TAKING the PLUNGE

“IS IT SAFE?” This is what my dad said on the subject of any swim; any lake. His idea of ‘safe’ was tied with that of permission and common knowledge. He never said this about hills. There was always a guidebook to read and a map to follow for hills.

My dad was in the terminal stages of prostate cancer when the outline for my new book on wild swimming in the Lake District was conceived. As he became less able to climb hills, we took shorter, easier walks. I started to swim more. He would nervously watch from the water’s edge, always more confident of my ability to drown than my ability to swim.

I’d just been for a hair-raising and illadvised swim near a fast-flowing weir on a windy November afternoon. It was the most terrified I had ever been in the water, and indeed have been since. In the pub afterwards, Dad – clearly troubled by