Valerie Gillies

having dinner in Invernesshire, and there was a famous American eye surgeon at the table.

And I thought, I wonder if he's come across this.

And he said, well, I know what would have been in that water.

And he had a good idea what people would have found helpful in the mineral content of that water.

So it's not completely made up.

There is a science behind it, what people had found helpful.

Yes.

Yes.

Sometimes, like the Arthur Seat one, I led a group to go and visit it and write.

And that's the simplest way of, let's go there and see, is it still running?

Has it been blocked up because it's in a public park and they don't want anybody to drink it?

You know, you quite often find that as an artificial stopping of the flow of the well by the powers that be.

A little bit of all of that.

I mean, basically, I've always been a nature poet, but I've always loved to work with

anthropology and storytelling and archaeology and all these things that feed into an exploration of the wells.

Yes.

Yes, this is the latest iteration of work that I do with a colleague from those early Artlink days.

Rebecca Marr is a wonderful Highland photographer who now lives in Orkney.

And we have always worked in the healing arts.

We worked in the Royal Edinburgh for over several years.