I SPEND all year pleading with my children. Don't talk to strangers. Don't take sweets from strangers or anyone you know as a bribe. Don't knock on people's doors, because you don't know who is behind them And yet once a year we encourage them to do just this.

I am relieved yet another Hallowe'en has past. Just what is Hallowe'en to this country?

At night our youths can roam our streets, scaring young and old by running around in large groups, hurling abuse, banging on front doors, throwing eggs at windows and then running away.

Not one of them was dressed in a Hallowe'en costume.

I thought News Shopper's Trick or Treat "No Thank You" poster was an excellent idea.

Surely it would give peace of mind to scared elderly people dreading the knock on the door.

I have had flour thrown at me on my own front door and to save the embarrassment to the trick or treaters and to myself I thought I would put up the poster.

I naively thought this would do the trick but in fact what it did do was provoke a group of teenagers to pound on my front door and then hurl an egg at my daughter's bedroom window.

My 14-year-old daughter could not understand my concerns and thought I was not in the spirit of things by preventing her to go trick or treating with her 10-year-old sister.

But afterwards she was so frightened with the shouting and egg throwing she understood it was dangerous in many ways.

And she wondered why was Hallowe'en not like all the American television coverage she had seen before?

Next year I'll turn all the lights out and sit in the back room with my family.

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