In the Wake of Mercedes Gleitze E-Book

Doloranda Pember

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 471

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

In 1927, Mercedes Gleitze became the first British woman to swim the English Channel, transforming her from a humble working-class typist into one of the most iconic sportswomen of her age. Fiercely independent and with no financial backing, Mercedes was at the forefront in the struggle to break through the existing prejudices against women taking part in sport. Over a ten-year period and a large number of pioneering, record-setting swims around the world, she achieved celebrity status, helped make Rolex famous, and was regularly in the spotlight of the worldwide press. While pursuing her dream she led by example, showing that women deserved recognition for their sporting achievements – though she herself was very modest about her success, barely talking about it even to her own children. Here, Mercedes' daughter documents the remarkable story of her early life and subsequent swimming career, using Mercedes' personal records and pictures, recollections from acquaintances and newspaper articles of the time.

Leseprobe

Royalties from sales of this book will go into

Mercedes’ Trust Fund,

The Mercedes Gleitze Relief in Need Charity,

which is being administered by Family Action.

Charity number: 264713-44

Front cover: Profile of Mercedes Gleitze. (Gleitze archive)

Back cover: Mercedes’ second attempt at the North Channel. (Northern Whig & Belfast Post/British Library/Gleitze archives)

First published 2019

The History PressThe Mill, Brimscombe PortStroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QGwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Doloranda Pember, 2019

The right of Doloranda Pember to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9110 0

Typesetting and origination by The History PressPrinted in Turkey by Imak

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Mercedes Gleitze (1900–81)Pioneer swimmer: long-distance open water and endurance eventsPhilanthropist: a love of mankind, especially as shown in services to welfare

I passionately love the sea; nothing else moves me as it does.I love and understand its every mood; and I sometimes fancy thatthe sea knows and understands me, too.

‘Mercedes Gleitze: A Personal Interview’(article by H. O’B. of Dublin, 1929).

For my brother, Fergus,

with whom I share enduring memories

of our mother, Mercedes Gleitze.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Introduction: A Daughter’s Reminiscences

1 The Early Years and Family Ties

2 London 1921

3 The River Thames

4 The English Channel (1922–27)

5 A Sea Career and the Strait of Gibraltar

6 Blackpool Tower Circus Contract

7 The Next Endeavour: The North Channel

8 Fundraising and a Press Attack

9 Closed Season Activities

10 The 1929 Season

11 Endurance Swims

12 Around the Isle of Man

13 Affairs of the Heart

14 The Hellespont

15 Sea of Marmara

16 New Zealand and Australian Tours

17 Galway Bay

18 South African Tour

19 A Strong and Feminine Sportswoman

20 Institution of the Gleitze Charity

Epilogue

Appendix 1 Open-Water Swims

Appendix 2 Endurance Swims

Appendix 3 Diary of New Zealand Tour

Appendix 4 Swims Abandoned Due to Low Water Temperature or Contrary Tides

Appendix 5 Recipients of Gleitze Cups

Appendix 6 Open-Water Swimming Today

Appendix 7 Original Maps

Notes

Bibliography

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Mercedes left a comprehensive collection of memorabilia covering her swimming career, the contents of which made it possible for me to follow her footsteps throughout her swimming years. As a consequence, her sea career is recorded as fully and accurately as possible.

I am indebted to the news journalists of the day for their vivid descriptions of conditions during my mother’s open-water swims and their detailed accounts of the public’s interest in them. Many of these journalists accompanied Mercedes on her swims and subjected themselves to the rigours of cold and perilous seas in order to cover her trials. Their on-the-spot accounts, which include verbatim messages carried by pigeon post, provide colour and substance to her story.

One of the most difficult tasks I faced was matching up dates, venues and the names of members of her support groups on the swims, many of the hundreds of press cuttings in the archives having been cropped, but, with the help of local and national newspaper archives in the UK, Eire, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, I eventually managed to identify most of the cuttings and images, and was able to reference them correctly. I thank all those agencies for their help with this task.

