Why do we swim? It's a big question – especially now, when restrictions mean that many of us don't have access to water. In our February cover feature we meet ‘The Swimmers’, beautifully captured by Justine Desmond for a photography project. Justine's courageous portraits and accompanying swimmer stories will bring some joy to us all. As our cover model Pippa says: “Swimming has made me stop bullying myself about my body. Life is too short, and I love swimming too much to care anymore.”

The melancholy power of abandoned places has a long history of holding us in thrall: John Ruskin celebrated ruins’ “mediating power, between the old and the new, and between nature and culture.” We speak to Cal Flyn, whose new book, Islands of Abandonment, explores what happens when nature is allowed to reclaim its place. 

“I knew there were these perceptions of Black people not swimming and not being involved in the water – these stereotypes and myths,” says professor and swimmer Richard Dawson, author of a book uncovering aquatic culture in the African diaspora. In ‘Power and Water’, Elaine K Howley explores the history of swimming in Africa and enslavement in the New World. 

Plus, how to choose a wetsuit, why you should own your pain, romantic swim spots, wild swimming on Dartmoor, why you shouldn't fear octopuses in lakes and how you can help our lidos in lockdown.