With its cosy socks, simmering hotpots and scary festivals, autumn is rich in tradition. But should we insist on fetishising a season of rain, fading light and tedious poetry?

Depending on your view, autumn has a bad rap, or an easy time of it. Overdue a renaissance or passé to even admit liking at all. As a child, I considered autumn the red-headed stepchild of the calendar. It was the end of summer. It was back to school. It was a period in which blue skies turned white and the sun started showing up less and less, like texts from a friend you’d made on holiday. Then, in a strange move, the government would surgically remove an entire hour of sunlight, presumably at the behest of whatever grisly nest of vampires came up with daylight savings time.

So far, so bad. But autumn was also a twilight time of change and spookiness, of crisp air, Halloween and substantially better television programmes. Sure, it’s the time of school uniforms, but it’s also the time of soup and candles and, again, much better television programmes.