I am also indebted to the local history societies I have been in contact with, for example, the Committee of the Glens of Antrim Historical Society who let me reproduce the ‘Barnacle Bill’ article; and in particular two local historians – Angus Martin, editor of The Kintyre Antiquarian & Natural History Society Magazine, and Alan J. Taylor, Chairman of the Folkestone & District Local History Society. Both of these historians proactively tracked down and provided photographs and/or memories from local families – descendants of people who knew and supported my mother, such as Alex Russell from Kintyre, whose family owned Sanda Island in the Mull of Kintyre and hosted her during the winter of 1929, and Stanley Sharp from Folkestone, two of whose predecessors piloted my mother in her English Channel attempts.

Other contributors I wish to thank for providing me with images from their personal collections are Jean McH. Roberts MBE, of Donaghadee, whose grandfather loaned his motor launch MV Kathleen to my mother and accompanied her on one of her North Channel attempts; Dr Ian Gordon (Chief Medical Officer to the GB Swimming Team at the 2012 Olympics), who responded immediately to my request for relevant photographs from his collection of swimming memorabilia; and two Portstewart residents – Dr Michael Thompson, whose mother, Maudie, as an 8-year-old, witnessed the Foyle swims in 1929, and Maurice McAleese (artist, author and former newspaper editor) for his charming sketch of the Berne, where Mercedes started and finished her double crossing. These images, so generously given, help to bring my mother’s story to life.

Heartfelt thanks to Clare Delargy, Director of Delargy Productions, Belfast, who, on her own initiative, researched, secured funding for and produced the documentary Mercedes: The Spirit of a New Age. Clare possesses a real understanding of how difficult it was in those early days of female emancipation for a woman to break away from her culturally imposed domestic situation and realise her personal dreams. During the making of the documentary Clare took me to some of my mother’s swim sites along the Antrim coast, and on the Isle of Inishmaan in Galway Bay, at a time when I was drafting the biography, and I was able to more clearly visualise my mother being in those beautiful places. My brother and I are truly grateful to all those who participated in the making of this documentary, and to have this visual record that contains interviews with a range of swimming and historical commentators, including Duncan Goodhew, Britain’s Olympic swimming gold medallist; Dr Helen Pankhurst, great-granddaughter of Emmeline Pankhurst; historians Lucy Moore and Dr Marilyn Morgan; Dr Ciara Chambers from the University of Ulster; Fiona Southwell, open-water swimmer/coach; and Brian Meharg MBE, an experienced escort pilot across the North Channel.

I would further like to record my grateful thanks to fourteen more women who contributed towards Mercedes’ story:

The late Montserrat Tresserras Dou, herself an Honour Marathon Swimmer and Channel Swimming Association board member, who recognised Mercedes’ pioneering swimming achievements and helped to secure her enshrinement as an Honour Pioneer Marathon Swimmer in both the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame and the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

Actor and playwrite Lynda Radley, who, in 2006, wrote the script for and performed in a one-woman show, entitled The Art of Swimming, about Mercedes’ life as a swimmer. Fifty performances in various fringe theatres were made during the years 2006–09. Watching one of these performances at the Dublin Fringe Festival in Temple Bar in 2007 made me realise that my mother’s story could not only embolden would-be open-water swimmers, but could inspire anyone to make their dream, whatever it may be, a reality.

Fiona Southwell, herself a prolific open-water swimmer, coach and Channel Swimming Association board member, whose recognition of Mercedes’ achievements motivated her to record the names of all Brighton-based swimmers who successfully complete a solo crossing of the English Channel. The names – at present totalling ten – are inscribed on a shield donated by Mercedes’ family, and arrangements are in hand to display the shield in Brighton’s museum. Mercedes spent happy years in Brighton, her birthplace. It is where she learnt to swim, and she would have felt very honoured to know that, thanks to Fiona’s efforts, her name is currently being used to encourage her fellow citizens to follow in her wake.

