Halloween: Newcastle appears to have fallen to an invasion of zombies (as well as French maids and Avengers) – Susan Morrison

We had a good year for guisers. My son ignored my objections to the pumpkin and carved it anyway.

Zombie apocalypse? No, it's just Halloween (Picture: Peter Summers/Getty Images)

We stuck it next to the door and it became a beacon for witches, fairies and a tiny dinosaur. Oh, and a small boy in a big box who said he was an Amazon delivery.

There were only two zombies, which is down on previous years, I notice. They must be losing their appeal. Or their hands. I understand they drop off.

We didn’t get much entertainment, it has to be said. C’mon guys, let's start a campaign to bring back the song or the joke. They brought real ale back from the dead. Surely we can resurrect the Hallowe’en turn and consign the ‘trick or treat’ to the grave.

Mind you, my mother said I once insisted on performing ‘Edelweiss’. The neighbours said it was lovely, but a bit long for cold October doorsteps. Make it snappy, kids. No encore.

Hallowe’en came roaring back in Newcastle. I was working there last weekend, and I can report that our English cousins have cast off the face mask in favour of fancy dress.

The streets were awash with French maids, sexy nuns and Avengers. Zombies seemed to be more common, but this being Newcastle on the Saturday before Hallowe’en, on the day of a losing home match, and in the aftermath of lockdown, it was quite hard to tell if they were zombies in costume, or just lads completely off their faces.

Fake blood was a must, much to the irritation of some great paramedics who were treating a lad with a split lip. Not easy to separate the fake from the real.

Newcastle has returned to party town form. Only time will tell if there's a spike in the infection figures the size of Van Helsing’s vampire killing stake.

If there isn’t, I worry that the UK government will adopt a new anti-Covid strategy of vaccination, hand washing and wearing wipe-clean PVC maid outfits whilst slathered in fake blood.

I have a horrible feeling that Boris Johnson might actually wear that.

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