Halloween is 'a thing'

From swedes to supermarket tat, how Halloween crept into British life.

Halloween is a thing now, isn’t it? I mean, it always was, but back in the black-and-white days of the 1970s it felt more… theoretical. We made scary masks out of cornflake boxes, and there was vague talk of hollowing something out — though pumpkins hadn’t yet reached the West Midlands. I suspect it was a swede. Or a potato. Certainly not a carrot. Even…