To Hellespont and back

Leander did it for love; Byron for glory. Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, London mental health and human rights specialist, and Law Society Council member, did it for the Howard League for Penal Reform. Swam the Hellespont, of course: 4.5 kilometres from shore to shore.

At a steady breast-stroke, she managed it in 74mins 9secs, comfortably inside the 90mins for which shipping is stopped for an annual race. For readers with rusty geography, the Hellespont (Dardanelles) is the Turkish strait dividing the Balkans from Asia Minor.

Self-styled degenerate wretch Lord Byron reckoned he caught the ague from its waters. Scott-Moncrieff’s clients and colleagues on the legal aid scene will be relieved to learn that the 54-year-old, who says she’s hardly swum since leaving school, came through unscathed. ‘The weather was perfect, the jellyfish benign and the water was surprisingly clean considering how busy a shipping lane it is,’ she reports.