POEM: For Rememberance Sunday.

Old men they
Who, past their prime, with faded eyes,
Gaze through time to the killing fields
Covered now with tidy graves in regimented rows.

Old men they
Who, weeping over absent years, resurrect the life
Of friends and comrades lost,
Remembering the names indelibly engraved in heart and stone.

Old men they
Who, now that greed and self smothers all the
Old beliefs of country, King and home,
Wonder who will know - or care - when they are gone.

(c)D.Rayburn.

That's it for another Year.

So that’s it for another year! Busier than last, but I didn’t run out of bags thank goodness, although we blew out the candle in the pumpkin at eight as the tinies have made the rounds by then.
I didn’t dare help myself to the few bags of treats that were left. I had to promise Isabella that if any were left we’d share them out today, because as she was leaving at seven thirty, she peered into the bowl which was standing on the hall table and did a mental count!

We heard one loud bang from a firework and that was it, so it was by far the quietest Halloween yet. The costumes of the sixteen children who called at the house were impressive, but every single outfit was store bought, so I guess there are some manufacturers who are rubbing their hands in glee this morning.

OPINION: A Quiet Halloween?

So, Hannah has happily disembowelled one of the pumpkins we grew over the summer. It’s had a lopsided, cheerful smile carved into its firm yellow skin by Granddad, and the candle is sitting by its side waiting for our yearly carrying it into the garden after dark and lighting it, ceremony.
Having forgotten she’d happily ended up plastered in pumpkin last year, Isabella looked aghast when she realised what she had to do. Now rising five and a veteran of full time school, she refused to get her hands sticky and instead took charge of picking out a couple of dozen seeds to be dried, wrapped in foil and put aside for growing next year.

While they were here we packed twenty one bags of treats – would have been twenty four, but we had to check they were tasty enough!
I doubt we’ll need that many; Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night feel eerily low key due to an absence of fireworks being let off prematurely.
Don't get me wrong. I like firework night and have many happy memories of it, but that's all it used to be; one night of fun. And way back then we didn't know about Halloween in our neck of the woods, which was probably a good thing, because our parent's pockets wouldn't have stretched to two events in the same week.
These days the run up to both is an absolute pain in the neck and a misery for pet owners.

Miraculously we didn't have any pre-Halloween parties at the weekend, with well oiled adults standing in their gardens late at night shouting their heads off and letting off rockets. [And what is it with grown-ups and rockets?]
The reason it's been so quiet is because local police have clamped down on youngsters getting hold of fireworks or shops selling them before a certain date. They are also warning shopkeepers not to sell eggs or flour to under eighteens, and posters are being distributed by our local churches saying Please Don’t Call Here for householders who don't wish to participate.

Four years ago I ran out of treat bags. We’d moved into another neighbourhood so as well as new children calling, the boys from my old address trekked across town and came to our door in various states of disguise.
The lit pumpkin in my front garden signals friendly intentions I suppose, but these days I only get a few tinies carefully guarded by their parents.

Rather than increasing in popularity as Halloween has done in the USA where it’s a multi-million dollar industry and second only to Christmas for sales, over here, at least where I live, Halloween as manufacturers would like us to celebrate it, appears to be dying on its feet - and I’m not surprised.
With fireworks or tickets to firework displays to buy and then Christmas hot on its heels, another cynically hyped up celebration and one that gives some youngsters a good excuse to run amok and vandalise cars and properties, isn’t what most hard pressed families need.

Although I love to see the little ones at the door and thoroughly enjoy pretending to be scared by their costumes, if the evening turns out as quiet as anticipated I shan’t be downhearted.
As I sit through another round of television adverts, I’ll break into a bag of left-over treats smug in the knowledge that in our area at least, Halloween has been a smack in the chops for the advertising Johnnies. And if you knew me, you'd know just how happy that makes me feel.