The Pied Piper 36

Simon, pictured below in the River Thames, I call the 'Pied Piper' as he has 'led', for 20-years, a group of 30 masters who gather weekly to swim in an open bend of the river west of the Teddington Lock so non-tidal. 

The group is seasonally agnostic and happy to toil in the pitch dark pre-dawn wintertime, wearing luminescent lights, when the water temperature can drop to below 5C. Wet suits are optional.  The comaradarie is obvious from the complaining.

I join Simon and maybe one or two others to head further up the river and back, sometimes as far as five miles.

A comment on water quality : UK rivers struggle from under-investment in infrastructure and lack of care for >20 years.  Thames Water faces bankruptcy and will likely be nationalised again soon.  Yet, on the up, there are 24/7 monitoring sites for all UK rivers and available apps show most days are clean and green-lit for swimmers (in short: don't river swim after a storm). 

A better sign of the river's health : we are joined by a friendly seal checking us out two weeks ago.

Simon is the founder of Outdoor Swimmer magazine, at your local news rack anywhere.