A remarkable conversation took place recently at Darwin Gardens Millennium Green between myself and two visitors from abroad. They enquired about the history of the white buildings on the moor above and what kind of bathing took place. It transpired they were from Czechoslovakia knowing of the Priessnitz cures and Grafenburg exceedingly well, names synonymous with Ilkley's hydro-pathic era. Today Priessnitz cures are virtually unheard of in these parts but in Grafenburg they are still part of daily life, being used for a wide range of ailments. One using a 'cure' to aid relief of asthma, while the other spoke highly of a 'Priessnitz Bandage' to ward off symptoms of the common cold and sore throat. It would seem what Silesian farmer Vinzenz Priessntz practised in the early nine-teenth century is still as efficacious today. We have much to learn from the use of water in our daily lives, time for developers to think again in providing their modern des-res with multitudinous water wasting paraphernalia. Such is progress.