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

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Freya Bromley is a writer living in London. Her work explores love, loss and healing through nature and she’s written for publications including Apple Music, Lonely Planet, Financial Times and National Geographic Traveller.

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.

Freya Bromley is currently touring her debut memoir, The Tidal Year, which was published this May. We spoke through a screen during our interview, but that feeling of knowing the people she meets through her book remained. Owusu-Sekyere said: “I am delighted to be publishing Freya’s stunning debut book next spring. Her story is both moving and inspiring, so it is a real pleasure working with Freya to bring this deeply tender book into the world." 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.

Multi-hyphenate Steve Jones, TV presenter, podcaster, novelist and librocubicularist, discusses his debut novel Call Time. 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.” Creative writing workshop at Leeds International Festival with Projecting Grief on 20th August - Sign up here > 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.

Her experience was not without frustrations, but Cambridge allowed Bromley to solidify her identity and confidence through learning and community. “We all had this shared intention of wanting to […] turn something that felt like a secret inside us into being a huge part of our identity. That was really powerful to be around. It was almost like we were co-signing each other’s dreams.”

The Tidal Year is captured by its subtitle, a memoir of ‘grief, swimming, and sisterhood’ which appeared following the loss of Bromley’s brother. Yet this is very much Bromley’s story – she firmly maintains: “it’s not my job to write a book about him. I don’t have that right, I’m not him, that’s his story. All I kind of was trying to write about was about what it was like to move forward with grief.”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 podcast about the joy of swimming. Writer and wild swimmer Freya Bromley discovers the human stories behind why we swim. Every week, she’s joined by a new guest who shares what water means to them. Freya Bromley, author and podcaster of The Tidal Year, expounds upon the virtues of swimming in every tidal pool in the UK and how it helped her grief. First published in 1947, Varsity is the independent student newspaper for the University of Cambridge. 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.