What will you be doing on the evening of Halloween? Last year we anticipated the usual continuous ringing of our doorbell by an assortment of trick or treaters.

We’d laid in the usual bags of sweeties in anticipation – but we had not one person ringing the doorbell.

In previous years I must confess that I have been a trifle bored with opening our front door and being confronted by a series of youngsters, most of them dressed up in appropriately bizarre outfits.

They were often clutching optimistically large collecting boxes or bags – and, most of them, with an accompanying parent lurking nearby in the half light.

Some of these outfits have been impressive – at least they’ve made an effort – unlike those who have merely donned a cardboard mask for the occasion.

I think perhaps they returned later in the evening sporting a totally different cardboard mask.

But last year we spent an evening totally untroubled by the ringing of our doorbell.

Only one problem. Eating those bags of sweets did my waistline no good whatsoever and I studiously avoided my bathroom scales for weeks after.

So what’s going to happen this year?

If the large number of fancy dress costumes in the supermarkets and shops is anything to go by, the streets will be overrun by witches carrying brooms – peering from under large brimmed black hats – and black caped fiends sporting weirdly fanged masks topped with improbably large horns.

The stores’ shelves are full of these fantasy costumes, so there is no excuse for any prospective doorbell ringer to turn up wearing only a cardboard mask.

I came across a reference to bobbing for apples.

This used to happen in parties or groups – but I’ve not come across it taking place for quite a few years. It’s a custom which has quietly been dropped by schools and other organisations.

I understand that it is an activity which is not approved of by ‘elf and safety. Unless, of course, you know any different.

Halloween is supposedly based on an old pagan Celtic religious festival, but this is a theory which some scholars disagree with.

But that’s scholars for you.

Find more than a couple who agree with each other and you’re doing well.

So who’s right?

For what it’s worth, I choose to believe that it was based on Samhain, the old pagan Celtic festival.

Halloween is also known as All Hallows’ Eve and, according to early tradition, it was the night on which the gates of hell were opened and it was a time when the dead could once more visit the land of the living.

Another tradition has it that it was a time when evil spirits were also freed to roam the earth.

I asked you what you were doing for Halloween, especially after midnight – for that was the hour when these beings were let loose.

It was, therefore, a time when many folk thought it advisable to stay indoors until the sun rose the next day.

Indeed, one writer cites an old Irish belief that were you to hear footsteps behind you after midnight, on no account were you to turn round to see who was following you.

If it was one of the dead, then you were likely to die very soon after.

So do you still fancy going for a long walk after midnight this Halloween?

A thought occurs to me.

It’s not long now until Guy Fawkes Day.

Remember, remember the fifth of November.

Another evening of doorbell ringing and pleas for “penny for the guy”.

I wonder what they would think if you did give them only a penny!

I think they’d be as displeased as a bell ringer who, when he delivered his trick or treat message to a friend of mine, was somewhat taken aback when she told him that she would like treat – please. I suspect his reply would not be printable in any respectable family newspaper.

If you are worried about your house being invaded by demons, ghosts, evil spirits and the like, I can tell you how, according to tradition, you can avoid this happening.

I have supplied this information a few years ago, but I did so, with apologies, a few days after Halloween.

You must go out into the woods and cut yourself some twigs or branches from a rowan tree.

Take them home and stuff some of the twigs into all your door locks.

This, it is claimed, will keep all demonic beings out of your house when you’re sleeping.

Happy Halloween!