They do not have Halloween in England; not, at least, in the south.  No one in Bridstow hollows turnips and carves them with eyes and teeth for candles to set aglow.  Not that anyone in Scotland would be doing so either this year.   Nor, most likely, next year, either.
        As a child, he had dressed in costume to go guising round the houses, and carried a turnip head to frighten away the ghoulies and ghaesties that lurk in the bushes.  Heinkels and Dorniers lurk in the clouds.  Carved neeps do not frighten them.
        He stood on the roof, and looked up at the shadows in the dark.  The all clear had yet to sound.