So what happened? She counted her strokes, centred herself, and cleared the current. “The moment I step out of my head, I tell myself I’ll do something risky, make a new friend, cut my hair off,” she says. It’s a consequence of frequently travelling for work, setting up in a new city, becoming someone new. She tells me this with a bemused smile – no big deal. In the shocking cold she couldn’t catch her breath, and, while suffering a panic attack, she was pulled away. “You’re not allowed, and my friend told me not to, but I said: ‘I’m going to do it.’” The water was calm at the surface but concealed strong currents. T wo years ago, in the grip of a wild swimming obsession, Lydia West impulsively decided to dive into Lake Como, one of the deepest lakes in Europe.
