But First, Me: Jude's Body Story

Where you are now in your life?

I've been doing a full-time job for the last five and a half years. But before that, I've always freelanced and, if I'm honest, I think I'm a natural-born freelancer. So going back into the freelance world is exciting because while you lose stability you gain flexibility and to me, that's worth its weight in gold. I've already made myself a timetable of all the slots in between jobs where I can scoot down to the beach. That’s the joy. I don't mind working long hours if I can squeeze in something outdoorsy.

How does being outdoors enhance your life?

I think in the last few years, particularly with menopause kicking in, I’ve tried to step back from myself and notice when I start to feel riled up either physically or when I'm irrationally annoyed.

I believe that once you have your toolkit of how to make yourself happy, you are much more likely to be happy. I talk to my kids about what's in their toolkits. My younger daughter really likes baking so when she's feeling stressed out, hormonal or just low, she can open a recipe book and look for something to bake. For me, it’s to paint, do some gardening or get in the water. If I can access one of those things, I decompress and everything comes back into perspective.

Have you always had those things in your toolkit, even as a child?

I've always painted and I've always been outside. I grew up on the South Downs in Hampshire and knew even from quite a young age to take the dog out if I was feeling upset about something. I would climb up to this hill, which was one of the hills where they lit the beacons in the Spanish Armada. You can see for a long distance – you can actually see the sea in the distance. Because I was the highest thing around me it was that sense that everything else is controllable and manageable. I also had that sense that the hill had seen so much drama – wars, battles, births and celebrations, and so little problems seemed comparatively insignificant.

I get that sense with the sea, too. There have been shipwrecks, births, murders, pillaging, lovely days and boat trips – the sea and the seabed have seen everything. So, whatever's going on, it's a tiny grain of sand compared with what the sea has experienced.

Did you always love the sea, too?

I remember going to the beach at Lee-on-the-Solent in Hampshire with my grandparents, mum, younger brother and the dog. I clearly remember my granddad’s very early kind of dry robe – a towel column that my nan made him that once he was in he could barely get out. He would be shuffling around, standing on one leg and probably saying words he wasn't supposed to say in front of us.

My mum didn’t want to get cold and my brother was quite young, so me, my nan and the dog would always go in. I remember loving the fact that we were the brave gang who went in even when it was raining. It was also a way of saying that my brother couldn’t be included, I was in the club. I loved that.

Did you enjoy sports?

While I always swam, I wasn't brilliantly sporty. At school, I tended to slide off and go and do some art during sports. Like, when we had to play lacrosse, which was grim, I used to just shimmy off to the art room. The PE teachers wrote me a nice report and that's when I realised that they didn't know who I was! But, I always loved swimming and I was in the swimming team.

I loved the feeling of swimming, but I didn't like the chlorine and the smell of it all. I've always loved open water. I used to spend a lot of time looking for deeper pools in the river – even if they weren’t swimmable, it was just being able to dunk and hide in the reeds. I’d just go off with the dog on my own for quite a long time and that was lovely.

You talk about hiding – what was your relationship with your body like as you grew up?

As a child, I don't remember feeling anything about my body. Until I got to the age of 12 – then I became very aware, unconfident and wanting to hide. I didn't have the best relationship with my body or with eating as a teenager for various reasons that definitely coloured how I felt about sports.

I went to university in Manchester in 1991, so it was full-on rave culture. I worked in the Hacienda with a couple of my friends. They were into wearing tight-fitting catsuits at the time and there was no way on this earth I was going to be putting one on. So, I had to develop my own less exposing but flamboyant style. I used to wear a Wonder Bra and I'd stuff a bunch of Chupa Chups down the front like a bouquet. That was my thing – I’d give out parts of the bouquet to people and that was my way of not wearing a cat suit!

Manchester was so full on. I've always been drawn to other cultures having grown up in the countryside in the south of England, which wasn’t very diverse. So, when I went to look at Manchester, I just thought, wow, I've arrived on the planet. There were whole streets of Southeast Asian shops, a Chinatown, drum and bass – it was very exciting.

How did you balance city life with your love of being in nature?

I loved Manchester but, if I'm honest, I don't think it was the happiest time – I remember craving greenery, big horizons and water, and I found being in a landlocked town fun on the Saturday and really depressing on a Sunday. So, I would get the train out to the Peak District and tramp around in the hills. It was fun, but I always recognised that my happy place is in nature.

Then I worked in London and then I went to work in New York, which was also really fun. But my best times in New York were sitting on Brighton Beach in Brooklyn watching the horizon. I knew then that ultimately, I couldn't live in a big city anymore. So, when I got back to the UK, I moved to Brighton, which I loved and I lived there for about 20 years.

It was in Brighton that I fell back in love with the sea. I joined an organisation called Pool to Pier. The idea was to teach people to go from not swimming at all to swimming around the pier. I did that because slightly drunkenly at a kid’s party someone made me agree to sign up for a triathlon, which was the most ludicrous thing. I don't know why I signed up. I think I’d had a couple of gin and tonics at that point! I was fine with the swimming. the cycling was boring but manageable and the running was awful. My first triathlon, I got to Seaford and the sea was too rough so we had double running. For some reason, I did another couple, but I didn't get a thrill out of it. I just thought, this is just something to tolerate. So, since then, I've just done a few different swim challenges forgetting the cycling and running because it was not my bag.

