Meet the LIDO LADIES

For Jessica Walker and Nicola Foster, their daily swim in the great outdoors offers far more benefits than just getting fit

- KARA O'NEILL

Sashaying up to the side of the pool in their fluffy robes, Jessica Walker, 57, and Nicola Foster, 56, beam from ear to ear. Every morning, at 6am, they head to Charlton Lido in London for a swim.

You’d be hard-pushed to miss them. Usually, Jessica is sporting a flamboyant swimming hat, adorned with coloured flower petals; and while Nicola might look more serious, with her goggles at the ready, they’re both full of smiles and cheery greetings for fellow swimmers who recognise them from the news, or their Instagram page.

‘We’ve been swimming together in lidos since May 2019,’ Jessica says. The ladies had first met a few years earlier while walking their dogs in a park.

At first, they’d exchanged polite hellos, but it soon blossomed into a friendship, and when Jessica was waxing lyrical one night about her passion for lido swimming, Nicola said she’d quite like to try it too.

‘I told her I’d pick her up the next morning at 6 am,’ Jessica laughs. ‘I don’t think she quite realised how serious I was.’

But Jessica wasn’t joking, and the next day Nicola had her first taste of swimming outdoors.

‘Cold!’ Nicola says, when remembering her first dip. ‘But once I’d got used to it, I felt so exhilarated.’

Lidos first became popular, especially in seaside towns, during the 1930s. Councils rushed to build them at resorts across the UK, as swimming and fitness began to increase in popularity.