Am I the only parent in the area who is appalled by some of the gory displays in Kendal in the lead up to Halloween?

While many regard Halloween as harmless fun I would strongly disagree.

At Halloween we are encouraged to suspend the normal belief that evil is bad and that darkness and gore are unpleasant.

Trick and Treating is, however it is dressed up, basically extortion and involves children approaching strangers – something that is usually strongly discouraged.

Halloween does, as its essence, trivialise evil.

Halloween is also becoming an increasingly macabre event – far from just carving pumpkins we are now to believe that dressing up as blood-stained axe murderers is somehow entertaining.

As parents we are delighted that the school that our son goes to instead of celebrating Halloween has a lantern festival and celebrates the coming of Jesus Christ – the light of the world.

We think this is a far more healthy thing for children to celebrate.

Iain Bainbridge

Kendal