Sitting with the scent of wet fireworks in my hair and listening to the wind and rain at the window I've just realised All Souls day has slipped past me unnoticed. Squeezed between Halloween and Guy Fawkes All Souls probably never stood much of a chance in Britain, at least not after Henry VIII sat on Catholicism.

Coming from a household that liked a party and mixed Orthodoxy (Christian variety) and atheism under a capacious C of E umbrella I was accustomed to celebrating All Souls and feel rather guilty if I don't spare a thought for the dear departed.

My mother - the Unbeliever - is a great All Souls party woman. She makes circular cakes similiar to Viennese whirls and dusts them with coloured sugar so they look like multi-coloured haloes. One year she even got hold of some Mexican 'day of the dead' sugar skulls and we lined them up on the mantelpiece and lit candles to them. Godmother - Orthodox - performed a vodka toast and danced the mazurka.

On a more serious note I think an All Souls celebration can be a good way of introducing older children to death's place in life. Keep the dead as friends and companions - talk to them and they'll talk to you.