A ‘mermaid’ who swam down the Thames to raise awareness of plastic pollution has written a book about how she rescued a cow during her journey.

Lindsey Cole wore a mermaid’s tail for some of the 200-mile swim from Lechlade, Gloucestershire, to Teddington, South West London.

On the way she collected tonnes of plastic to highlight how we are choking marine life.

She was accompanied by a support boat manned by artist Barbara de Moubray carrying a giant mermaid sculpture made from plastic bottles.

Oxford Mail: Lindsey reads to childrenLindsey reads to children

On the stretch between Culham and Swinbrook she encountered a cow stuck in the water and called firefighters to rescue the stricken animal.

She recalled: “Along the way I rescued a cow just outside Oxford. She’d fallen in over the course of the night and was right up to her neck in water. It was November and the water was six degrees.

“Six firemen came to haul her out with their hose where she was met by a vet and reunited with her calf the next day.”

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Ms Cole has now written and illustrated a children’s book called The Mermaid and the Cow based on what happened. She has been reading the story, dressed in her tail, to schools and children online during lockdown.

She said: “It’s a fun adventure tale about a mermaid who goes on a quest to clean her river from plastic pollution and subsequently makes an unlikely friend along the way.

“It has an eco message, which is why children and their parents like it. And it has tips and activities in the back to help children be more environmentally conscious.”

Nude in Bude

Adventurer Ms Cole had cycled 6,500 miles from Cairo to Cape Town to catch the Fifa World Cup in 2010, run 250 miles to Manchester carrying a ukulele to busk to earn her train fare home and rollerskated to Paris while learning French before tackling the Thames swim two years ago.

She had also rollerskated to Bude in a nude suit “because it rhymed”.

But she said: “I was sick from nerves and couldn’t eat for two days. The first two days were long and I had to walk bits.”

Now she has plans to combine her aquatic adventures with writing.

“I’ve learned how engaging mermaids are. I now have plans to do a series of mermaid adventure swims linked with environmental themes, accompanied with children’s books.

"The next book is called The Mermaid and the Polar Bear. I’m swimming one kilometre in Svalbard in Arctic Norway, which used to be predominantly ice, to see how climate change has affected polar bears’ habitat.”

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