Miss Haversham returns

They came back, we asked them in, but they didn't stay long.

Postscript: There were more tricker treaters than ever this year. I felt a real dilemma as soon as I walked in to the supermarket in the afternoon. To the left was the poppy tray and tin (no veteran on hand to dispense). I always get a poppy. To the right were shelves stacked with sweets and chocolate treats. The cheapest of the bags was about £2. Generally a pound or two is what I'd put in the poppy tin. I couldn't help looking from one side to the other. Was I really going to spend more on sugar for children who already had too much, than on guys who'd had legs blown off in Afghanistan?

It bothered me so much I walked away and did the shopping. I thought about sticking some big notes in the tin but that didn't help either. Should I fund well supported military charities more than I support aid for Ebola that hasn't received any of my pennies yet? Also what about chez Donkin? We're not badly off (that too is so relative). I reckon we give enough and do enough for good causes (what is a good cause?) but we can't support all of them. What about the chap outside the supermarket, giving up his time to collect for pet charities? Sorry mate.

That was at Waitrose. Later I went to Morrison's for a ham (they didn't have one big enough at Waitrose) and some more treats - I was worried I hadn't bought enough. In front of me at the till a lady was 21p short for her groceries. I could have paid it but didn't really understand the problem until she gave back a tin of hot dog sausages and it was all over. She was probably better off without them anyway.

We needed the extra treats. It was great to see lots of kids enjoying themselves. Two little girls dressed in ball gowns (seven or eight-year-olds, I'd say) said they had a little play - this involved one girl bending the other over so she could bite her friend's neck, Dracula style. What next year? Steaming entrails spilling out of a concealed stomach cavity? Most of the kids were good and took one treat but there was the odd greedy little bugger who snatched handfuls.

Treats? It's sugar. It makes kids hyper, leads to obesity and diabetes. We never gave our kids sweets. They didn't even get Easter eggs. Now they think they were deprived. I've wondered about going to the door with a basket of fruit - tangerines, apples or something like that. But I don't want to be seen as a puritan or a killjoy. I like to see kids having fun.

We had fun too as kids, wholly unsupervised and reserved for mischief night on November 4th. In the 1960s, when many more needed the poppy money, we didn't beg for treats but bought our own fireworks for the evening's mayhem which was pretty tame. Tying dustbin lids to car bumpers, chucking a banger behind the chap who had just started having a pee in the public gents' lav - how we laughed. Asbo territory today, I suppose. Was that better or worse than wandering around with a plastic chainsaw from the pound shop and expecting a few mini Mars bars? Just different.