Swimming my way through grief
When Freya Bromley’s brother died, she found unexpected solace in the UK’s tidal pools. So she decided to set herself a challenge…
Freya Bromley’s little brother Tom wouldn’t have missed the opportunity to rib her about her new book The Tidal Year – especially the “sexy bits”, Freya notes with a smile.
But Tom isn’t here to read her first publication because he died in 2019, aged just 19, after a three-year battle with bone cancer.
The book, a diary of her quest to swim in every tidal pool in the UK in just a year, was a way for Freya to deal with her grief.
“I feel like I wrote it as a way to force people to listen to me talk about him,” says Freya who lives in London. “I’m a rubbish grief person. It feels as though everyone’s been doing grief better than me.”
It was a friend she met at a bereavement weekend in January 2020 who suggested Freya, 28, try cold water swimming.
“I was in need of saving,” says Freya. “My life at that time was a lot of drinking, going out late and going out with all the wrong people.
“I was in such a bad place, so when Rohanna told me about the New Year’s Day swim at Hampstead Ladies’ Ponds in North London, it sounded like something the person I wanted to be would do. From that first swim I was hooked.”
The reason, Freya explains, is it gave her a break from her “grief brain”.
“The shock of cold water provided a moment of rest and clarity. It was also a place to feel more in my body than in my head,” says Freya.
And she instantly felt like she belonged.
“The atmosphere was great because you’ve got women of all ages, shapes and sizes, bustling around a trestle table with sausage rolls, cake and Tupperware,” says Freya. “It was an environment that felt like it would be good for me.”
With her desire for swimming awakened, Freya went on a wild swimming holiday in Cornwall where she met a new friend, Miri.
“Our friendship was love at first sight,” says Freya. The two women went on a swimming trip to Kent and here they encountered their first tidal pool – a shallow pool of seawater that forms on the rocky shore. The pair set themselves a challenge to swim in every tidal pool in the UK.
“Tidal pools are a way to be immersed in the sea, but in a safe way,” says Freya. “It feels like a safe way to experience something that’s terrifying, like the sea. I think I became a bit obsessed with that as a metaphor for my grief.”
Freya hadn’t been outdoor swimming since childhood, when she recalls swimming in icy mountain pools with her older brothers Howard and Lawrence, Tom and her little sister Emma, who is Tom’s twin.
“We were very lucky to grow up outside,” says Freya.
Despite her love for swimming, it was something Freya had drifted from until after Tom died.
“There’s something about being in the water where I am removed from everything,” Freya explains.
“The cold water gives me clarity, but also I have to commit to being a few lengths away from all things I’ve always done to keep myself busy and distracted from feeling difficult feelings.”
Although Tom had been ill for some time when he died, Freya was wracked with guilt for all the things she felt she should have said to him.
“I was at Durham University studying ancient history at the time, miles from our family home in Surrey, and it felt like I was missing out on a lot,” says Freya. “But when I was at the hospital it never felt like enough. I felt guilty that I was visiting when it suited me and not there for all of what everyone was going through.”
Instead of dwelling on how long Tom had left, the family focused on getting him through the milestones of his young life: he took his A-levels, learned to drive and went to his school prom with his girlfriend.
But at 19, despite rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, Tom died.
“I wish I’d had the courage to ask him if he knew he was dying, but it was just too difficult,” says Freya.
“At the funeral I remember thinking how bizarre it was that we knew Tom was ill for three years, but we never spoke about it. I felt very guilty and very angry about that.”
Freya started to use her swimming journey to reconnect to the world around her.
“Everybody has their own story,” says Freya. “It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. When we were in Wick in Scotland, I met somebody who said the tidal pool saved the lives of many people in lockdown.
“People have stories that are not about swimming, but often about the hardest parts of their lives.”
As Freya visited the various tidal pools, as well as learning the stories of others, she came across a family connection of her own.
“We went to Tunnels Beaches in North Devon, and I found out that my grandmother had been evacuated there,” says Freya.
“We ended up having a few conversations about her time in Ilfracombe, and that was beautiful.” In another coincidence, while Freya was at Tunnels Beaches, she messaged her now boyfriend, Jem, on a dating app and it turned out he’d been there just a week before.
He sent her some ideas about the place and they’ve since returned there as a couple. “It’s one of the reasons I love tidal pools,” says Freya. “They’re special places that connect you to the past, present and future in a hopeful way. When I was swimming, I’d meet people who’d say things like, ‘Oh, my grandma taught me how to swim when I was younger. Now I’m here with my granddaughter’.”
While the book may be finished, Freya’s journey is far from over.
“I was hoping that by being in nature I could reconnect with myself and I would be fixed,” says Freya.
“Obviously that doesn’t happen. I’ll be grieving in different ways forever.
“Part of the end of the tidal year was realising that life doesn’t offer you these neat endings or resolutions, the journey just continues in different ways.”
■■The Tidal Year by Freya Bromley (Coronet, £16.99) is out now
‘‘ I wish I’d had the courage to ask if he knew he was dying – it was too difficult