In just a fortnights time our streets will be teaming with youngsters, all wearing costumes and face paint, marauding through the local community, angrily making their demands. No, I’m not talking about the next protest from Extinction Rebellion; I’m referring of course, to Halloween.

I’m baffled as to why it seems to be such a big deal these days? I think it’s the closest us Brits get to having an affinity with the Americans, apart from our growing obesity problem and embarrassment with our political leaders. It’s a major feature on the calendar now. The kids get excited like its Christmas and it nearly rivals Easter when it comes to the calorie count.

When I was a kid back in the 1980’s Halloween wasn’t even a thing. I can only remember going trick or treating a few times. The first time was when I was about three years of age, a mere amateur in the game. My parents took a photo of the occasion. I was there sporting a massive black bin bag, with skeleton bones crudely drawn on the front in Tippex, I looked like a walking ISIS flag. I was wearing my father’s wellingtons as they were black and presumably my Fireman Sam ones didn’t have the required scare factor. I was sat in my Batman go-kart and my poor dad was pulling me round the streets with a rope. I think I was the only Trick or Treater to be chauffer driven.

The second time I was about 12, which in trick or treater years is approaching retirement. I was with a friend and went trick or treating around his estate. It was a strange night. The only people to answer the door were his parents, his grandma and one of his highly religious neighbours, who gave us a little note of some bible scripture, warning us against dabbling with the occult. My mate ate it as he thought it might be some sugar paper, it wasn’t but he’s now a fully qualified vicar so it was certainly laced with something.

They even have zombie walks through town centres now. Hundreds of people, walking with a vacant stare, moaning and groaning. I’ve seen it in Nottingham many times, although not exclusively on Halloween.

I often wonder if trick or treating is different in really posh areas. The kids would probably only be able to do two houses as it would take half an hour to walk up the driveways. They’d all be dressed in designer Halloween costumes, a little off the shoulder gothic number by Gucci, with a swan hanging around their neck like a scarf and they wouldn’t say trick or treat, it would be “Hoodwink or delicacy?”

Unless its Green and Blacks 80% organic fair-trade chocolate, they’d not accept it and the tricks would be a little different too, something more in-keeping with the area “I say sir, haven’t you heard, house prices here are set to plummet by 5%!”

I have two children, nine and three, strange names but easy to remember. They both love Halloween. At my eldest daughters’ school last year for Halloween they were allowed to go school in fancy dress, she said to me “daddy I want to go as something really scary” so I had a think about it and sent her as an Ofsted inspector.

We don’t send them out on their own trick or treating, it’s a different world now. So, we have to accompany them like a pair of weird bouncers. Waiting at the bottom of the driveways and mouthing an embarrassed “sorry” as they storm into our neighbour’s hallways to mug them of all the Haribo they have.

Last year we underestimated the confidence of some of these kids. Once they had wedged their welly in your doorway, they were in. Some of them walked away with more sweets than a Cineworld Pick ‘n’ Mix. By six o’clock we had run out of the hard stuff and had to resort to giving kids’ cereal bars and breadsticks. I swear we were three children away from chopping up carrots. You should have seen the kids fades when I had to dissect a Malteser three ways with a kitchen knife.

The street I live on really embraces Halloween, because the demographic is mainly young families. It started out quite low-key, a couple of pumpkins, maybe a cobweb here and there. A morning at Costa and a WhatsApp group later and its now Grand Designs meets Friday the 13^th. It’s a competition in one-upmanship. We’ve got gravestones in gardens, smoke machines and spooky music on Bluetooth speakers. Last year one resident had the idea of putting a life size dummy of a killer clown in the front seat of their people carrier. It was a nice touch until one child had a panic attack, I think they are still in therapy now.

I don’t know where this madness is going to end? I wouldn’t be surprised if my wife tries to convince me to bury myself in the garden in the first week of October, with nothing but a paper straw to breathe through. She’d tell the children I was working away and then on Halloween night, as soon as the first bars of Michael Jacksons “Thriller” are blasted across the garden, I would emerge from the soil like one of the Living Dead.

Every year whole families dress up to answer the door. Although there is always the reluctant dad, hovering in the background who isn’t really in the spirit. He’s just got in from work and he’s knackered, so his costume often consists of a black dressing gown and a pair of Gruffalo slippers. There is nothing really scary about that look, unless his dressing gown happens to flap open, then its utterly terrifying.

Towards the end of the evening we tend to get the stragglers coming, to pick off the last of the sweets. These are the kids who are too old for the tick or treating game. The ones who have worn the tread on the tyres, jaded old hacks who should know better. The cut-off point is when the One Show into music starts, everyone knows that. Once the pumpkin is extinguished it’s over. Yet they still come, all charged up on e-numbers, mobile phones lighting their faces like low budget ET;s and hammer the doorbell. I expect the reason they were late is because some of them are old enough to be working at Subway and they needed to finish their shifts first.

The carving of the pumpkin is something I try to involve the children in. It’s a calmer, more traditional taste of Halloween. We tend to go to our local farm to buy a pumpkin. Everyone knows this is a total rip off. I wouldn’t even be surprised if that farmer hasn’t grown any of them. He’s probably gone to the cash and carry, bought a shedload for a few quid. Stuck them in the field for a day, rubbed on a bit of mud and voila, middle class families in designer wellies and gilets come along and pay fifteen quid a pop.

I love carving the pumpkins. I plan it out, make a template and get out my pumpkin tools from the shed. The only bit I dislike is scooping out the pumpkin’s brains, the slimy threads between your fingers and those bloody seeds that go everywhere.

The kids try and carve, but ultimately, they get bored. They start off with such big ideas, “I’m going to carve Harry Potters face into this one daddy!” “I’m going to do a full-scale picture of Hogwarts in mine daddy!” this all fades away at record speed when they realise how difficult it is to cut into and all we end up with is two pumpkins with a glory hole in them.

This years Halloween will be very different, I won’t be able to celebrate it as I am performing my tour show “Leap Year” (tickets available at www.scottbennettcomedy.co.uk/tour.html yes this is a plug) in Amersham, Hertfordshire.

Let’s hope that it’s a treat for me and not a trick where no one turns up. Or worse than that, one person turns up, in fancy dress as the grim reaper, which I have to admit would be rather poetic.

That date also marks the official day when we are meant to be leaving Europe. Halloween seems appropriate for that event too, let’s hope the government have managed to score a better deal than a bucket of Haribo a cereal bar and a couple of carrot sticks.