But First, Me: Terri's Body Story

One half of the fabulous, fun North Devon-based Coastal Swim Coaching, meet Terri. Here for the sheer joy of being in the sea, Terri's as comfortable in the ocean as she is on land - perhaps even more so.

But, she wasn't always this way. Only a few years ago, she was so body conscious that she wouldn't allow herself to be seen in swimwear. It's hard to equate this fact with this brilliant video she and her swimming partner, Allie, posted... The one that got them the job of modelling for our new But First, Me collection in April.

So, how did Terri go from beach babe refusenik to modelling a swimwear collection?

Where you are right now in your life?

I’m an open water swim coach with my lovely pal Allie, which is going so well. We’re now in double digits with our number of members, which is really exciting, and we have real regulars that continue to come back to us. We're always trying to evolve and to think of new things to do to keep it fresh and exciting - and that's easy to do when your playground is the sea and you work with your best friend.

I’m a hairdresser in my day job, but I've cut that right back now to four times a month in the salon and specialising in wedding hair. I used to teach hairdressing and be in the salon almost full time, and I’d fit Coastal Swim Coaching in around all of that. But I've really stripped everything back and for the first time in my life, I feel like I've got a really good work life balance. That's where I want to be in my life.

Women notoriously burn out trying to juggle too much – was that the case with you?

This time of year, I'm usually blitzed. I'm done, weddings and swimming outdoors are both busiest in the summer. I was being pulled in every direction, and I just couldn't manage it, cutting back actually, financially it's not been as devastating as I thought it was going to be, it's funny what you actually can live on.

I moved here seven and a half years ago, and I'm 100 percent a completely different person. My priorities in life have very much changed. I'm used to presenting myself – I don't want to say head-to-toe glamour, but head-to-toe done. My hair and make-up were always done and I've always spent money on clothes. Now I just throw something on and go to the beach and it's wonderful to be free of that at the ripe old age of fifty.

So, have you always loved the beach and sea?

I grew up on the south coast in Gosport, near Portsmouth. I remember going to the beach as a kid with my family. We couldn't afford a lot, and the beach was right on our doorstep so we used to spend a lot of time there. My mum's one of eight children so I had loads of aunties, uncles and cousins and we all used to meet at the beach. I was such a water baby and I remember my dad and uncles using me like a beach ball and just throwing me because I'd be like, again, again!

And then, when I was a teenager, I just stopped getting in the sea at all. It wasn't about body image – I just don't think it was part of my life. I was out with friends, going to nightclubs, drinking in parks and doing what teenagers do. The only time we went to the beach as teenagers was in summer with our bottles of Martini or whatever we could get our hands on.

How did you feel about your appearance at that age?

It was when I was 18 and living with my best friend that I started to really think about losing weight. I think she was a little bit obsessed so living with her put that in my mind, because I didn't think like that until then. I used to be so skinny that I’d cry because nothing fashionable fitted me, but when I lived with her, we both became obsessed with our bodies and going to the gym purely to lose weight. I think I've spent my whole life trying to lose weight since.

I had my son when I was 22, and when I was pregnant, I felt sick from the moment I woke up to the moment I went back went to bed. So, I used to eat because it was the only thing that would help. I used to drink pints and pints of full fat milk and eat crisps. I ended up putting on four-and-a-half stone. I was huge. At five months, people were saying, oh, your baby must be due any day now.

After my son was born, I spent the whole time trying to tone up and drop weight. It also put stretch marks on my body, which I have always hated – I think I probably hated the stretch marks more than the weight because I thought they were disgusting. I think society tells you that you've got to do everything you can to avoid stretch mark. I felt ashamed of them and thought there was no way I could ever show my body to anyone. I even remember being shamed by a midwife because I had so many stretchmarks.

It's amazing how we feel we’ve failed as women if we don’t look a certain way. Did working in a career that's about appearances affect you?

Absolutely. I think I've always used my hair and clothes as my security blanket, because I've always invested money in how I look. I looked after my hair and spent a lot of money on clothes – the things I can cover my body with. At one point during my teaching career I was running two salons, looking after 35 staff and 500 students, so I've always had to present myself to people and I think my way of dealing with how I felt about my body was to dress as well as I could.

I've pretty much exercised my whole life, too. I was probably trying to exercise away a very poor diet and the stretch marks, which I knew was never going to happen.

So, how did that start to change?

We moved from Gosport to North Devon seven-and-a-half years ago. It was really important for me to be by the beach because whenever I felt sad, when anything went wrong in my life, I would go to the beach. I always have done. And this house came up that’s one minute from the beach, and we were just like, yes, let's do it.

Me and my husband would go down to the beach, and I'd sit there in my clothes not getting in. I just thought, there's no way, not a chance I’m going to get into a swimming costume on a beach where people know me. So, for about two-and-a-half years, I used to sit there covered up on the beach. Then, one day, it was boiling hot and I was down the beach with my cousin and a few friends. A couple of the girls had got in the sea, and they were going, come on, Terri, just get in. I thought, I can't do it. But in the end, I gave in and literally just ran into the water as quickly as I could so nobody could see me.

