Trick Or Treating

All Hallows' Eve (aka Hallowe'en), a liturgical event in the Christian calendar observed on 31st October, used to be a simple act of respectful remembrance for the departed. I can remember in my own childhood the custom of burning a candle in a window on that night of the year, a light in the darkness for lost souls, or maybe a charm to ward off wandering spirits? I never really understood which and I never pressed the issue with my devout parents.

a light in the darkness

Yesterday evening as we drove through the streets of Blackpool to St Annes (to go to the cinema - Bugonia, brilliant new film from Yorgos Lanthimos), we passed lots of little groups of parents and children out trick-or treating after dark. Many of the children were decked out in costumes. The parents had torches or lanterns. There were a lot of bags and buckets being carried, full of treats that the children had collected from knocking on doors. 

Local shops and supermarkets have been full of Hallowe'en costumes, fake spiders webs, pumpkins and special packs of Hallowe'en themed chocolates, sweets and drinks for months. Somebody I know spent £35 on toffees to give to children who might come knocking on her door. (You'll note I chose to be out for the evening!) It seems as though in recent years Hallowe'en has become almost as big an event as Christmas. As a commercial bonanza, it's certainly pushed Easter into third place. 

I thought it might be interesting to delve a bit into the origins and history of trick-or-treating. I had assumed it was a US phenomenon that had made its way across the Atlantic some years before my own children were born in the late 1980s. I remember that 1978 John Carpenter movie Hallowe'en, and we certainly made pumpkin lanterns and went out door-to-door with the girls on Hallowe'en nights in the 1990s (as you can read later on).  

Trick-or-Treaters

It turns out, in fact, that it was a custom in Canada before the USA. Children in British Columbia around the start of the 20th century used to dress up in masks and disguises on 31st October and go house-to-house in their neighbourhoods collecting treats (fruit, sweets, biscuits) for their Hallowe'en night party. By the 1930s the tradition was well-established in the USA along with the spoken challenge "trick-or-treat". 

Even so, that's not the beginning of the story. Its arrival in Canada must have been as a result of emigration from Ireland and Scotland where the practice of 'guising' as it is called there dates way back to the 16th century, when children would dress in disguises on All Hallow' Eve and go collecting goodies (including special 'soul cakes' baked for the occasion) from neighbours in exchange for reciting verses of poetry or hymns - or leaving a curse if no treats were forthcoming.

And it didn't start there either. Imagine my delight when I came upon this snippet in Wikipedia:

The ancient Greek writer Athenaeus of Naucratis records in his book 'The Deipnosophists' that in ancient times the Greek island of Rhodes had a custom in which children would go from door-to-door dressed as swallows, singing a song, which demanded the owners of the house to give them food and threatened to cause mischief if the householders refused. This tradition was said to have been started by the Rhodian Cleobulus, a 6th century BC lawmaker, poet and native of Lindos, one of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece.

I don't think there's very much tricking goes on these days, certainly not from parents with young children going the rounds of their local streets. I do remember stories from twenty or so years ago of teenagers going trick-or-treating and throwing flour bombs or eggs at houses where treats were not forthcoming. Nowadays I think the teenagers just dress up, buy food and alcopops and go straight to partying without the tedious business of knocking on doors for bounty.

I said I'd relate an episode from when my daughters were young. They'd dress up, we'd paint their faces and we'd go knocking on the doors of houses in ours and adjoining streets in Hemel Hempstead old town collecting treats, for the most part fun-size chocolate bars, little cakes, tiny boxes of candy or cartons of juice. We never recited poetry and certainly never tricked anybody. The girls, however, thought that they had been tricked at one house on the corner of a street, where upon knocking on the door they were presented with a Bible each rather than anything edible. It was quite a surprise, but they were suitably gracious in their disappointment. It was a reminder, I suppose, that All Hallows' Eve is at root a Christian festival as I stated at the outset.

I haven't written a political poem for quite a while (excepting about Gaza of course), but I've been getting a bit fed up with the antics of Fuhrage and the Nasty Party in recent weeks, and after listening to a political poem on the small boat furore at an open mic night this week, I've decided it's time.

Reform have been peddling their anti-immigration line, trying to suggest that immigration is at the root of all societal ills, pushing the boundaries of  'free speech' via their party canary Sarah Pochin, and canvassing quite hard to sign up members in the jewel of the north, so I thought I'd take the opportunity of today's blog to write something about disingenuous right-wingers, grifters, guising and political trick or treating. Here's the first attempt, not 'top drawer' poetry perhaps, but something I feel needs to be said. 

Guising Grifter Alert

Fear like a fog curls round street corners

and here they come looming in the swirl, 

feeling emboldened, quite without shame

spouting their thinly disguised racist bane.

Wise up to Frog Face. He's not your friend.

They'll knock doors, ring bells, insidiously

recruiting gullible souls. Don't let them in.

We know all is not well, but they'll tell us

the lie of the land, the illegals are to blame.

Wise up to Frog Face. He's playing a game.

Suddenly you're either a patriot or a traitor,

there's nothing nuanced in between, a trick

of snake oil conmen for generations to win

feeble minds to their own egregious scheme.

