Holmes items go on display

A COLLECTION of items belonging to the city doctor who inspired the story of Sherlock Holmes is to go on display in the Capital.

The family of Dr Joseph Bell has donated the gatherings to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, which will exhibit them in the new year.

Among them was a letter from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle confirming that he based the world-famous detective on him, adding: “It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes.”

The two had met when Conan Doyle studied medicine in Edinburgh in the 1870s.