My friend Lynne Roper, who has died of a brain tumour aged 55, developed a love of water during her Devon childhood, and it never left her. Her early career was in the RAF and academia; when she moved on to become a paramedic, she fitted wild swimming – outdoors in natural surroundings – around her shift patterns, saying that water washed away the stresses of the job.

Lynne had turned to wild swimming to regain her physical and emotional health after a double mastectomy. She immersed herself in rivers, the sea, and the friendships formed through water. For her, wild swimming was never about how far or fast you swam, or how cold the water. It was always about the experience itself, and the connection with the environment.

Born in Tiverton, north Devon, Lynne was one of three children of Michael, a police officer, and Jenny, who left the police force to bring up Lynne and her two brothers. Lynne went to the Marist convent school in Barnstaple, sixth-form college in Devonport, and Plymouth College of Art before joining the RAF. She served for 12 years, during which time she saw duty in the first Gulf war, and completed tours in Germany, the Falklands, Canada, the US and Cyprus.

In 1998 she completed a degree in film and media studies at Stirling University, undertook at PGCE at Wolverhampton University the following year, and taught in Stirling for a few years before returning to Devon and settling on Dartmoor.

She gave many people the confidence to start wild swimming; her infectious smile, her ability to listen and her calm patience never faltered. She readily shared her ability to read water, her knowledge and her judgment. As a press officer for the Outdoor Swimming Society, Lynne developed safety advice and liaised with the media to ensure the joy of wild swimming was not lost to stories of danger. Kate Rew, the society’s founder, described her as “a free-spirited, no-nonsense thinker who fought for what she thought was right”.

This was never more in evidence than when Lynne began writing a blog about the brain tumour she was diagnosed with in February this year. When she learned she was terminally ill, she stepped up her efforts to highlight the impact of funding restraint on acute frontline health services and social care, and she was fearless in relating that directly to her own situation. Her writing was sensitive, frank, funny and clever. So was she.

Lynne’s dog, Honey, was also a very keen wild swimmer, her enthusiasm for joining Lynne in the water matched only by her appetite for the lunches of other swimmers. Many lost a sandwich or a pasty to the cause.

Lynne is survived by her parents, her brothers, Ian and David, and extended family, all of whom she loved very much.

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