Lynn and Linda

Dorothy Feaver & Stella Scott

Dorothy Feaver & Stella Scott, Lynn and Linda, 2024. Single-channel video, colour, sound, 13 min 48 sec

Two friends revisit a May Day tradition from their youth.

Lynn and Linda were seventeen when they climbed Arthur’s Seat at dawn to wash their faces with dew – an ancient ritual thought to bring young women beauty, fortune and vitality. The local paper published their photograph on the front page, which resurfaces online every 1st May.

Now fifty, and bonded by the image, the pair retrace their path up to the exact spot where they were photographed as schoolgirls, until finally, in a moment of magic, they step into their original pose to camera as the sun comes up.

An experiment in timing, the film is a single locked-off shot that explores the effects of image and repetition on memory. The subtly changing light is captured alongside the women’s conversation. Each holds a mirror to the other, witnesses to the course their lives have taken.

A collaboration between Dorothy Feaver and Stella Scott, friends since secondary school.

On 1st May 2024, Lynn and Linda’s photograph reappears in the Edinburgh Evening News as an anniversary notice.

The 1989 article quoted the girls saying — of May dew — that ‘there must be some truth in it’ (Lynn) and ‘if the story is true then it will have been worthwhile’ (Linda). Their actual words, they recall, were more cynical, but decades on, they find meaning in the ritual.