Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio Scotland,21 Jun 2020,27 mins

Spirit Guides and Spinsters

Time Travels

Available for over a year

Susan Morrison finds out from Dr Valerie Wright of Glasgow University about how the city sought to house its single working women after WW2 - and did it in style in Crathie Court nicknamed ‘The Spinster Flats’. Moving to Ayrshire, witchcraft historians Dr Lizanne Henderson of Glasgow and Laura Moffat of Strathclyde University introduce us to the strange 16th century case of Bessie Dunlop who allegedly made friends with a ghost and chatted to fairies, and then it’s off to Enlightenment Edinburgh with Dr Kevin Sienna of Trent University in Ontario for a bad case of the pox - how did they treat syphilis back then?

Programme Website
More episodes