Gloom or boom – witch way is it? (From This Is Local London)

Gloom or boom – witch way is it?

7:00pm Saturday 5th November 2011 in Colin Baker By Colin Baker

YOU would never believe that we, as a nation, are supposed to be tightening our belts in order to get the economy back on its feet, if you were visiting any of our supermarkets in the last week or two.

The amount of Halloween merchandise on display has been mind boggling; and you can be pretty sure that the canny buyers employed by those organisations would not have stocked up with all that garish, ghoulish tat if they didn’t believe that they could shift it and make a substantial profit in doing so.

It doesn’t seem to tie in with the gloom and doom we are hearing on radio phone-ins about the lack of money out there for the basic necessities of life.

The whole Halloween thing is an artificial construct, as we all know. Yes, it may have started here back in the mists of time, before it was imported back again from the USA after having been completely forgotten in the UK for generations.

But its revival a few years ago was generated for purely commercial reasons and at a time of year when we already have an existing ‘fun’ event in the Gunpowder Plot, the failure of which is celebrated a mere five days later. I suppose the very reasonable Health and Safety concerns about the sale and use of fireworks have diminished the appeal of small private bonfire parties on Guy Fawkes’ night to the extent that the whole Halloween thing has gradually been allowed to supplant it.

The range of available merchandise for Halloween has greater potential too, which serves to make it much more attractive to the retailers.

So move over nasty, dangerous fireworks and naked flames to make room for the marginally less-worrying option of children roaming the streets, wearing scary masks and knocking on doors in the dark demanding treats with threats of reprisals if their hunger is not satisfied. Yes, it’s all basically just harmless fun, but the supermarket I visited in Somerset last week had a staggering four long aisles devoted to it.

But I am not alone in being concerned. Some local authority nurseries have been advised to give witches pink rather than black hats and conversely dress fairies in dark colours to avoid negative associations being attached to black, which might encourage racism.

Tell that to the All Blacks! Well done, New Zealand, by the way.