Caroline O'Donoghue: Halloween and growing pains

"I was, of course, terrified of horror movies and deeply worried about the idea of watching them. The worst part was, I was very interested in witchcraft. I loved the idea of magic, but I couldn’t stand the notion of being scared."

Caroline O'Donoghue

I don’t remember most of my Halloweens. Like Christmas or Easter, it’s hard to recall individual years, and easier instead to group batches of Halloweens together under vague time-sensitive umbrellas. There were the baby Halloweens, wandering up and down our park, a white cotton vest under my costume, fairy wings made of wire hangers and tinsel. 

There were the student Halloweens, wearing Ann Summers ‘sexy cat’ costumes with 80 denier wool tights underneath, garlic cheese chips on the footpath, snatched kisses with boys in equally imaginative costumes such as ‘Zorro’ and ‘zombie in a t-shirt’ and ‘James Bond’. And finally there are the adult Halloweens, which usually come around every four years or so when someone can be bothered arranging a party or a group screening of The Shining.