Hallowe’en is nearly over for another year. Thank goodness, you might say. Each October, many Brits scratch their heads about when this festival became such a big thing. I am as guilty as the next person in doing so: only last weekend I reflected, with a combination of curiosity and weariness, that ‘when I was young’, October 31 was simply not as hotly anticipated a date in the calendar. The blame for Hallowe’en inflation is often directed at the Americans. But it’s not fair to blame our US cousins. Hallowe’en is something of an ancient Christian tradition.

Strip away crass commercialisation and that was what Hallowe’en and the days which follow once did for Christianity

There is little doubt that the narrow commercialised interpretation of Hallowe’en has gathered momentum over the last

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