The Tidal Year: a memoir on grief, swimming and sisterhood AS HEARD ON RADIO 4

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The Tidal Year is a story about the healing power of wild swimming and the space it creates for reflection, rewilding, and hope. An exploration of grief in the modern age, it’s also a tale of female rage, sisterhood loss and love in the modern age.”

This podcast resonated with me on such a deeper level than just swimming. Freya and guests talk about over coming fears, grief, moving on from different chapters in your life and family. Writing a memoir implied a large degree of vulnerability for Bromley, who “worried a lot when I was writing it that I came across like a really moany bitch. [...] But now, I wish I’d had the confidence to go further with some of the ugly thoughts and feelings I had. Why do we [women] have to be likeable?” For Bromley then, being a writer and being successful are tied to externalising feelings that she describes are “tangled.” Though she still struggles with validation, confessing it to be “addictive”, her understanding of what it means to “do well” and more importantly, what doing well means to her, is shifting.By the time we finally knew what was happening, Tom’s Ewing's Sarcoma was everywhere. My family had both a long time to say goodbye and never enough time to face the reality of someone we loved – and someone so young – being ill. Even now, it doesn’t feel real. I remember people saying, 'I just can’t believe it'. Yet really it is the most believable thing of all. We know death happens every day, we just try to avoid paying attention. Dying is the most predictable thing anyone can do. Just not when they leave behind me or leave behind you. Tom died in November 2016. Swimming also gave me community and connected me with one very special friend, Miri. We began taking weekend swimming trips out of London and I became obsessed with tidal pools. I decided that, with her by my side, I would swim all of Britain’s tidal pools in one year. My book The Tidal Year is about our adventure.

Bromley, who is currently studying on the Creative Writing Master of Studies course at Cambridge University, commented: “I’m thrilled that The Tidal Year has found a home with the talented team at Coronet. I didn’t expect my first book to be a memoir and I certainly didn’t think I’d be writing about something as personal as my brother’s death. For Bromley, the goalposts for success are constantly moving. “There was a time where the thought of having an agent was the best thing in the world. And as soon as I got an agent, I was like, I’ll be so happy when I get a book deal. Now I’ve had a book deal, I move on to the next thing.” Identity has been something that Bromley has realised is internal, and not earned. “I didn’t feel like I would have a right to call myself a writer if I didn’t have the book, whereas now I know that I’m a writer, inside me.” Grief in the Wild: Finding Refuge in Nature for Good Grief Festival on 28th October - Register here > Online Recordings Creative writing workshop at Leeds International Festival with Projecting Grief on 20th August - Sign up here >People meet me and there’s a sense that we know each other already because they have often spent quite a lot of time with me. There’s a natural intimacy there, and it has been beautiful.” Bromley first made waves with her swimming themed podcast of the same name, which caught the attention of a literary agent. “I feel like a lot of us expect that it’s over before it’s even started”, she expresses, in relation to her early success. Though Bromley managed to publish The Tidal Year through traditional means, she also urges for “a revolution in sharing people’s stories, regardless of who’s publishing them. I think that’s what’s happening with Unbound, which is like crowdfunding for books.” The Tidal Year is a true story about the healing power of wild swimming and the space it creates for reflection, rewilding, and hope. An exploration of grief in the modern age, it’s also a tale of loss, love, female rage and sisterhood. Perhaps this is the lesson that many women of my generation need to learn. We’re sold the idea that we can Marie Kondo our lives into happiness. We’re told Good Vibes Only, Think Yourself Healthy, Manifest Money and Set Boundaries, Find Peace. I thought I could do the same with grief.

We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding and we expect to have a tough few months and years ahead.It's hard to capture the joy of swimming in words, let alone art, but Lizzy Stewart somehow manages it. This week's guest is the wonderful illustrator and author of the graphic novel Alison. We spoke about painting pools, Devon's beaches and the connection between creativity and water. As Freya travels further from London, she finds herself closer to memories of her brother. With every swim, and every stranger they meet in the water, the challenge becomes more than just a way to explore the coast, but a journey of self-discovery. Every other breath we take comes from the ocean, so it's important that we look after it! Susanne Masters has great tips for how. This week's guest is plant scientist, ethnobotanist and the author of Wild Waters. We spoke about sustainable harvesting, swimming with seals and the Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swim. When was the last time you stopped to notice the plants around you while you swam? This week's guest is Leif Bersweden, botanist and author of Where the Wildflowers Grow. We spoke about aquatic plants, where to find them and how to care for them. In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content and of course in print too!

Multi-hyphenate Steve Jones, TV presenter, podcaster, novelist and librocubicularist, discusses his debut novel Call Time.

Are you searching for a podcast that brings together nature and storytelling? The Tidal Year is a series about the joy of swimming! Meet Freya Bromley, a writer and wild swimmer who’s interested in the human stories behind why we swim. Each week, she’ll be joined by a guest who shares what water means to them. All have communities that meet regularly for swims and fundraise to keep them swimmable. I spoke to a woman at Clevedon Marine Lake in Bristol who said that swimming there saved her life. You might think that sounds hyperbolic, but after travelling around mainland Britain to swim in these places, I learned that it was a common theme. People are swimming to answer a question inside them. 'Why do I feel like this? When will I feel better? Can I keep going?'