Glenda Exley, the granddaughter of George Allan (Mercedes’ trainer throughout the 1927 season). In June 2015 Glenda made a special journey from her home in Staffordshire to spend the day with me. She brought with her photographs and written memorabilia inherited from George’s time as my mother’s coach, which I have been able to include in this memoir. Glenda told me her Grandpop adored Mercedes.

Author Caitlin Davies, who researched and recorded the names of the all-but-forgotten women and girls who performed many swims of note in the Thames during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We were able to share information for our respective projects, and it was so gratifying to see my mother’s name included amongst the pioneering female swimmers in Caitlin’s book, Downstream: A History and Celebration of Swimming the River Thames.

Heather Clatworthy, who as a child growing up on the shores of Portstewart used to gaze out at the land in the distance, wanting to swim across, but not believing it was possible until she read about Mercedes’ 1929 feat in a book by Maurice McAleese; in July 2016 Heather became the second woman (and first Irish woman) to swim across Lough Foyle. She reinforced my belief that by publishing Mercedes’ story, it could inspire others to realise their own personal dreams. Heather’s success has given rise to a permanent plaque being erected by the Causeway Coast & Glens Borough Council on the coastal path in Portstewart on 25 July 2017, to commemorate the swims of both women.

And, as a first-time author anxious for feedback, I wish to extend grateful thanks to local authors, Lucienne Boyce and Debbie Young, and to Dr Jenny Yiallouros, for finding time in their busy lives to read and give welcome advice on my first offerings; to Dr Jean Williams (De Montfort University) and Professor June Hannam (University of the West of England) for their academic reviews; to Faye Cheeseman for advice on its structure, and last, but most definitely not least, to Kay Wright and Dianne Rees who shared the task of copy-editing a very lengthy early manuscript.

My immediate family has been especially supportive of this project, despite the stop-start nature of its compilation. My son and daughter-in-law, Andrew and Vicky Pember, have both been on hand throughout and have responded immediately to requests for advice or technical assistance, and my daughter Claire Langlois and family, and brother Fergus Carey (who gave me access to his share of the archives) and family, have quietly and patiently encouraged me from afar. I thank them all sincerely for this. Mercedes’ legacy was to help promote the art of swimming, and my contribution has been to ensure that her five grandchildren and their children can now read her story and appreciate the part she played in the gradual emancipation of women in the world of sport during the early part of the twentieth century.

It is also my desire that Mercedes’ story will resonate with the descendants of all the men and women who gathered around to help organise and bear witness to her swims. The names of each and every supporter identified in covering reports, as well as witness statements and additional complementary descriptions of swims, can be accessed on the following website created for this purpose: www.mercedesgleitze.uk

Finally, greetings and thanks to all the people I have had the pleasure of meeting at various swimming conferences and dinners – officials and open-water swimmers alike – who responded with encouragement when I told them I was documenting the story of my mother’s sea career. Mercedes was one of you, and she would have been delighted to know that she is held in such high regard by her peers.

PROLOGUE

Summer 1922

Mercedes Gleitze, a 21-year-old girl from Brighton, England, stands on the shingled beach at Dover preparing herself for an attempt on the English Channel. Her accompanying pilot boat waits just offshore for her to enter the water and start the swim. This lasts just 3 hours and 15 minutes before her shoulder muscles give out and she abandons the swim.

Mercedes makes her way back to London where she lives and works, disappointed, yes, but buoyed by the knowledge that she had actually dared, publicly, to carry out an attempt to become the first woman to swim the English Channel. It would not be her last attempt by far, because she was determined to conquer that iconic stretch of treacherous water.

INTRODUCTION

A DAUGHTER’S REMINISCENCES

Mercedes Gleitze had three children, and I am the second child. My brother, sister and I grew up aware that our mother had achieved fame through her swimming career during her early life primarily because of her status as the first British woman to swim across the English Channel. However, apart from a dozen or so trophies displayed in a cabinet in our front room, we were not given the opportunity to appreciate fully the extent of her achievements or her fame.

