Hello, and welcome to Wild Wimmin the Wild Swimming Podcast,   I’m Laura Macdonald.

Owen Wells is a swimmer, Green town councillor and all round excellent fellow and we chatted back in April about his life as an outdoor swimmer and the achievements that he gained in later life. During Lockdown Owen has been swimming in the River Wharfe upstream of Ilkley and so we chatted about his relationship to the river and the really sh**ty problems that bathers, anglers and others who enjoy the river, are encountering with river pollution

I spoke to Owen Wells originally for the episode about the Ilkley Clean River Group and If you want to hear more about their work and the problems with river pollution in the UK then please go back and listen to that episode in full once you're done here. 
 
Just to make those of you with sensitive ears aware there are a couple of sweary moments.

Links:
Ilkley Clean River Group website, Facebook and Instagram.  There is a 'how to' section if you are interested in starting your own campaign.

SurfersAgainstSewage are doing a huge amount of work in this area and their website has a lot of excellent resources as well as links to campaigns with which you can get involved.

Guardian article about the 2020 Environment Agency data on CSO spillages.

The Rivers Trust - Rivers Fit to Swim In and  map of CSO locations

You can support the podcast via Patreon for as little as £3 a month. Patrons will get access to exclusive Wild Wimmin content and (eventually…) merch! You will be helping to shape the future of the podcast.

Please take a minute to like,  subscribe and review. It helps other swimmers to find the podcast. 

Massive thanks to The Housecoat Project for allowing me to use their song Wild Wimmin as the theme music. "Wild Wimmin" : words + music by Meri St. Mary (Instagram). Performed by Housecoat Project @1988 Wide Eye Doo Dat on Subterranean Records: https://youtu.be/k5D2h-B-qDU

You can follow Wild Wimmin on Instagram @WildWimminPod and Facebook

Follow Laura @The_YellowBrolly on Instagram 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.