Wise up to Frog Face, no Prince in disguise.

A multi-millionaire and a narcissist, watch

as he toadies up to Putin and Trump, would

probably be Hitler's poodle if he were alive

today, out of lust for leadership and power.

Wise up to Frog Face. He's not good news,

sold us the pup that was Brexit. As Reform

he's guising again to woo voters by plying

fear, sowing unrest and discord, pretending

simplistic solutions treat complex problems. 

Wise up to foggy Frog Face before it's too late.

Recognise the monster in his camel hair coat.

Even Enoch Powell refused to endorse him.

I think I'll get a sign made for my garden gate:

'No grifters, no conmen, no fascists, no hate'.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Spookiness

I remember quite clearly sitting in the cafe at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston in about 2012 chatting with a guest for our radio show. He was telling me about the catacombs underneath Priestown’s cathedral and how the Spook and his apprentice, Tom Ward, confront their long-standing foe, the Bane.

For many people that will be enough to recognize our storyteller as Joseph Delaney. Born in Preston, Lancashire, in 1945, he attended Preston Catholic College and then worked as an apprentice engineer. He took his A-Levels at night school before studying English, history and sociology as a mature student aged 27 at Lancaster University.

Joseph Delaney

Following graduation, he studied at St Martin's College to become a teacher. He later became an English teacher at Blackpool Sixth Form College, where he started the Media and Film Studies Department. In the 1980s Delaney completed an Open University degree in an effort to become a computer programmer. In 1983, he moved to the village of Stalmine, where he learned and noted down that a priest had once encountered a boggart in the area.

He wrote adult science fiction novels under the penname J. K. Haderack but it was when he started writing books for children and young adults in his own name that he found wide spread fame. The first book, in 2004, was entitled The Spook's Apprentice and it was followed by a series of 20 other books set in the same landscape of a (very) fictional Lancashire called The County.

County fictional towns are thinly veiled modern-day cities; for example, the town of Priestown is based on Preston, Caster is Lancaster, Black Pool is Blackpool, and Chipenden is Chipping. (Actually, I’m not sure that the Black Pool is totally fictional).

The success of the second book in the series enabled him to retire from teaching and become a full time writer.

To give a flavour of the books, the first part of the series is called The Wardstone Chronicles, published from 2004 to 2013, follows Thomas "Tom" Ward, the seventh son of a seventh son who is apprenticed to the County's spook, John Gregory, a master fighter of supernatural evil. The Spook gives Tom practical instruction on tackling ghosts, ghasts, witches, boggarts, and all manner of other things that serve the Dark.

Tom soon discovers that most of John Gregory's apprentices have failed for various reasons, including being killed in the process of learning how to be a Spook. As the arc progresses, the focus expands to other characters, such as the young witch Alice Deane and the witch assassin Grimalkin. Overall, the series develops the plotline of Tom being destined to save the world or be tortured by the Fiend, the father of all evil, for all eternity.

All told the series sold around 4.5 million copies in over 30 countries. Indeed, during our chat Joseph was telling me about the trips he had made to countries such as Singapore and New Zealand to promote his work and meet his fans.

He also mentioned that there was potential for a film adaptation of The Spook's Apprentice. This did happen a couple of years later and it was called the Seventh Son. Ben Barnes starred as Tom Ward, Jeff Bridges as John Gregory (the Spook), Julianne Moore as Mother Malkin, Alicia Vikander as Alice Deane. I highly recommend that you stick to the books.

the complete series of 'Spooks' novels

Joseph Delaney died in 2022. A proper teller of stories.

Spoiler Alert: I don’t want to stop you reading the books but just in case you are a bit alarmed then I should say that the confrontation mentioned in the first paragraph above occurs in the second book of the series ‘The Spook's Curse’ and in a final showdown Tom does vanquish the Bane, liberating Priestown (hence Preston) from its malevolent grip.

On Joseph Delaney’s website he had placed this poem sent by Brenda Gountis.

The Lamia Witch
(inspired by The Spooks Curse)

Spook Gregory
Mighty though he be –
Is, in the end, only a Man
Weak with Loneliness & Pity

He once had a witch,
Held fast with silver chain –
He aught to have left her thus,
And saved himself the pain.

Instead he quailed and let her go.
Then full of anger at her deceit –
Chained her once again,
And brought her to her feet.

Marching her through hard rain
After a bright and shining dawn –
He strode with purpose,
To the deep pit in Chipenden.

Dragged through brambles by her flaxen hair
Crows and foxes cringed with dread –
On she ranted and screamed,
Fit to wake the Dead.

Frozen on that dizzy edge
He could not force her over-
Poor wretched lonely Spook,
Had taken a Witch as his Lover!

He almost fell in, and then What Sin!
He embraced a Snake Marked One-
Now it is he who is chained to her,
One kiss – and then, he’s all undone!

He gained a silver chain
But lost his mettle to her charms-
What is to be done with a Wretched Spook,
Caught up in a Witch’s arms?

                                              Brenda Gountis

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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