Halloween in Britain – Then and Now

Folkloristics 10/2 (2025): 239–244
Author: Christopher Heppa
Text:

The paper aims to look at the changing nature of Halloween (All Hallows Eve) in the United Kingdom over a period of about seventy-five years, c. 1950–2025. The author was a child there in the 1950s, and a teenager in the 1960s. He will argue that the nature of this event has completely changed over that time. As well as desk research, he has interviewed members of his own friends, family, and others from different parts of the country, as well as well-known British folklorists. There is surprisingly little scholarly work on this subject. The interviews took place either person to person, or on the telephone, during the first four months of 2025.

Keywords: Halloween, Bonfire Night, Change, Media, Commercialization.