It was tremendous fun to drive through St Albans after dark on Halloween. House after house lit up ghastly green, doorstepped with pumpkin lanterns, festooned with spiders’ web, transformed into ghoulish dens, with skeletons grinning out of front windows. The ingenuity, creativity and enthusiasm on display was truly amazing. Add to the other-worldly crib scenes, a constant stream of deadly little pilgrims, dressed in a staggering array of bedsheets, witches hats, pumpkin heads and skeleton suits. I had no idea what some of the adults thought they were dressed as, but it scarcely matters in the dark, as long as it looks like a scary character.

It felt as if more effort had been made for Halloween than is made for Christmas – if you consider that the Christmas lights and abseiling Santas stay up for weeks, and the wonderful terror shows are for one night only. And let’s face it, it’s more fun to be Freddy Kruger than Santa.

A recent YouGov poll revealed that more people in Britain believe in ghosts than in God. While this may come as a horrid shock to many traditional believers, it should not really surprise us.

In this age of uncertainty, organised religion has become suspect, as have so many traditional positions and customs. Loyalties shift, allegiances waver, behaviours veer wildly.

But while many people are unsure about God, they still sense there is something else out there – another dimension. Halloween becomes an expression of this, perhaps the first, tentative step towards a radical, different faith.

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