Jean Perraton obituary

My mother, Jean Perraton, who has died aged 88, was a town planner, environmental campaigner, author and promoter of outdoor swimming. As a member and later chair of the Cam Valley Forum, Jean was instrumental in the campaign to gain designated bathing water status on the river at Sheep’s Green in Cambridge, which succeeded in 2024. Projects also included the eradication of floating pennywort in the upper Cam. Jean served as president of the River and Lake Swimming Association (2008-13), and published two books, Swimming Against the Stream (2005) and One Musician’s War (2011), based on her father’s wartime letters. Born in Eastbourne, East Sussex, Jean was the elder daughter of Maud (nee Bartley), a teacher, and George Warner, a salesman and gifted violinist. Jean’s earliest memory was of crawling under barbed-wire sea defences to swim with her father. As the war progressed, Jean, along with her mother and her sister, Julie, were evacuated to her paternal grandparents’ home in Rushden, Northants, while George served as a motorcycle despatch rider in north Africa. On returning to Eastbourne the girls enjoyed a free-range childhood – swimming, sailing, walking and cycling. Money was