THIS is the time of year when other people's children can worry us stiff. I'm not particularly thinking of the little devil throwing his red plastic Hallowe'en trident around in the aisles at Morrison's last week and dashing about with total disregard for loaded and lumbering trolleys, though unchecked (and he wasn't) I fear he won't be a delightful teenager.

I'm not thinking of the young lasses going round in what my neighbour calls their "pneumonia outfits" - all those bare midriffs in the damp chill of autumn. And why is it that those who bare their tums are almost always the ones who really didn't ought?

This week's train of thought was whistled off by an imperious ring at our doorbell at 9.45 one evening a few days before Hallowe'en.

Such a ring, so late in the evening, could only be a neighbour with a problem, so Sir hurried to the door, to be confronted by a young lad, Edvard Munch "Scream" mask in place, demanding: "Trick or treat?"

"Neither" was the answer to that. In Sir's traditionalist book, you don't "guise early to beat the rush", you come on October 31 or not at all.

In my book, you don't come at that time of the evening either. We don't know who was behind the mask, or his age, but at a rough guess it would be 12 or so. He wasn't mine, I didn't need to worry about his safety, but I did just the same.

I also hoped he didn't draw to the door any of my older neighbours who live alone. Calling at that time, mask and all, he could have given them a nasty shake-up.

Unshaken, but stirred to wonder if his parents knew what he was doing, we got on to the "what ifs". However, as the next few days' news contained no lost boys or reported assaults, we assume he returned home safely.

At one time, this week would have seen "penny for the guy" but that seems to have fallen out of favour now Guy Fawkes celebrations last at least a fortnight. Soon it'll be carol singers who can warble only We Wish you a Merry Christmas in no key known to musicology.

I wonder if these guising and carolling youngsters are the same ones who, dressed in dark and dundy colours, ride their bikes every evening without lights and with no reflectors because they haven't got rear mudguards to fix them to. What they do have is a cheerful disregard for anyone's safety or drivers' nerves.

Are they also the same ones who leave our local park, which was tidy at sunset, strewn with lager cans and fast food dbris by daylight?

They must be. There can't be that many parents who don't care that their offspring - and even many of the park crowd would be hard pushed to be in their GCSE year - are rammocking around after dark.

In the hoo-haa there'd be if one of them came to any kind of grief, blame would, no doubt, be ladled out generously. By those same parents.

* Mean as we are to the early callers, come last Friday evening, we had the 20p pieces and the bag of mini bars ready because our road's lot tend to come en masse, in scary mode and with mums riding shotgun beyond the gate. All we got was one unfamiliar teenager who hadn't even bothered to dress up, but at least she got the date right.