‘It just feels like a reset every time’
◆ In new BBC Scotland series, Julie Wilson Nimmo and husband Greg Hemphill bring their love of wild swimming to the screen, writes Gaby Soutar
If you’ve been standing at the edge, scared to take the plunge, there’s no better couple to guide you into the water than Greg Hemphill and Julie Wilson Nimmo. Their new weekly BBC Scotland six-part series, Jules and Greg’s Wild Swim, is being aired from Wednesday. In it, they take a road trip to Scotland’s cold-water locations, via Perthshire, Moray and Fife’s sea coasts, tidal pools and an outdoor sauna, to rivers, lochs, rockpools and waterfalls.
We imagine it’s going to be popular, as, back on New Year’s Day 2023, they screened a one-off documentary on the same theme. Everyone wanted to talk to them about it afterwards.
“I’ll be honest. I don’t think I’ve had feedback on a programme like that since Chewin’ the Fat,” says comedian, actor, writer and director, Hemphill, 54. “People were coming up to us in supermarkets or in the street to say they’d watched our show, absolutely loved it and were keen to give it a go. We were really overwhelmed by how many connected to it or were curious, so that was a really nice thing.”
Although the wild swimming trend seemed to start during lockdown, its popularity has continued to grow as our lives returned to normality.
Filming the series was Balamory star and recently qualified yogi Wilson Nimmo’s idea.
“She’d been doing wild swimming for probably about six months to a year. And we were coming back from Loch Ness. We were both loving it because we’d just been in the water and were about eight feet from the shore and you couldn’t touch the bottom,” says Hemphill. “It was a particularly cold winter’s day, we were driving back and she said we should pitch this as a show. And I said, that’s a great idea. Within a week, we had an ear at BBC Scotland and that was that.”
In the series, the couple – who also worked together on Cbeebies programme Olga da Polga, in which they voice Mr and Mrs Sawdust – meet various community groups and individuals who’ve taken up wild swimming for mental or physical health issues.
“It’s not really about the locations we go to, as beautiful as they are. It’s a people show. What really struck me was the different reasons for taking it up. There were people going through grief. There were those who had arthritis or sore hips,” says Hemphill. “I feel like we’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg, because every single person we met was doing it for a different reason from the one we met before.”
As you might expect for a couple who’ve been together for 25 years, the pair are completely natural with each other on screen, and the programme has the human feel of something like Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse’s Gone Fishing.
“I love that show,” says Hemphill. “You have to try not to be a presenter. You’re
It’s very liberating when you stop worrying about body consciousness
just being yourself. But that’s been one of the fun things.”
All vanity had to be set aside, as the pair were being filmed in their bathing suits.
They both invested in new kits for the programme, with Hemphill choosing one pair of shorts with Fifties pin-up girls on them. “Jules okayed them,” he says.
“We didn’t have hair and makeup and wardrobe and the things that you normally associate with presenters. We wanted to literally let it all hang out. It’s very liberating when you stop worrying about body consciousness. It feels like a great achievement. The whole point is that it’s a leveller. It’s a bit like a carousel at the airport, whether you’re Rupert Murdoch or just a student, you still gotta wait for your bags. And the wild swim’s a little bit like that. Everybody’s on the beach, they feel bonded, with a woolly hat and their trunks on, nobody looks particularly good.”
The couple, who ideally prefer to swim in the sea, now take part in the activity regularly. They usually try to do it first thing in the morning, when their commitments allow.
“Through the winter, because Jules is working, it’s a little bit trickier,” says Hemphill. “But the idea is that we get in the cold water every day. So, when we can’t get to White Loch, Loch Lomond or Mugdock, we have a barrel in the back garden.”
The resulting post-plunge sensation sounds quite addictive.
As Hemphill says; “It feels fantastic. Because your mind is so focused and your mind isn’t wandering to any worries you may have. You’re focused on your breathing and it’s this wonderful form of meditation. It just feels like a reset every time and is part of our lives.”
Part of the reason Wilson Nimmo, 51, took up wild swimming in the first place was to help her deal with symptoms of the menopause.
Hemphill tells me that his wife was in the cold water barrel at 10:30pm the night before we speak, in order to cope with the hot flushes she’d had on stage while performing in The Tron’s panto, Aganeza Scrooge. “I’d been thinking about going in for hours,” she says.
It’s perhaps no coincidence that many wild swimmers they meet, such as the members of East Neuk group The Menopausal Mermaids, are women in middle age.
It took a little bit of persuasion for Wilson Nimmo – who now runs Soulful Sunday sessions, which include yoga, breathing exercises and wild swimming, on various Scottish beaches, including Elie – to get her husband to join her in the water.
“She was trying to say to me, why don’t you come down and I’d say, oh no, that’s your thing, I don’t know if I want to stand on a beach with 30 women doing yoga,” says Hemphill. “Once I did it, you shed all these inhibitions. I think we’re sort of playing catch up a little bit as guys. But when you go to those groups, it’s exactly the same experience as the female groups and the mixed ones, because they’re just chatting and supporting one another and helping each other and it just feels lovely. Over time, I’m seeing more guys coming into it. So, I came into it, I wouldn’t say reluctantly, but I just took my time.”
As well as converting the programme’s viewers to the activity, the couple have got a few of their friends into wild swimming. However, the series wasn’t intended to get people signed up, just to gently demonstrate what it’s all about.
“We’re not crazy zealots,” says Hemphill. "It’s enjoyable watching, even if you never intend to take the plunge. However, if you do want to try it, we couldn’t live in a better climate.
“It’s weird because we went to Corfu a couple of years ago, and it was the summer and we were a bit disappointed when the sea was quite warm,” he says. “It feels like, ah, this isn’t as good as when you’re in Scotland and you’re going in the cold water.”
Jules and Greg’s Wild Swim, episode one is released on Wednesday, BBC Scotland, 10pm