Jedburgh guisers take over town for Halloween

The treats came courtesy of the majority of the town’s shopkeepers and traders as they opened their doors late at night, donned their own fancy dress and dished out spooks and sweets of their own to deserving youngsters who impressed them with their fancy-dress efforts.

Now in its fourth year, the event saw High Street closed to traffic for almost two hours, during which time it was overrun by little witches, werewolves and ghoulish creatures for an evening of organised guising.

Alan Learmonth, owner of Learmonth’s Butchers was in on the act, donning a mad professor cap and bloodied butcher’s coat. He said: “It’s starting to get bigger and bigger every year, and we have kids from other towns coming along to join in, which is great.

“It’s a good thing for the town as it’s safe for the kids and just really good fun for them.

“They all made the effort to dress up and some of the costumes were first class.

“The effort they put in was brilliant, and some were really quite scary actually.”

He added: “There were a lot of shops supporting the idea again, which is pretty encouraging, but people are not opening for business – they are just doing it for the kids.”