Jerome was on a mission to see a new friend - Freddie the dolphin,
who lived in the North Sea. It had been his lifelong ambition to swim with a dolphin,
an ambition he never expected to realise and he certainly had no idea that one
was living off the English coast. Jerome said "Steve Waddington, who was appearing
with me in As you Like it, told me about Freddie so we drove to Amble,
stayed the night in the village and turned up at the quay the next morning, only
to find the sea was too rough. So we went to the nearby pub and chatted to the
locals until the weather improved. After about two hours Gordon the boat man appeared
and said: "Come on, let's go."
"We put on our wet suits, got into the boat and sailed to
the end of the harbour. Suddenly this huge animal appeared and leapt 10 feet out
of the water in an arc. Steve and I screamed with delight and I can honestly say
that moment changed my view of life. As I swam with Freddie I realised he was
urging me to let go of what ever I was holding onto in my mind. There he was,
a highly intelligent, hugely powerful wild animal, weighing a quarter of a ton,
swimming alongside and skimming me as he jumped out and then splashed back into
the sea. He could have killed me but I felt completely safe. I think he was sharing
with me the joy of simply being a live. He was directly challenging me to express
the life within me, rather than stay trapped in my own personal life."
Jerome
bought a wet suit, returned every weekend to meet Freddie, usually with friends
from the company and was rather disappointed when the time came to leave.
During another
break from acting he renewed his affinity with dolphins, this time with a famous
fellow called Fungi from Dingle bay, County Kerry on the West Coast of Ireland.
The trip was made particularly special for Jerome when he persuaded his greatest
friend, brother Daniel, to join him on his adventure. It was not only an opportunity
to swim with a wild dolphin but to visit their Celtic roots together for the first
time - their paternal grandfather George had been one of 13 Flynns born into the
family from the West Coast.
