Hop tu Naa is a special Isle of Man tradition, steeped in Celtic history and folklore.

Central to it is the humble turnip. Much like in Ireland and Scotland, it was used to ward off evil spirits as the harvest ended and winter drew in.

In Celtic times, this was a precarious period when the barrier between our world and the spirit world was believed to be at its thinnest.

Hop tu Naa is the oldest continuously existing tradition in the Isle of Man. It is our Halloween.

But that Halloween tradition has been hijacked by Americanisation. And the biggest culprit has been the arrival of the pumpkin.

I should issue a warning here as I embark on a hefty dose of ‘back in my day’ rhetoric.

I get it. Pumpkins are prettier, bigger and much easier to carve and scoop out.

But central to Manx Hop tu Naa tradition has always been the turnip, or ‘moot’.

When I was young, we had to graft hard to prepare our turnip.

It took half an hour just to hack the top off. Then we would embark on the scooping phase.

Three hours and 17 bent spoons later, our tiny turnip would finally be hollowed out as we clutched our aching wrists with a grimace.

Then it was on to the artistic stage - creating the face.

With a turnip, there are fewer facial expressions you can achieve. The knife would not glide with precision through the tough flesh. No, a turnip had to be hacked.

With pumpkins, you can create a Michelangelo masterpiece with ease.

But with a turnip, it was a case of hacking some vague form of a face as best you could without losing more than three fingers.

It was basically two asymmetrical triangular eyes, a triangular nose and some irregular hole which passed for a mouth.

But in its own way, such a rudimentary creation was far more terrifying than a fancy face carved out of a pumpkin.

Adding to the joy of turnip carving was the delightful aroma. You can imagine the smell with all that turnip flesh lying around. Delightful.

Just when you thought the work was done, it was time to get out a skewer or some other sharp, dangerous implement to make holes in the hard, gnarly lid of the turnip and thread through the string. You would then realise the string didn't go through the lid and have to do it all again, this time through the body of the turnip.

Finally, you had your hollowed-out root vegetable ready to head into the neighbourhood to collect coins. That's right, cold hard cash, not candy. We wanted to go out and buy the sweets we wanted, like 100 Mojos for 50p.

Then came the really fun bit, and this is where I feel really old. We would get a candle. Yes, an actual candle.

We would have to light it, then carefully drip some hot wax onto the wet turnip flesh and stick the candle in place.

We would then get our coats on and bravely step out into the dark and cold. Within five seconds, the candle had blown out.

I have to concede that electric tealights or a small torch are probably a much better option.

Anyway, I hope I have convinced you that turnips are the future and deserve to make a long-overdue, gloriously knobbly Manx comeback.