That day changed my life, something just clicked in my brain, and I just went, oh, this is nice, I really love this. And I remember coming out, and I definitely covered myself up as quickly as I could, but I also realised in that moment that nobody cared. I felt really happy. And I just remembered that feeling.

The next day, I told my friend that I was going to go to the beach again and she came with me, and she loved it as well. After that, we just kept going. I ordered some boy-leg swimming costumes because it was the tops of my legs that I hated the most because my stretch marks are really prominent there.

Is that when you set up your swimming group?

People kept asking me to let them know when I was going to go for a swim, I thought, I can't keep messaging all these people, so I just decided to set up a Facebook group. I called it the Hele Bay Merbabes. I added about ten people to the group and posted when I was going to swim so they could join me if they were free. The group grew and grew, now there are over 1600 people in it, which is mad!

We continued throughout winter, every time we went, we thought it would be the last time, but we absolutely loved it. By then, I'd gone into a shorty wetsuit, so I felt covered up, however the more I was going in the sea, the more comfortable I was getting with people seeing me.

How did you get from sitting on the beach too body-conscious to get into the sea to where you are now?

I think that because I had this group, I was getting people messaging me to say, I love what you do, I really want to come down but I feel conscious about my body, or I'm not confident to get in a cossie. I think the more I spoke to people online or in person, the more I found myself saying, don't let it stop you, it's such a wonderful feeling and it will really help you. And I think in the end, it changed my narrative because I just thought to myself, people are looking at me and admiring what I'm doing and want to do the same thing. If I'm beating myself up, telling myself that I'm disgusting and nobody needs to see my body, how can I then encourage others and mean it?

It took a while, but I found myself ordering non-boy leg swimsuits. The first time I ever wore a non-boy leg costume was such a big deal. I don't think those close to me realise how big a deal it was for me to do that. I remember that first time I wore it thinking, it's ok, nobody's looking at my stretch marks, just as I'm not looking at anybody else. All I'm doing is admiring people and thinking how brilliant are we? It's January and we're all getting in the sea, why would I think that anybody's looking at me going, she's gross, she's disgusting? But that's what you tell yourself, you feed that to your brain for so long. The more I swam in the sea, the more I got out of my head about how I felt about my body and reached acceptance.

When did you decide to go a step further and become a coach?

When we went into lockdown I was a hairdresser, and the government said that I couldn't work for four months, so I had a lot of time to swim.

While I couldn’t swim very well, I’m super confident in the sea from being used as a human beach ball as a kid by my dad and uncles.  Lots of people were messaging me who were nervous of the sea or scared to put their faces in and by then, I'd started volunteering with Mental Health Swims. I think as a hairdresser, people have always opened up to me, and I was getting that through Mental Health Swims as well.

As it got closer to the government saying I could go back to work, I got panicky. I'd had a bit of time to think about what I wanted to do, and I couldn’t bear the thought of going back in the salon full time and just doing hair when I loved the sea so much and I loved helping people.

One day, I was out with Allie and our friends, Nick and Rach, and expecting them to laugh at me, I told them I was thinking of becoming an open water swim coach. I wasn't a particularly good swimmer, so I didn't necessarily want to train people to swim. But I did want to teach them how to do handstands, how to dive in the water, how to play in the waves, how to feel confident and enjoy the benefits of cold water.

My friends all backed me. I was so surprised because I was really nervous about telling them – I thought they might say, you can't bloody swim! However, they were all super supportive and then later that night, Allie messaged to say that she would love to do it with me. So, we went and trained to become open water swim coaches, and it's grown from there.

I already knew that she was my person. It’s so weird. I'm 20 years older than Allie, but we're super close, so it was a natural progression.

Do you think that coaching people to be more confident is as, if not more, important than coaching swimming technique?

Oh, it really is because I know what it does for your mental health. Putting a cossie on, going in the sea and then realising that people don’t give a crap about what you look like, they’re just admiring you – that helps your mental health and well-being as well.

Even before I started Coastal Swim Coaching, I was already working with the Merbabes trying to find acceptance doing group swims to encourage positivity by doing bikini swims. I’d ask everyone to come in bikinis and people would come who would never usually wear one. We were doing lots of stuff around body image because I'd realised there were so many women who have this problem and it stops them doing the thing that they love, whether it be sea swimming or some other sport.

Talking of photos – what made you say yes to being a part of a Deakin & Blue photoshoot?

We were already starting to do some fun things with our social media for our business, and I'd seen this Texas Hold ‘Em dance all over Tiktok. We had a little drunken night and we learned the dance, and then, the next day we went and filmed it. We wanted to do it in a swimming costume and Allie and I both wore our Deakin & Blues. Now, I've got to be honest here and say that we wore those cossies because they’re the ones we had that were the same. So, when I posted it, I tagged Deakin & Blue and then it went from there.

I think out of every swimming costume that I've got, I feel the best in my Deakin & Blues because they’re so supportive. So, it was a no brainer to put that swimsuit on. And when you reached out after you'd seen the video, we were just like, yes! The thing that I love is that you're all about body empowerment, you're all about women’s empowerment – you're all about everybody empowerment.

Did you enjoy ready this Body Story?

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