From the 17th century to the 1970s, sex and the single girl has always caused anxieties. Trouble brewed in the 1970s when unmarried women started to ask for the pill. Oral historian, Kristin Hay of Strathclyde University has been interviewing folk to find out what it was like. She’s on [email protected] if you want to join her project on contraception use in Scotland. But it was always the case that the guardians of morality worried about what all the single ladies were up to - especially when there were large number of young free and (at least pretending to be) single soldiers in town for them to get involved with. Dr Mikki Brock of W&L University takes Susan to 1650s Ayr when Oliver Cromwell’s Army came to town.