I fell into the trap that many people slip into when they meet the Reverend Kate Bottley. I brought up the television show The Vicar of Dibley and I asked, “more tea vicar?” while grabbing the teapot. Kate is a priest in north Nottinghamshire, but you might know her from Channel 4’s BAFTA award winning TV series, Goggle Box. She presents BBC Radio 2’s Good Morning Sunday alongside Jason Mohammad, often appears on the radio’s Pause for Thought and is a regular presenter on television shows The One Show and Songs of Praise. Most recently she completed three triathlons in three days for BBC’s Sport Relief and, along with fellow Radio 2 teammates Jo Whiley and Richie Anderson, managed to raise over half a million pounds for the charity.
Despite the success of the Sport Relief triathlons, it is outdoor swimming that is Kate’s passion beyond the church and her family. “The jump from spirituality to swimming, for me, is a very tiny step,” says Kate. “If you find me an outdoor swimmer, especially a skins swimmer or winter swimmer, who hasn’t had some sort of spiritual experience in water - they are fibbing! I can understand perhaps triathletes swimming in their wetsuits might not get an experience like that, but that is a bit like having sex in a sleeping bag as far as I am concerned. But getting into the water, with likeminded people, in the great outdoors in your swimming costume and sometimes not even that… you cannot fail to have a spiritual experience.”