Last updated 13:37, Thursday, 16 October 2008

She's been accused of being a witch, and banned from travelling in a sceptic’s vehicle, but it’s all water under the bridge for Deborah Bell.

For the 37-year-old from Coanwood is one of the few water dowsers in the North.

Armed with nothing more than a hazel twig, she can discover water many metres underground, to the delight of hard-pressed farmers.

The gift of water dowsing is often linked with the occult, so it is no surprise that Deborah turns up to most jobs faced by a wave of cynicism.

One customer has refused to let her travel in their vehicle, afraid of her ‘mystical’ status.

Another woman, however, was so amazed about her ‘powers’ that she believed Deborah to be a white witch.

Anyone meeting her will see that she is just an ordinary working mother of two, who puts her children ahead of anything else.

After a spell of six years away from dowsing to care for Fred (6) and Theo (3), Deborah is now back in business.

With the children out at school, she is finding her feet again in the trade and re-establishing her profession at a local level.

“My children always come first and I would not have it any other way," she said.

“I have had to put the dowsing on the back foot for a while because I just didn’t have the time, as it has all been child oriented."

The business that Deborah has chosen to specialise in is often confused with the art of water divining.

There is a clear distinction between the two; dowsing is the search for water while divining involves conjuring up water from some mysterious location.

Despite the cynicism, Deborah is keen to prove that she is legit, and that she and her hazel twig can actually pinpoint the depth and amount of running water hidden underground.

She said: “When people don’t understand something, they fear it and therefore knock it.

“But if it works, it works, and do we really need to understand everything?

“People’s doubts just spur me on and I am determined to prove them wrong.”

Many people do not know what dowsing is, or, if they do, do not fully understand what it entails.

Dowsing is an ancient art that locates hidden water using a rod or, in Deborah’s case, a twig.

The process of finding water can be a tricky one, with Deborah sometimes taking just 15 minutes or on other occasions three hours in a field looking for a spring.

A customer, usually a farmer looking for water for an extension to their farmhouse, will ring Deborah to see if there is a suitable spring on their land.

She arrives on the day, twig in hand, and turns 360 degrees on the spot to ‘feel’ if there is any flowing water nearby.

She says she is drawn to the source by a sort of magnetic pull on the twig, which she follows.

The force pulls her until she stops above the point of flow, and she can then estimate the depth, the quantity and quality of the water that the drillers need to head for.

Deborah was told she possessed the skill when she was 21 – and it was something of a surprise to her.

Her father was a driller and used to work with internationally known dowser Edwin Taylor, of Shotley, who believed that she possessed the ‘gift’.

She was on a break from studying fine arts at Sheffield University, and did not even know what dowsing was.

She said: “I was introduced to Mr Taylor and the next thing I knew was that I was being told that Edwin thought I could dowse.

“I held his hand and one side of his whalebones, and when I felt the pull it was just so amazing.

“It was the best thing I had ever felt, so I practised a lot, and decided it was what I wanted to do.”

The job is a highly stressful one that needs 100 per cent concentration.

There was one occasion when she got it wrong, and she describes that as the most gut-wrenching experience of her career.

Unable to get access to an adjacent field due to boundary disputes, Deborah had to estimate her findings.

And when they turned out to be incorrect, her world started to crumble.

She has learned her lesson the hard way and never commits to a point if she is not fully confident that water will be found.

She said: “I cannot leave a job now unless I am 100 per cent certain. If I am wrong there can be a huge financial cost and that is something that you can’t take lightly.”

Her first major job since she returned to the role has ended in success.

Ken Taylor, of Camptown, near Jedburgh, called for her services as he wanted to build additional stables and find water for his livestock.

After carrying out her extensive research on the plot, water came gushing from the ground in biblical style.

“I was so relieved when I found out,” she said. “It doesn't get any better.

“Until I get the call that it has been a success, it is always in the back of my mind, and sometimes prevents me from sleeping.”

Her profession allows her to spend her time in the great outdoors– something she loves doing.

She likes nothing better than spending her spare time with the breeze whipping across her brow, and educating her children about the beauty of nature.

She said: “I want my children to have the appreciation of the outdoors. It is such a materialistic world, and the best things in life really are free.

“My son Fred came to me and said, 'Look and the sunset, it is beautiful'. How many other six-year-olds so that?

“We like to stop and look at the sky and the hills, and the feeling is just so amazing.”

At the moment, she is concentrating on getting back into business – fitting it around her duties as a mother, of course.