Halloween Story Time With FuntCase

We asked UK DJ and producer FuntCase (aka James Hazell) to share a childhood memory about Halloween. Here’s his story.

Halloween wasn’t celebrated nearly as much in the UK as in America when I was young. For us, it was more of a venture for kids to go out and annoy people at their front doors, asking for sweets (“candy” to Americans) and dressing up as their favorite little horror characters.

As a child I loved dressing up, and coincidentally, I’ve never actually realized this until I wrote this article: that as a kid, I loved face paints or wearing masks, too!

I remember one year I went out as Dracula—face all painted white, with a typical blood drip down the sides of my mouth, full purple cloak, black bin bag around my torso, black jeans, and whatever unfashionable shoes I had back then which were darkest in my collection. I would go out into the street with my then-friend Terry and happily say “trick-or-treat” at anyone’s door and reap the rewards of free candy. Sometimes you’d get an old lady who gave you fruit, and at that age the last thing I wanted was fruit, so we would use that fruit to throw at each other from across the street. My mum was so confused at me coming home in mashed-up oranges.

There was this young couple with a really nice house on the street that I lived on, who were obviously extremely generous and loved Halloween. We had never seen these people on previous Halloweens! They gave us both a pre-packed, massive bag of sweets, a full multipack of Penguins (chocolate bar) and a £2 coin! I remember my extreme excitement, as I had £2—which at that age, you just didn’t own that kind of money! They weren’t there next year, to my disappointment, but I always remember their compliment to my face paint! Ha-ha!

If you’re reading this, young but now probably old couple from Hankinson Road in Bournemouth, UK, thank you for making my 1998 Halloween!

You can catch FuntCase at Escape Psycho Circus on Friday, October 30.

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