I can’t recall what brought my short-lived Cubs career to an end nor much about what we did in the Scout Hut, but I do remember the Haunted House next door.
In these less innocent and imaginative days haunted houses seem to have gone out of fashion.
But the ghosts and ghoulies haven’t gone away, and with all of us consigned to our houses these days you’d better not have been ignoring them.
Bram Stoker was certainly alive to their presence and spirited up the Dead when he was inspired to write Dracula on a visit to north-east Scotland.
And placed the nocturnal room in Slains Castle in Cruden Bay as the dwelling of one Count Dracula.
As spooky houses go it is certainly more frightening than the lot in a Dublin shopping centre where you’ll find Bram Stoker’s Castle Dracula Experience.
Although much like his crypt if you delve inside you’ll find there’s lots to sink your teeth into.
Dublin’s Bram Stoker Festival is always finding new ways of reinventing themselves and they’re billing this year’s digital offering as a Grave New World.
Which is what we’ll all be doing too, turning our homes into Haunted Houses… and The Scary One and her Mini-Me have been dressing up for the part.
Now I don’t know where the Scout Hut is in my new hometown of North. Berwick but my mother-in-law never sees a guising.
And here’s an Irish Halloween blessing to keep away the gremlins…
At all Hallow’s Tide, may God keep you safe,
From goblin and pooka and black-hearted stranger
From harm of the water and hurt of the fire
From thorns of the bramble, from all other danger,
From Will O’ The Wisp haunting the mine,
From stumbles and tumbles and tricksters to vex you,
May God in His Mercy, this week protect you.
