Audrey during chemotherapy
I was always a pool swimmer as a child, representing my school and the south of England as a teenager. Though in my twenties, I lost touch with the water and only rediscovered it again in my late thirties. Soon after returning, I grew bored of the pool and longed for something better than 25m of chlorine, so I entered the Great North Swim in Windermere for the first time in 2011 – full wetsuit, gloves booties and panicked. I did all the things you are not supposed to do: not practicing and not swimming in open water before the event. Nevertheless, after making it round the mile course in 55 minutes, I was hooked!