How America stole Halloween from us — and made it better

As a Brit growing up in the 1980s, Halloween was something of a rite of passage.

In October 1988, the buzz in our school canteen wasn’t over who fancied the new girl or who pissed in the swimming pool. It was about who was going as Freddy Krueger. We traded algebra for art as we painstakingly designed costumes in the back of our exercise books.

To light his way, the devil tossed Jack a burning ember from hell, which Jack put inside a hollowed-out turnip.

Of course, back then, we lived in a high-trust society: Parents let us roam the night streets unaccompanied, knocking on strangers’ doors until our pillowcases bulged with sweets we had to drag home and divide.

Fast-forward nearly 40 years, and Halloween