fun, guising in dress up clothes, not bought costumes, had to sing, recite, or tell a joke, and then sweeties. We loved it and it was home-made fun. The carved out bits of the turnip were used in soup.

Why would you accuse your MIL of lying about something you could very easily verify, either by using google o on this forum???

I remember dressing up in bin bags and trick or treating in the mid 80's in the south east and can even remember carving an orange to look like a pumpkin and sticking a birthday candle in it. I think my parents carved something but not sure what it was. Remember Halloween school disco's. No recollection of a swede or turnip though.

I was born in 1958 and well remember the hard work of carving out of large swede. Pumpkins weren't a thing in the UK till 90's? (80's?)

No dressing up either. We just went out with our lanterns, visited the local cemetery to scare ourselves silly, then home for apple bobbing.

How bloody arrogant to contend that a person's memory is faulty or they're outright lying because things were very different in the past.

Why would she lie to you?

There were all sorts of English Hallowe'en/All souls day traditions. In Cheshire people went soul caking which had a song, Sting recorded a version of it. It contains the words 'if you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do, if you haven't go a ha'penny, well God bless you'

There's a theme at this time of year of the poor labourers going around to the richer folks' houses and essentially begging for alms in disguise. Whether that's penny for the guy, carol singing or Mummers plays.

1930s Hallowe'en costumes

Carved turnips with a candle in smelled amazing but were bloody difficult to make. We used to carry it about with us. I remember going out as 6 of the 10 green bottles with crepe paper costumes. Safety nightmare but nobody thought anything of it and we didn’t set ourselves on fire!

Any person who doesn't believe it should be made to hollow out a ruddy turnip to make a lantern as punishment.

I’m early 40’s - yes we carved turnips, we ate toffee apples, cooked for apples and we went “round the doors” in the late 80’s and early 90’s in Scotland.

Can’t really remember the first time I saw a pumpkin or that became a thing here.

Just asked DH and he says he remembers seeing them in American movies.

You’ve got to remember that back in the day, most of our veg was seasonal and fairly local.

I was born in the early 1970s, we used to carve pumpkins and go trick or treating. That was in London. Not sure about the 60s.

In the 70s when I was a teenager I had an American friend who introduced me to Trick or Treating. I’d never heard of such a thing.
We duly dressed up and rang the bell at the first house.
The police were called and we were marched home with a warning.

🤣 I've just googled some images and they look a buggar to do but to be fair they actually look really cool. Tempted to give one a go next year

Yep, pumpkins are an American import. Swedes and turnips are the tradional British version.

Yes! I'm surprised more fingers weren't lost 😂

My mum was a 50s child, 60s teen in Yorkshire and confirms it was carved turnips if people carved anything at all and that she used to go out on mischief night and would do apple bobbing on Halloween. She was an aunt in her teens and my GPs used to look after my cousins a lot so she did Halloween stuff with them.

I'm a 90s kid, I've always been in the SE and I always had pumpkins but only trick or treated once. A friend lived in a street that made a thing of it and they took me. I was never allowed otherwise. I definitely remember Halloween meaning pumpkins, they were well established as a Halloween thing. We still have 3 small cardboard pumpkins with very creepy faces that my mum must've bought in 1995 for the first time I had friends round to apple bob. They had little chocolate pumpkins in and they are from Thorntons.

Halloween has definitely got bigger in the last few years but I had a Halloween parties from about the mid 90s to the early 00s. My mum said it was harder to get Halloween decorations then but not impossible; she managed and found some great ones, especially the last few years. We still have them. We lived in a huge gothic looking house at the time and it was perfect for Halloween!

Halloween wasnt such a big deal. Bonfire night was
In the weeks leading up to bonfire night we would make a 'guy' and find a spot outside a shop etc and ask for penny for a guy. we would collect wood for the coming bonfire.
On Halloween night itself, school or brownies/cubs would often do apple bobbing, we would dress up as a witch or mummy or ghost and make toffee apples. Definitely no trick or treating.
On bonfire night the community would be out and potatoes in foil would be put on the bonfire and the guy you made would be on the top of the fire. There would be fireworks and sparklers for the kids.

Halloween wasn’t a thing until fairly recently, though in some places people traditionally carved root vegetables into lanterns, though not where I lived. Guy Fawkes’ Day/Bonfire Night was the Autumn celebration in my 50s/60s childhood and extensively planned for in advance - penny for the guy (to buy fireworks, which were easily available to children) scavenging firewood, building bonfires. In some places, Mischief Night was a yearly occurrence.
Even in the 80s, when my own children were young, trick or treating was rare, and wasn’t done where we lived. People didn’t dress up for Halloween or indeed pay it much attention at all.