All Hallows, pumpkins, Trick or Treatery, celebrating witchcraft. Preserving old institutions. Places from bible stories under fire.

Today is All Saints Day, Dìa de los Muertos in Mexico, the day when traditionally in many countries, such as Spain and Italy, you go and tidy up the family graves. Here we begin the season of rotting pumpkin lanterns. It takes some people rather a long time to remove the pumpkin carcasses from their doorsteps and garden walls. And warnings go out not to leave them where hedgehogs might try to eat them as they make our prickly friends ill and they are rapidly becoming an endangered species. It’s bad enough that we have already messed up their natural habitat; we should try not to make the situation worse by poisoning them into the bargain. 

Granddaughter Number One was getting ridiculously excited and happy last night because she had lots of Trick-or-Treaters knocking on her door. Since she moved to a new house earlier this year she has befriended the neighbouring children and introduced some of them to her various animals. So they brought their little friends round, knocked on the door and said hello to the cat as well as receiving lots of sugary treats. It’s a good job it’s half term as those children would not be ready to go to sleep on their sugar-high last night.

In Salem, Massachusetts, hundreds of “practising witches” from around the world got together to celebrate Hallowe’en and to give a “woman of power” award to Stormy Daniels who, by the way, has the perfectly good name of Stephanie A Gregory. One of the organisers of the event, Christian Day, a local warlock despite being called Christian, said, “A lot of people know Stormy for being a porn star and fighting against Trump in court. But a lot of people don’t know that she is a practicing witch, and that she is someone who stands out as a woman of power.”

Apparently they have a whole a whole month of events in Salem throughout October, the “Festival of the Dead”. They’ll put you in touch with your dearly departed, tell your fortune, teach you about magic and spells, and there’s even the Official Salem Witches’ Hallowe’en Ball: “Salem's most magical Halloween event! Celebrate the afterlife with food, dancing, ritual, live music, free psychic readings, and prizes where the dead cavort with the living and powerful spells are cast for the Witches’ new year!” 

Someone’s undoubtedly making quite a lot of money out of witchcraft and magic!

When I worked in Salford, I would sometimes hear about the Salford Lads and Girls Club, originally called the Salford Lads Club but in this modern age of equality now admitting girls as well. Founded in 1903 as a place where Salford boys could meet and socialise, it’s in danger of having to close as grant funding has been cut. 

The club is in a Grade Ii-listed building and needs to raise £250,000 by the end of November in order to stay open for another year. They’ve reached £216,000, thanks to a recent £10,000 donation from Graham Nash and now a £50,000 donation from Morrissey, both of them Salford lads themselves. It’s good to see some famous folk putting money back into the community of their youth. If they reach their target this year, will they have to do another push for funding next year and the years to come? 

We need to protect listed buildings, ideally keeping them in use as well as making museum pieces of them. 

One of the consequences of war is the destruction of culturally important places. It is quite disturbing listening to reports of Israeli forces attacking places whose names I remember from Sunday School classes. Suddenly they are real places with modern lives going on there, places we can locate on a map. Some fine old buildings have been destroyed in Gaza and now places in Lebanon are also in danger such as the Roman triumphal arch at the Al Bas necropolis Unesco World Heritage Site in Tyre. 

Of course, it seems insignificant compared with the loss of life but it is still another important factor. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!