While Bigfoot is commonly imagined to be a thoroughly North American phenomenon, there is a surprisingly strong tradition of ape men in Britain. They have been sighted near Newcastle at Bolam Lake, on Ben MacDhui in Scotland, where there is the legend of the Old Grey Man, and in Suffolk, where tales of feral Wodewose abound; one allegedly “terrified builders” in Sproughton, and mediæval fishermen are recorded as having caught a hairy wildman swimming in the sea off Orford (see p42). There have been many encounters across Britain, going back centuries, and while some claims may well be down to investigators with overactive imaginations, ape-men are firmly established British cryptids (see Stu Neville, “The Bigfeet of Britain, FT425:30-36). It seems, too, that they have no intention of fading into history.…