Downstream

the river. She used to go
canoeing on the Thames, but
as a child she was told it was
a dirty place and didn’t think
of swimming in it. When she
first started outdoor
swimming around 2007 there
were few mass swims open to
people of different abilities;
‘it’s gone a bit mental in the
last three years, before that
there were elite swims and
you needed wetsuits’. Her
love of Thames swimming