So, if you ask the kids I was with tonight what halloweeen was like, they'll tell you it was fun and that they scored loads of sweets.

If you ask the grownups, they'll also tell you it was fun. But they might also mention that three houses they visited had had eggs chucked at their front door, that two pumpkins on the doorstep of Jessie's house were smashed to bits (Jessie and the other kids who live there will tell you how 'two of our pumpkins EXPLODED!'), that they watched five guys kicking the shit out of someone and when they checked it out they found the five guys were workmen and that the other guy had been trying to steal stuff off of their van (a 'pick-up' kind of thing so you could just take stuff off the top without any 'breaking and entering'), that when we were in the local pub (the kids trick-or-treated the pub and found tables of sweets there waiting for them) they heard the same guys boasting about how enjoyable it was to feel their feet connect with the thief's face, that they saw a woman walking down the street talking to her mobile in tears while a kid from the gang who had traumatised her followed her asking 'are you all right?' while his mates yelled after him to 'fucking come back here, you fucking idiot!' (none of these kids could have been over 12 years old), and so on. Rashomon!

Reminds me of the moment at woodcraft when we sent the kids into a patch of woodland (left there by a WWII bomb) to find green sticks for marshmallows and the leader of the session had to explain to the naive 6-9 year old kids that they might find things there that they should 'NOT TOUCH!', i.e. condoms and syringes.

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