Local Dowsing Group News:  No. 73

Tributes to Linda

Very sad to hear this news. Linda was one of the best. She'll be missed.
Thanks for letting us know.

Grahame


 
Thanks for sharing this sad information. I hope you are well.
 
Very best wishes

David


Then your email came up with the name Linda Fentum, and I thought I know that name. I stuck a search in my computer and it is Linda who I had been speaking to all these months. She had been instrumental in me making connections with you and others, giving me advice on first steps in dowsing, books and videos. We had quite a few email exchanges and she was from Oxford too as me. I guess she was the only person in the very beginning to help me out and I was so glad to find her. She set me on my path and she put me in touch with you. I was really looking forward to hooking up with her and doing some work and really felt grateful for her kindness and interest. It might be strange to say , but her death in that diving accident has actually hit me and I have been feeling quite sad about it even though we just had a brief email toing and froing since late April/May… but somehow I knew she was a great person and I felt we would get on... and I was really looking forward to meeting her….alas!
 
I’m sure she is a great loss to many people and for me there is sadness for the loss, her guidance , brief friendship and her talent.
 
Sad News..
 
Mike


Hope all well with you.

Just wanted to say how sorry I am to hear the news of Linda. Thank you for letting me know. When I met her via BSD she was such an interesting, kind, generous, intelligent person. Her desire and determination to put in the hours to train as a dowser demonstrated her commitment and she was, as you say, always very happy to share her knowledge.

I can only feel that, although a tragedy, at least she passed doing something she had a mad passion for.

With kind regards

Helen




SO sorry to hear of Linda's passing. My condolences to yourself as a close friend of hers. Your write-up with Kate is very touching. 
 
Maria x



Further to receiving Mandy’s email this afternoon and my immediate telephone call to her, I’m so sorry to learn of the tragic news of dear Linda’s passing.

Linda was one of first Dowsers I met in 2016 at the BSD conference, she made time to chat with me and kindly introduced me to her friend Peter Golding.

Over the years I was fortunate enough to meet and have a good chat with Linda on a number of occasions when she gave talks for Somerset Dowsers and at the Dowsing Fest in Devon. 

Linda was such a warm, bubbly, adventurous and vital lady. I’m going to 
miss her greatly. (...)

With warmest regards

Avril


I met Linda some 15 years ago when we were involved in archaeological dowsing when the BSD 'sigs' were running. She always threw herself into whatever we were doing . Some of those trips were weekend affairs and in particular we did two years running near Wisbech where the land owners threw a real barn dance each time. I have pictures of Linda really getting in to the spirit of the thing. The same applied when we had our entertaining evening at the BSD venue in Cirencester.

It was always a job to keep track of her, always off somewhere but her love of and ability to water divine was very much to the fore. Like an untrained puppy she was into everything ! It is a tragedy that her life has been cut so short.

It's very difficult to conceive of Linda no longer being with us. She was a good friend as well as a water dowsing colleague. We spoke at least once a week about water problems and last year she stayed with me when she took part in the DVD on 'Practical Dowsing'. An enormous hole has been created by her demise and one which we will not be able to fill. However, a way must be found to celebrate her life within the dowsing fraternity.

I've lost someone special.
John
I’m glad that Linda has been found and this should enable closure for the family. Of course it then raises the fact of why did I get what I did. And is there a message in there somewhere?
 
There is always a message, but it isn’t one that says “you should not have tried because you could be wrong”.  (...)

I hadn’t meant to make finding missing life-forms part of my remit, but it is certainly interesting and my philosophy precludes nothing that I can’t do, if put my mind to it.    The most fascinating aspect is the telling of the tale. How will authorities take what one says ? If we have control over a search then we just go for it, but if you involve authorities then the oddities stack up unless, of course, the authorities are pre-conditioned to accept what I call “prompts”. Our findings are very difficult to rationalise such that can they stand up in Court… and I’m not sure that I feel that they should. The major reason is that the implications are phenomenal in that maybe the truth can’t be hidden and just what would be the diplomatic fall-out from that be? (...)
 
