A self-styled ‘urban mermaid’ from Chalfont St Giles recently performed at Glastonbury Festival.
Lindsey Cole has taken on a number of weird and wonderful challenges to raise awareness of environmental issues.
In 2021, she swam the River Avon while wearing a mermaid’s tail and towing an inflatable poo, in order to bring attention to how sewage pollution affects the UK’s local wildlife.
Lindsey has since published two children’s books, The Mermaid and the Cow and The Mermaid, the Otter and the Big Poo, based on her epic swim.
She has now transformed the latter into a show, replete with a sequin one-piece, a ukulele, an inflatable poo and a human-sized otter. She has been touring around the country performing the show for children, including at the Kidzfield Big Top at Glastonbury Festival on Sunday, June 30.
Following her performance, Lindsey posted on social media: “It was such a great honour. I was unbelievably chuffed and proud. It’s so magic to see the mermaid swim I did down the Avon in 2021 evolve into a book and now to a show.”
The determined eco campaigner has taken on a variety of challenges over the years. In 2012, she completed a ‘runkulele’, running 250 miles to Manchester while playing the ukulele. In 2013, she rollerskated to Paris while learning French, and in 2014, she rollerskated to Bude in a nude suit. She has also cycled the length of Africa and completed several Ironmen.
In 2018, Lindsey swam 120 miles down the River Thames in a mermaid tail, with her friend Barbara accompanying her in a canoe carrying a six-foot mermaid sculpture called Samantha. Lindsey and Barbara filled Samantha with plastic to illustrate the problem of plastic pollution in rivers. During the challenge, Lindsey managed to rescue a cow after finding it stuck in a stretch of the river.
Next up for Lindsey, she is taking her show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
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