The Sunrise Swim Club by Simon John Parkin (non-fiction)

In the summer of 2020, after months of lockdown because of Covid-19, as soon as we were allowed, my family and I drove to Beer in Devon to swim in the sea at sunrise.

On that warm July morning we decided to do it again, to meet at dawn once a month for a year: our own Sunrise Swim Club, something out of the ordinary to regain a bit of adventure after being couped up for so long. As the year progressed and new waves of the virus emerged, things didn’t go quite to plan.

This little book is about those 12 swims, charting the ebb and flow of the seasons and the rising sun, the waves and lockdowns of the pandemic and the bright mornings that (usually) greeted us. It’s about what the sunrise means and why we chased it, about why we chose to immerse ourselves in bitterly cold water once a month and the shining moments the sunrise gave us. And it’s a snapshot of the strangest months that we have all had to endure.

Includes 12 illustrations by the author.

84 pages. 110x180mm.
Non-fiction