Glad to have made contact. Feel free to widen this circle of discussion if it is deemed useful. Maybe there is the right person about who could ask Linda for a comment; as I would not rule that “out of the question”; how else do we discover these connections?
 
Love and light,
 
Geoff



Hi Ced,

Yes, it has been difficult and all so very sad….it seems that the water elementals loved Linda so much that they just wanted her to stay and play with them.

It seems to me that your and Kate’s latest article has said it all. Are you going to send that on to the BSD, perhaps?

Sue



We are all very saddened by Linda’s passing. Some of us at Westmorland Dowsers had applied our dowsing to her situation and some of us also sent loving light to her Complete Being.

I just felt you and others, especially her family and friends, should know that our thoughts were, and very much still are, with you all.

Kind regards,
Liz


I was most sad to read the news of Linda which I received via the Thames Valley Dowsers. I fully concur with your description of her personality and wide-ranging dowsing skills.

I got to know Linda, who I knew as Prenter, principally through the weekend sessions held at Gestingthorpe in Essex looking for Roman remains under the auspices of the then BSD archaeological dowsing group. We’d some good dowsing there followed by enjoyable evenings at a local pub. I attach below a photo of Linda taken there on one of these occasions. There was much comment about her colourful wellingtons at the time I remember!

This was mainly back in 2011 but a search revealed that our last email contact was in 2017 when she’d co-hosted a session at Burford in the Cotswolds on dowsing to find lost objects.

Jeff
Thank you, Ced…so, so sad…

Anne




Many thanks Ced now the investigation starts after an autopsy  a bit different to English law  hope her family have good support   can take months   keep me informed of all things

Graham



Such sad news, she was a great friend and support to me for a number of years. Take care

Jane x
 


Many thanks for the newsletter with this very sad news. I couldn't have said it better than what you have said, she will be sadly missed.  
 
Kind regards 
 
Peter


Sadly Lucie tells me that they have found Linda’s body at the dive site and the investigations can now begin in earnest to establish what went wrong on her last dive. She has asked that we pass on this news to others and thank them for their good wishes to her and her family



Thank you for taking the time to let me know.

I appreciate it confirms what we know, but its good to have that closure for Linda's family and friends.

Its absolutely heartbreaking to lose such a wonderful, vibrant and cheerful person as Linda. She lit everything up around her with her presence and I am sure there would have been more amazing tales and fun to come.

Thanks again for all you have done over the last few days, I appreciate that would have been very difficult and heart wrenching to do.

With best wishes and thanks

Paul


Hi

This is so sad to hear. I met Linda for the first time at Hellens Manor Gardens. She is so lovely. 

(...) Thanks for letting me know. 
Best Regards 

Michelle 😀



I'm Heather from the Westmorland Dowsers and spent some moments doing the dowsing for Linda.

I was looking at the map of the area, and kept on asking questions, and the message I got was that she has passed away, having got caught in a stray current, and was unable to get free enough to get to safety. I could feel her emotion of panic from the experience.

I would like to hope that I am wrong in finding this out, but I did feel a chill going through me before I began. Very sorry that it isn't a positive message.

With sincerest best wishes to her family if I happen to be right.

Best wishes
Heather



Many thanks for keeping HADs in touch with the ongoing developments concerning the search for Linda and the final sad news of her passing in such tragic circumstances. 

We had a Committee meeting yesterday and I was able to update members, and particularly Don Bryan and Edwina Cole, on the situation.

Don and Edwina had worked with Linda on a number of projects and she was always interested and supportive of the work we did as Archaeology Dowsers. This is a very sad loss for Linda’s family, friends and colleagues and to the wider dowsing community.

All of us in Hampshire Archaeological Dowsers would like to extend our sympathies and offer our sincere condolences at this very sad time.

Regards

Paul

Dear Kate and Ced

Thank you for the information about Linda - John Baker had told me too.
She left this physical plane doing something she loved - and will be sadly missed by many, it is clear.

I cannot imagine that Peter Golding thought he would out-live Linda.
(I trained with Peter and Linda once, many years ago.)

Zelly