Janet

Janet Wilkinson’s lido story is a slow, long and winding path. She still has her school ‘news book’ from 1975 where she writes about wanting to swim all the time whilst on holiday.  That holiday was in Stonehaven.  The pool was Stonehaven Open Air Pool and she swam there many times that week, and has done so a surprisingly large number of times since.  Fast forward to the mid 1990s; she became a regular swimmer at Parliament Hill Lido in London for several years and was then inspired, in 2002 by writer Ashley Norris, to start swimming in all the capital's lidos. Not content with that voyage of discovery, she ramped the interest up to swim in the entire UK and Channel Islands collection of lidos when she discovered (the late) Oliver Merrington's internet list of them.  She started plotting them on a large map using coloured stickers and has been doing this ever since.  She’s swum in over 150 UK & Channel Islands outdoor pools and is still most likely to be found looking for lidos they might have overlooked for the Guide! Janet can talk about the comparisons and contrasts between the UK’s collection of outdoor pools, volunteer and swimmer stories, lido maps, journeys, quests and pools that go together well for lido road trips and swims. Her most often used word in relation to lidos is discovery.