Introduced, rather unexpectedly, by the Dr Who theme, this pumpkinesque portrait gallery included such modern titans as Popeye, Stalin, FDR, Churchill, Hemingway, Marilyn, Carey (sic) Grant, Gerry (sic) Garcia and Spider-Man. Entitled “The Laughing Place”, a final section of grotesque clown faces accompanied by insane, deafeningly amplified cackling would give any moderately sensitive child nightmares for a month. After an hour in the queue last Thursday, I was finally able to join the throng shuffling past the 5,000 carved pumpkins that form this prodigious display Perhaps half the pumpkins are carved into the standard form. The other half of the vegetables are transformed by “a team of over 30 professional pumpkin carvers”. This is the best bit of the show, as the flickering army of heads covers hills, populates the branches of trees and surrounds a specially created waterfall. The carving into what are still pleasingly known as Jack O’Lanterns has been raised to an art-form in America.

Though the familiar cube eyes and gap-toothed smile still predominate, the more ambitious carver can(with the assistance of a stencil) create witches on broomsticks, snarling grimalkins, devilish arachnids, shrouded ghosts and haunted houses.This vegetable aesthetic reaches its apogee in the bustling Rhode Island capital of Providence, where a “Jack O’Lantern Spectacular” is held for three weeks in a city park from mid-October. Although from its earliest days New England has been a stronghold of protestant Christianity, the region also celebrates the pagan festival of Hallowe’en with a fervency unmatched anywhere else in America. The reason for its preoccupation with this enjoyably creepy celebration is partly historic and partly vegetable.
Let’s examine the edible aspect first. It is a safe bet that more pumpkins are grown in New England than anywhere else in the world. Platoons of the cheery orange globes stand on the front steps and lawns of virtually every house, alongside figures of ghosts, devils and other ghoulies (a friend once saw an entire spectral operating theatre created on someone’s patio). Whole regiments of the vegetables are arrayed outside farm shops, where they reflect the blazing trees of New England’s psychedelic autumn.The pumpkin allegedly formed part of the first Thanksgiving meal eaten in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621 and continues to form an obligatory element of the Thanksgiving blow-out, consumed in all American homes on the last Thursday in November Yet probably more pumpkins are carved than cooked. It is a curious irony that the richest corner of the richest country in the world has a profound attachment to an ancient and mysterious event when, so it is said, the worlds of the living and the dead briefly intersect.

New Orleans is particularly lively over Hallowe’en, when the city turns into one big fancy-dress party. “Every Prime Minister needs a Willie,” she announced in an unguarded moment, innocently unaware of the double entendre.Among that small number of men was her blunt, opinionated, humorous and devoted husband, Denis He enjoyed observing his wife’s crusading zeal He savoured her successes But he was just a little detached. For further information contact Destination New Orleans and Louisiana (01462 458696; ).. United Vacations (0870 606 2222; ) offers a seven-night room-only break at the three-star Landmark Hotel from £699 per person, including return flights with United Airlines and transfers. Top night spots of the moment are Club 360(infinity), 2 Canal Street, a revolving rooftop lounge on the 33rd floor of the World Trade Centre, and the House of Blues, 225 Decatur Street.MunchiesSince 1862, Caf?u Monde, 813 Decatur Street serves 24-hour snacks seven days a week.ChillTake a streetcar along St Charles Avenue to the garden district, stroll down the tree-lined avenues and marvel at the grand mansions.