Hardy Boxing Day dippers in Sunderland and South Shields go it alone with plunge in the icy North Sea despite official events being cancelled

Sunderland’s Dip, at Seaburn, has been running for 45 years, while South Shields hosts a number of events for different charities, including the Cancer Connections dip, regularly attended by Little Mix star Jade Thirlwall.

This year, however, the difficulty of enforcing social distancing not only among the dippers themselves, but the huge crowds who turn out to support them, has meant the cancellation of official events up and down the coast.

But you can’t keep a good dipper down, and a dedicated handful still turned out to raise cash alongside the wild swimming clubs that regularly brave the waves.

And the wild weather ushered in by Storm Bella hasn’t stopped hundreds heading down for a bracing stroll along the beach.

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