IT seemed a good idea at the time.
When I met Jamie Roberts, chairman of the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust, at the West Park Hotel in Harrogate in the summer, he enthusiastically told me about his daily ‘wild swim’ in the waters on his family’s estate.
As I sipped my coffee and looked out at the sun-dappled Stray on a stunning July morning, I thought: I fancy a dip in the Dales and it will make a nice piece for the blog too.
With holidays and other commitments, the first opportunity we had to arrange my trip to Kilnsey Park near Grassington. which has been owned by Jamie’s family since 1911, was this week.
As I drove up through the Yorkshire Dales with grey clouds threatening rain and autumn leaves scattering across the road like auburn and yellow confetti, I realised my summer enthusiasm for a wild swimming experience was quickly ebbing away.
As chair of the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust (YDRT), Jamie practices what he preaches at Kilnsey Park which has springwater-fed trout fishing lakes, a fish farm producing tens of thousands of brown and rainbow trout a year as well as a variety of conservation projects among its 1,000 acres.
My enthusiasm began to grow again as Jamie explained his passion for wild swimming.
“It is about health and well being and having more energy, I do four to five minutes every day,” he said.
“I only started wild swimming every day 10 months ago, but as a kid I swam in the river.”
As he led me up to the ancient spring pool where he immerses himself every morning he explained how the water runs down from the hills through limestone and is constantly at a temperature of 6 degrees celsius every day of the year, whatever the weather.
The water is so pure it was used by the monks from Fountains Abbey whose estates stretched up into the Dales, to wash the newly-shorn fleeces of their sheep before they were sold to merchants who had travelled from Venice.
Jamie led the way into the crystal clear water and as it reached my ankles, I thought: “This is going to be a piece of cake.”
But as I waded deeper I could feel and see my skin reddening as the blood rushed to attempt to warm up my extremities.
I sank to a crouch to immerse my whole body into the water and felt slightly dizzy as I gasped for air while paddling my arms under the water in a vain attempt to warm up.
I probably lasted three minutes in the water and I did indeed find it an exhilarating experience.
The photograph below was taken as I emerged from the water and was one of several taken by Jamie, but is definitely the only one in which I have a vague smile.
In the rest I look more like Kenneth Williams as Dr Tinkle in Carry On Doctor, pursing his lips and saying: “Oh Matron!”
JAMIE Roberts’ family has a deep connection with two of the most iconic names in Yorkshire history: the Brontes and Saltaire.
His great great grandfather, James Roberts was born in Haworth in West Yorkshire and knew the Bronte sisters.
By the age of 14 he was working in a local mill where he worked his way up to mill manager and ended up working at Salt’s Mill, the vast woollen mill surrounded by the village of Saltaire created by Sir Titus Salt for the mill workers.
His son, Titus Junior, inherited the ownership of the mill but it went into liquidation in 1892 and James Roberts and two other local businessmen acquired what was then one of the largest factories in the world with a workforce of 4,000.
Roberts ran Salt’s Mill until the end of the First World War, but having tragically lost four of his five children he reluctantly had to sell it and that was when he bought the Kilnsey Park estate.
Jamie’s grandfather put a hydro power turbine on the estate in 1936 which still generates enough electricity for both the estate and local homes.
His father ran the estate until his own retirement and then Jamie, who had enjoyed a successful career in conservation overseas, made a decision to come and work on the estate – over which looms Kilnsey Crag, which inspired the painter Turner – rather than the family having to sell it.
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JAMIE Roberts joined the board of the YDRT eight years ago and became chair five years ago.
One of his fellow trustees is well known Yorkshire communications expert and wordsmith Douglas Adamson.
Jamie says that the organisation’s aim is simple: improving water quality throughout the Yorkshire Dales.
It works with Yorkshire Water as well as housing developers and farmers and others in agriculture in its pursuit of this.
With public awareness of water quality issues having never been higher, Jamie and his team are keen to capitalise on this rising profile.
He is working on a pioneering wetland project on his own farm in partnership with Yorkshire Water and the National Park which he says will strike a balance between farming and conservation.
“We’ll still be producing food on the farm but also improving the landscape and supporting wildlife.
“That is the role of the modern farmer and landowner in finding that balance.”
The YDRT is looking to bring ‘green finance’ into conservation in terms of both government and private corporate funding.
Examples that he quotes include Coca-Cola, which is involved in a flood prevention project in the North West as well as supermarket chain Sainsbury’s.
“It is environmental and local, you can see and measure the difference for investors – it helps them see what they are investing in,” explains Jamie.
When Jamie joined the trust it had three full-time employees and it now has 12.
“We are making a practical difference,” he says and highlights a citizen science project which mobilises dozens of volunteers to take water samples which are then analysed to work out the health of the water that we swim, fish and kayak in.
“It used to be done 30 years ago but funding cuts mean the Government doesn’t fund a project like that any more. People can get involved in so much that we do – we are always looking for volunteers for anything from litter picking to planting trees. We are all about making people understand that they can make a difference.”
The YDRT is currently developing a corporate engagement programme to encourage companies and their employees to get involved and Jamie is hopeful that all the recent negative publicity about the quality of waterways in Britain will help turn the tide towards better times.
“My son was swimming in Windermere a couple of weeks ago and got a gastric infection and was sick for 36 hours.
“Water is the lifeblood of everything. There is a long way to go but you have to be optimistic.
“There are some green shoots of recovery but there is a hell of a lot more to do.”
For more information on the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust visit the website:
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A DIVERSE career in conservation has seen Jamie Roberts work on a project in Nepal and the Himalayas and for the National Trust on the remote Atlantic island of St Helena.
He travelled with his wife and two sons aged four and two on a mail ship from Cape Town to the British Overseas Territory midway between Africa and South America.
“There was no airport then and you put your whole life in a shipping container on the mail ship and there was only one ship a month so you couldn’t be in a hurry to leave the island!” he recalls.
The 50-square-mile island, about the size of the Isle of Wight, is home to about 3,500 people and one of the world’s rarest trees, the bastard gumwood.
“When I went out there there was only one left on the whole planet and it was dying. Kew Gardens sent a specialist out and thanks to the project we worked on there are now 300 trees.
“The island is a real Noah’s Ark of wildlife and biodiversity, it was my dream job!
“The first time a human arrived on the island was 1502. The East India Company used it as a base – it is the second most fortified island in the world after Malta – and Napoleon was exiled there.”
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I’VE got to the end of this blog and realised I probably should have included a trigger warning at the beginning – like a lot of TV programmes now include.
If you haven’t come across the phrase ‘trigger warning’ before then it means a statement at the start of a piece of writing, video, etc. alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains potentially distressing material.
If, however you have been inspired by my photograph and colourful prose, then I’m happy to share more photos and stories with you.
Have a great, wild weekend.