26/10/2026
Winter Nights in Biggar
Another story from our collection of newspaper cuttings describes the cold dark winter’s nights in Biggar and how the youth would keep both entertained and terrified in equal measures. Mrs Steel, daughter of Dr Bowes, was a well-known storyteller in the town and would encourage the local children to gather at her house for board games and stories. However, she never allowed card games, telling the children they would go to a bad place if they did, using the old tale of “The Devil’s Book,” to warn them off.
Mrs Steel would then tell tales of grave robbers digging up the dead to sell to anatomy schools only for the dead to wake up on the operating table or murders being haunted by their victims. The children would then, of course, run home at eight o’clock “filled with fearsome forebodings, consternation, and terror.”
The image we have included an extract from the Hamilton Advertiser, February 1st, 1902.
