As a kid growing up in Stannington, we didn’t do Halloween. In fact, believe it or not, Halloween is a relatively new thing. Instead we celebrated Cakin Nite (Caking Night). It was a very old local tradition that took place on the evening of November 1st .
Very similar to Halloween, in some respects, children dressed up in fancy dress and went around the local area knocking on doors. When the door was opened, the kids then said the rhyme below:
Cake Cake, Copper Copper
Cake Cake, Copper Copper
Oily boily roaster, a bit of bread or toastie,
Hole on me stocking, hole in me shoe,
Please can you spare me a copper or two,
If you haven’t any Copper, Silver will do,
If you haven’t any silver then God bless you.
Tradition was that if the people in the house couldn’t guess who you were then they gave you money. If they did, you were invited in for a bit of cake, hence the name. I remember having some great times going around getting money. Sweets and cake were never offered. One year I got enough to buy a small penknife at the local shop.
In the 70’s even the adults got into the spirit by having fancy dress do’s at the local pubs. Sadly Halloween seems to have replaced it these days.
Mischief night was always the night before Caking night in our village. However this was strictly no damage. I remember one year, the lollipop woman’s pole (which she just used to leave between the telegraph pole and the wall (amazing, today it would disappear in a few minutes) was switched with a For Sale board. Now that was mischief.
