No Sleep Was Given

The End of All Hallows Eve

It was All Hallows Eve as the old ones called it, but to us it was simply Halloween. A time for darkened skies, for fallen leaves golden and brown and the feet of children kicking with verve through them; for sweets and treats, for frightening films and spooky tales, for friendship, for the fear and love of the unknown, and for wide grinning turnip heads glowing in the clouded night. And costumes, yes costumes! Some dressed as comical characters, super heroes, and popular toys, others following the traditions of old, dressed as the dead and embracing the macabre delight of it all. Most kids had Christmas, which I loved too, but for us Halloween was the most important night of the year. That one time where we could truly be what we dreamed, falling into characters, creatures, and people far removed from the fragility of our childhood selves. 

Stewart was an undead pirate who had risen up from his watery grave, and if we didn’t take part in some lootin’ and pillagin’ we’d surely of found ourselves walking the plank. Andy was a Terminator, complete with leather jacket, a metallic cheek created with tinfoil, slicked back hair and sunglasses which hid a glowing red left eye behind. I was Van Helsing, armed to the teeth with wooden stakes, crosses, garlic and a vial of water I assumed was holy because I had filled it from a tap in the local church’s bathroom; even back then my mind was permanently stuck in the hokey sets and thick smoke of the old Hammer horror Dracula films. Mac, he was dressed as an injured football hooligan complete with torn football strip, blooded and bandaged head, and his arm in a sling - all the more ironic as he would in fact grow up to be a footballer. The other Andy, who we affectionately called squire, was decked in luminous skeleton bones, and with his wiry frame, and hooded skull mask, put the fear of God into quite a few of the younger kids in the neighbourhood.

We were twelve years old at the time, and while none of us had openly spoke of it, we seemed to sense that it would be our last year ‘guising’ - a word which in itself would soon be replaced by the now deep rooted ‘Trick Or Treat’. I remember feeling a sadness in the pit of my stomach as my parents helped me prepare my costume. The others seemed a little more reluctant to go out that Halloween, and by the following year their delight for the entire celebration would be diminished for many subsequent years - and who could blame them? I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to those fun-filled happy nights, wandering the leaf covered streets of my local neighbourhood laughing with my friends, carrying bags of sweets and chocolate and toffee apples accumulated from our Halloween rounds. It’s rare that you recognise something is coming to its end, mourning for it before it has slipped away.

It was 7 o’clock in the evening when we first stepped out into the street, and the winter sky blackened everything from above, the stars snuffed out by a thick shroud of cloud. My house was always the meeting point on those glorious nights, as my parents loved to decorate the house with spider webs, hanging skeletons, and mean looking banners depicting vampires, ghouls, and witches fermenting a strange brew: Not to mention all of the food! They both seemed to revel in the entire ceremony of the night, more so than anyone else I knew, and they had done since whenever I could remember for both me and my older brother, who now helped out rather than went out. Such wonderful nights as my friends arrived and we all bobbed for apples, or dropped forks from between our teeth into a bucket of water filled with fruit, hoping to skewer one to win a prize. 

There we were on the street kerb, looking up the hill towards King’s Drift and the web of streets we were going to explore in search of treats - in some cases we’d even be given money if the home owners didn’t have any food, or had ran out. In more recent times the Jack O’ Lantern has become popular, with myself always carving a few pumpkins with ghoulish faces for the local kids, and their parents, who always frequent our ‘haunted’ house with its smoke machines, screaming skulls, and mountains of sweets. That night, however, I carried a tumshie-heid, to light the way. Essentially a carved out turnip with a candle inside and a horrible face glowing outward, lighting the way - a far greater and malignant sight than any pumpkin!