Coming up to Hallowe’en again, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the orange and black brigade have started up their annual whoo-hoo party. I had a manager who always got very upset by the fact that people marked Hallowe’en in any way at all; in his view they were inviting evil into their lives. I used to spend October listening to his grumpy lectures about stupid people disturbing things better left undisturbed.
I don’t disturb supernatural beings if I can help it, but I do run into some strange creatures all the same. I went to our local town last Friday with the intention of buying some tomato puree (for pizza, not ghastly blood-substitute decoration) and visiting the library. A woman got out of her car a few yards from ours and began fossicking in a bag. Within minutes, I was helping her get her arms into her giant orange T-Rex costume, and we were both giggling like kids.
She was a primary school teacher and her school thought they’d cheer up the students with a scary costume party on the last day of term. As she was explaining, she pressed a button somewhere and the suit inflated, leaving her waddling away as a rustling, giggling T-Rex over seven feet tall. I want one of those…
There’s all kinds of ways to approach Hallowe’en. My old manager would spend it lecturing the sinful and hammering the teachings of his own personal saviour into the ears of anyone who’d listen. I spend it as the old traditions of Samhain treat it – a day to remember those who have had a benevolent influence on your life and have now passed on. Whether you believe that their spirit has gone completely or has escaped into a different place, what these people have done to mould my character will live on for as long as I do and (if I can pass on that good to others) for much longer.
I’ll be thanking my aunt for being cheerful and patient while she taught me the basics of sewing. I’ll be thinking of the headmaster of my primary school, Kenneth Agar, who told my parents at their first parents’ evening that I showed a distinct spark of talent and they must encourage me to write as an adult. He was an author himself, but he encouraged every child in whatever they wanted to do, whether that was sport, music, art or academic studies. I’ll certainly be thinking of my parents and grandparents. Anyone who feels that Hallowe’en is only for scary tales and gory films should spend a minute thinking of their own dead and what they achieved in their lives.
That’s the thing. We’re all born, we all die, and it’s what we do between those two events that counts. Me, I hope I left a good legacy somehow. I hope that in years to come I’ll have people thinking of me at Samhain, smiling at something I said or did. I’ve got time yet to add to that number.
I will leave stories, including the Gothic crime flash in the ‘Bouquet of Secrets’ anthology. There’s been a hitch on Amazon, with its all-powerful AI deleting the anthology that was listed on its page because it felt there were too many author copies being ordered. Hello Amazon… 27 authors, some of them full-time crime writers with several novels and a busy schedule of author signings? If you did pre-order, go to Amazon and check they haven’t accidentally deleted it. Trust me, if you don’t enjoy the house that did the haunting you’ll love the black dog… or the spooky library… or many of the others.
Happy Samhain! May it be all good memories and no tricks.
Julia Chalkley 