Swimming the Avon

Poet and wild swimmer Elizabeth-Jane Burnett joins Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for an inspirational dip in the chilly River Avon.

Elizabeth-Jane's latest book, The Grassling, is a nature memoir about her father, his illness and her attempts to reconnect with the fields and rivers that sustained and moulded his family for generations. Her poetry collection Swims describes a series of wild swims around Britain, connecting them to the environmental and political issues of the day.

In Worcestershire she enjoys her first taste of the River Avon, braving the cold but enjoying the sand martins, the skylarks and a low flying heron which might just find itself immortalised in Elizabeth-Jane's next poetry collection.

Producer: Alasdair Cross