Party-mad Swindon was having one of its spookiest Hall-oweens ever today.

The streets were crawling with ghouls of all ages to celebrate the eve of All Saints' Day.

Customers from the ages of three to 60 have been snapping up scary masks, witch's hats and fake limbs at shops all over town.

The Giant Party Shop in Victoria Road gave over its entire ground floor to things scary.

Joanna McKinlay, who opened the shop in July, said: "Freddy Krueger and Chuckie masks are available for the first time this year and have proved very popular.

"And anything to do with the film Scream has been selling well, such as white hooded masks and long black capes."

Customers have also been snapping up tableware, cauldrons that smoulder and flashing fibre-optic pumpkins.

Among those who hired costumes were staff at Swindon's Marks and Spencer store. Instead of the usual shopfloor uniforms, eight members of the childrenswear department dressed up as witches to give younger customers a surprise.

Section manager Liz Sherman explained: "Shopping can be a bit boring for children so we thought we would do something a bit special for them while their mums looked around the shop.

"Some of them had their faces painted and we had a competition to guess how many sweets were in a jar.

"It all went down really well. This was not the sort of thing you would usually expect to see in M&S!"

More than 100 children took part in the event and staff are now planning more theme evenings leading up to Christmas, including one where shop assistants dress in occasionwear.

In recent weeks the Scream mask has dominated sales among retailers including Birthdays, Giggles and Skywalkers.

Birthdays' other top sales include a spider's web mask and the traditional witch's hat.

Devil costumes are among the best sellers at Giggles in Faringdon Road, where staff have observed a gender trend with the hideous type of devil attracting male buyers, and the horned variety appealing to women.

Vampire teeth and realistic make-up proved to be a big hit at Skywalkers in Fleet Street.

"This is no ordinary make-up. It's moulded on to the face and painted over to produce unbelievably convincing cuts and wounds," explained Luke Skywalker, of Skywalkers.

"Its so convincing that people are tempted to call ambulances."