Halloween's a big thing now,isn't it? Partly it's the dressing up,once confined to the under-tens, but now ubiquitous. Then there's the attractive prospect of nine-foot-tall youths being sanctioned to go round demanding sweets with menaces. Here in Liverpool, there is also an event called "Mischief Night". "Mischief" to me suggests harmless, giggly fun; mild naughtiness. In this context it appears to mean throwing half-bricks at taxidrivers. Forty-nine arrests were made on Merseyside, this time. Perhaps it is time for a re-branding? A really lively PR campaign could distinguish "Mischief" ( practical jokes, light-hearted pranks, possibly a tiny bit of mild mooning),from "Violent Unprovoked Assault". Our city would benefit from that "awareness-raising" exercise much more than it does from having samples of yoghurt drinks thrust at it at Central Station.
I was in town yesterday, and observed that there were crowds of young ladies dressed fancy. Although it is often quite difficult to distinguish fancy dress from mufti; I was standing in Tesco behind a fully-feathered Squaw,complete with tiny chamois dress,and decorative tomahawk. It was 5pm. The rest of her group were decked variously, one in a Barclay's Bank uniform.Now that IS scary. Later, there were more conventional adherents to the form;zombies, werewolves, assorted vampires, witches and ghouls. All romping in and out of Primark,and queuing up for pasties in Gregg's. A huge boon to the fancy dress industry, and the manufacturers of pumpkin-shaped chocolate. Alas, I fear that our lives have become so sadly drab and replete with garden centres and loyalty cards, that any relief is seized upon, Halloween,in my youth, consisted of a plastic washing-up bowl with apples bobbing at your teeth, and a mildly frightening ghost story on the Light Programme. It is All Souls Day today, when ,according to ancient ritual and belief, the membrane between the worlds of the living and the dead was at its thinnest. This was the time when one communed with one's dead. And when one's dead might, if things were not quite settled beyond the veil, pop back for a brief but memorable visit. I must say I have longed for this experience to be my privilege, for years and years. Apart from seeing my beloved Grandmother in the kitchen ten days after she had been buried, I have not been successful. I was eight then, and very highly strung, so I am not sure that I can count this. I wish my Dad would materialise, if only to explain the presence of the silver curly wig that we found in the glove compartment of his car when we were clearing it out.
My Mother has promised me that if there is any way that she can get back, she will.And she is a woman of firm purpose, devoted to keeping her word. I would not care to be the Archangel who got the job of explaining to her that this was not on. She commemorates all the birthdays and deathdays of our family dead, with regular announcements of the "IF your Great-Aunt Molly was alive, she would be 130 today" variety. I am only slightly surprised that she doesn't send them cards. The address, in some cases, might be open to debate.
Not only do I believe in ghosts, I positively welcome applications from them. I am not frightened of the dead at all, it's the living who bother me. As a morbid child, I always enjoyed a really good graveyard. I sought them out when we were on holiday. Peace, quiet, picturesque surroundings, and something to read. I remember my favourite, which Mum and I discovered in Cornwall. It was an M.R.Jamesian ancient church, built on a cliff overlooking the sea. The cliffs had eroded and crumbled, and the graveyard had delicately subsided, the fences long tumbled away. Looking down to the sea, you could make out the squared-off edges of coffins poking out of the cliffside. It was a hot still afternoon, and I had attracted a personal cloud of flies. Their monomaniacal buzzing, the crashing of waves, and the odd branch creaking were the only sounds. No birds sang. I was thrilled.
I also had a perfectly lovely time on the Isola di San Michele, Venice's cemetery island. It contains the tombs of Stravinsky, Diaghilev and Ezra Pound. You go in a water taxi, and I entertained thoughts of the last one departing without me, leaving me there for ever. I could have haunted it beautifully, what with the hair and the ghastly pallor, and just think who I would have been seen dead with..
I was in town yesterday, and observed that there were crowds of young ladies dressed fancy. Although it is often quite difficult to distinguish fancy dress from mufti; I was standing in Tesco behind a fully-feathered Squaw,complete with tiny chamois dress,and decorative tomahawk. It was 5pm. The rest of her group were decked variously, one in a Barclay's Bank uniform.Now that IS scary. Later, there were more conventional adherents to the form;zombies, werewolves, assorted vampires, witches and ghouls. All romping in and out of Primark,and queuing up for pasties in Gregg's. A huge boon to the fancy dress industry, and the manufacturers of pumpkin-shaped chocolate. Alas, I fear that our lives have become so sadly drab and replete with garden centres and loyalty cards, that any relief is seized upon, Halloween,in my youth, consisted of a plastic washing-up bowl with apples bobbing at your teeth, and a mildly frightening ghost story on the Light Programme. It is All Souls Day today, when ,according to ancient ritual and belief, the membrane between the worlds of the living and the dead was at its thinnest. This was the time when one communed with one's dead. And when one's dead might, if things were not quite settled beyond the veil, pop back for a brief but memorable visit. I must say I have longed for this experience to be my privilege, for years and years. Apart from seeing my beloved Grandmother in the kitchen ten days after she had been buried, I have not been successful. I was eight then, and very highly strung, so I am not sure that I can count this. I wish my Dad would materialise, if only to explain the presence of the silver curly wig that we found in the glove compartment of his car when we were clearing it out.
My Mother has promised me that if there is any way that she can get back, she will.And she is a woman of firm purpose, devoted to keeping her word. I would not care to be the Archangel who got the job of explaining to her that this was not on. She commemorates all the birthdays and deathdays of our family dead, with regular announcements of the "IF your Great-Aunt Molly was alive, she would be 130 today" variety. I am only slightly surprised that she doesn't send them cards. The address, in some cases, might be open to debate.
Not only do I believe in ghosts, I positively welcome applications from them. I am not frightened of the dead at all, it's the living who bother me. As a morbid child, I always enjoyed a really good graveyard. I sought them out when we were on holiday. Peace, quiet, picturesque surroundings, and something to read. I remember my favourite, which Mum and I discovered in Cornwall. It was an M.R.Jamesian ancient church, built on a cliff overlooking the sea. The cliffs had eroded and crumbled, and the graveyard had delicately subsided, the fences long tumbled away. Looking down to the sea, you could make out the squared-off edges of coffins poking out of the cliffside. It was a hot still afternoon, and I had attracted a personal cloud of flies. Their monomaniacal buzzing, the crashing of waves, and the odd branch creaking were the only sounds. No birds sang. I was thrilled.
I also had a perfectly lovely time on the Isola di San Michele, Venice's cemetery island. It contains the tombs of Stravinsky, Diaghilev and Ezra Pound. You go in a water taxi, and I entertained thoughts of the last one departing without me, leaving me there for ever. I could have haunted it beautifully, what with the hair and the ghastly pallor, and just think who I would have been seen dead with..
No comments:
Post a Comment