Do you think that doing sport for enjoyment rather than sporting achievement was a factor?

I remember something that really struck me when I did Pool to Pier – there were a bunch of us and we did a session a week plus an evening practice session and a strength and conditioning swimming thing. There was one guy who used to swim in the sea with me, and he was quite a big, rotund guy. But he was like a seal – he was absolutely rapid in the water. I asked him if he was doing a triathlon and he said, does this look like a triathlete's body? And then I started to notice that what I love about swimming is you can't look at somebody and know what kind of swimmer they are in the same way that when you look at a sprinter or a weight lifter they look like they belong in that sport. Swimming is so much more agnostic, and I love that.

You alluded to your difficult relationship with your body – did this realisation help you come to terms with how you felt about yourself?

Yes, I used to feel bigger than my friends and therefore less attractive, acceptable, whatever you want to call it. Also, I think that was the era. I started working in London in the early- to mid-90s where having your looks commented on was commonplace. That made it very hard to separate what you look like from how you did your job – despite the fact I was working in banking and finance and it couldn't have been less relevant.

I've managed to pull those things apart and think, I'm not employed as a supermodel, my job is to do my job well and be nice and have good relationships. As long as I get up in the morning, put on my favourite clothes and feel like I can present myself to the world, whether I've got a bigger bum or a smaller bum than my colleague is not important. But it has taken me a really long time to get to that place.

I do think swimming has helped because I go swimming with a bunch of people in North Devon who range from really quite serious triathlete types to people who've had a stroke and swim – it’s when they feel most themselves because they're not holding on to a stick. Some are in full neoprene and potter at the edges and others swim a loop around the buoys a mile away. It's just a real cross-section. I love that variety because it takes away the focus of what you look like and puts the focus on what can you do and how can you help somebody else achieve their goals. Swimming is inclusive in that way.

How is it that in an activity where you're pretty much naked can feel so positive?

I love that we turn up the beach and there'll be squeals of excitement because somebody's got a new hat or cossie. After I did the Deakin & Blue photoshoot, I had embarrassing levels of lovely comments from people and I didn't need that. but it was so sweet that they were all so positive about it. When I first saw the pictures, I was a bit like, God, I’m so fat, but the camaraderie and supportiveness from others was just amazing. I've never experienced anything like it in other social circles.

I used to actively make a point of sneaking off to the beach without anybody. I didn't care about people I didn't know seeing me, I just didn't want people I knew seeing me. So, I'd go and find some tiny hole that I could sunbathe and swim in without being spotted by blokes that I knew in particular. So, when I was asked to do the Deakin & Blue photoshoot, it came at the time when things were quite tough work-wise for me and I just thought yeah, this is a gem of positivity. I had made a promise to myself to just grab every positive experience that I could and this felt like a positive one. I feel like if I can prance about in the sand dunes in frankly next to nothing, then hopefully it might make other people think, she's no supermodel and she's doing it so I can put a swimsuit on and go to the pool.

If you were to offer advice to somebody who was reluctant to be seen in a swimsuit or to your younger self, what would you say?

For a start, I’d say, look at the bodies represented at the top of their game in the Olympics. There isn't a standard. You look at someone like Simone Biles who’s an absolute pocket rocket. She's never going to be in the basketball team, but look at how she launches herself into the air. And then you compare her to say a shot putter who is an absolute powerhouse, but no way could they do a triple flick-flack, or whatever they're called, across the floor. We don't have to be all people.

I look back on my body, and I used to do a lot of waiting till things were perfect. A few years ago, my mum died and she did die earlier than she should have done. I thought to myself then, what is there in life that's for you? I had a good rake around and thought, do you know what, by the time I've taken care of family, work, friends and everything there isn't much time where I can just look after myself. And so, I signed up for some pottery classes and I just loved it because that was my time when I wasn't helping someone else. I was being helped or just being left alone. And that was really helpful.

Just after that, I discovered the sea swimming again. Although I'd never really left it, I hadn't quite found my groove here in North Devon with where to go, with who and when. Then I met Terri and Allie and a few others and we started going regularly. That was the catalyst for me belonging to this tribe, being allowed to be here where it's okay for me to put on my swimsuit and hang around on the beach and no one's going to die of shock or call the police with the horror of it all because actually, no one cares.

It circles back to what you said about nature making your problems small. Is that something you've rediscovered?

Completely. I know when I really need my brain to be nuked of all noise, I'll swim out and then flip on my back and just float for a bit. It's that sense of once your ears are underwater, that's when I find I can properly can switch off because you can hear is the rumblings of the sea. It's like a brain bleach.

I do suffer from migraines and I recognise that the cold helps to contract the blood vessels down the back of my neck and stop all that inflammation. It's just extremely positive. I mean, being outdoors is great, but the sea is the ultimate.

Did you enjoy ready this Body Story?

Read the Body Stories of Allie and Terri, the other two models from our But First, Me Collection photoshoot.