Downstream

brought up her children, now
fourteen and seventeen, to
swim in the Thames, and the
only experience of any illness
was when her eleven-year-old
Border Collie, Rebel, got
Weil’s disease: ‘he spent
nearly nine weeks at the vets
and we didn’t think he would
come out the other side. But
as soon as he was well again
he went back to swimming
and he swam in the Thames
until the day he died aged