As autumn skies darken and cold winds sigh through the trees, it is not surprising that the nation's thoughts turn to the macabre. With Hallowe'en looming, children are squealing with delight as parents buy them witches' hats, capes, rubber masks and devil's tridents. In kitchens across the land, mothers are scooping out pumpkins, while their adolescent children get ready for Hollywood's latest horror, the eagerly awaited follow-up to The Blair Witch Project. But Hallowe'en, like so much else, seems to have become homogenised.
Many communities still boast a wide range of manifestations.
One such place, Pluckley, nestles at the foot of the North Downs in Kent. It's the sort of village that John Major was thinking of when he talked about old ladies cycling to communion on misty mornings. The main street is called simply The Street and boasts a pub, church, primary school, butcher, post office and general store. The rest of the village straggles down a few hedge-lined lanes that radiate towards two more pubs and a tiny railway station. It is so quintessentially English that the television series The Darling Buds of May was filmed here.