HALLOWE’EN is big business these days.

Many youngsters will be out and about this evening taking part in trick or treating, hopefully under the watchful eye of parents, hoping to fill their goodie bags and buckets with sweets and chocolate from well-wishers.

Judging by the sheer scale of costume displays available in every supermarket and similar stores in the run up to today’s celebrations, Hallowe’en is now firmly established as a money-making date in the calendar.

We may not yet rival the United States, where Hallowe’en has overtaken Easter to come in second behind Christmas for the sums spent on the festival, but many millions will have been spent over here.

All good fun? Some think not. Some elderly residents would rather avoid the knock on the door and the worry over whether the threats of pranks are more than just good-natured fun.

And there are those who question whether the celebrations have now completely lost their religious significance, coming as they do on the evening before the Christian festival of All Hallows. This is, after all, where All Hallows’ Eve derives from.

Treated correctly it is a day and night of spooky, harmless fun that is a precursor to the UK’s more home-grown autumn celebration of the dark – Bonfire Night.