Our mother’s natural reserve and increasingly reclusive nature contributed to this. She seldom spoke in any detail about her life as a professional swimmer, although very occasionally, when we were older, she did mention to one or the other of us brief reminiscences about her past. What stood out for me was her memory of how kind and appreciative both the public and media had been to her. It was only after she died and we shared out the photographs, letters and newspaper cuttings – which, despite her peripatetic lifestyle, she had managed to safeguard and store in the attic – that we realised what a major sporting icon she had been in her youth.

After being for the most part uninformed about the details of Mercedes’ early life (there were no photographs of her as a child or teenager in the house), and only becoming fully aware later in my own life of the full extent of her self-imposed goals, I was finally able to visualise my mother as a healthy young woman, able to walk unaided, and possessing the freedom and independence to make her own decisions about how she conducted herself. It was such a comfort to know that her life hadn’t always been such a struggle.

During our years together it was clear that my mother’s overriding desire was to live her days only in the present, never in the past, so I have no childhood memories of her relating stories to me, at bedtime, about her own early life and her adventures in the world of swimming. I think it must have been an intuitive decision on all our parts to allow her that anonymity and not to intrude. I understand now that the memories she was able to evoke in quiet moments, when she was by herself, must have sustained her during her years of ill health. She would have been able to relive a time in her life when she was young, strong and healthy, and able to respond to what she refers to in her writings as those ‘calling’ waves.

My mother’s time as a sportswoman and celebrity in the 1920s and early 1930s was a far cry from the life I shared with her in a small, three-bedroomed terraced house in suburban north-west London; and so, before embarking upon the task of documenting her early life and charting her swims, I journeyed back in my own memory to try to link the woman I had known to the person I was reading about in the archives.

The earliest consciousness I have of her withdrawal from public life is a brief remark she made to me during the early years of the Second World War. I had been sent to buy some groceries from a licensed shop run by a neighbour in her front room, a few houses along from ours. When I returned with the shopping, my mother confided that when she first came to live in the street, the lady who ran the shop recognised her and asked if she was the famous Channel swimmer. My mother told me that she had replied, ‘No, that is not me.’ As a child, her statement confused me, but I have since listened to interviews with families of high achievers from other walks of life who had also been kept in the dark about a close relative’s past accomplishments until after their death, and now realise that this type of reaction is not so unusual after all.

A few years earlier my mother had, figuratively speaking, stepped out of one world and into another – leaving behind a prolific and fulfilling life as a female sports celebrity, and settling down into a then conventional existence as a mother and housewife. Many years later when, at the age of 77, she was asked by a German newspaper to write a summary of her life, she described her domestic years as ‘quiet and uneventful due to ill health’.

Mercedes was a very maternal, loving mother, and naturally proud of us, her children. Although confined to the house, she knew the names of all our friends, and I used to catch glimpses of her watching us play in the street from behind the curtain of an upstairs bedroom window. Happily, she lived long enough to get to know her five grandchildren. Sadly, ill health incapacitated her, the main cause being an inherited debilitating blood circulation disorder that manifested itself in her middle years, and chronic arthritis in her knees. The latter condition was exacerbated by swimming in cold seas and by the repetitive sideways thrust of the breaststroke leg action with which she propelled herself through the water. She became completely housebound in the latter part of the 1940s and, later in her life, developed type 2 diabetes with all its enervating side effects. Sadly, towards the end of her life she also presented with early symptoms of dementia and gynaecological cancer.

Although my mother took an interest in and shared all the minutiae of our daily lives, she became more and more inaccessible and only very rarely agreed to see anyone outside of the immediate family. However, she managed to fill her days. She was an avid reader – the walls of her bedroom were lined with books on life sciences. She was a devotee of Sir Patrick Moore, and although she had no formal scientific education, she spent her time reading about and writing theories on how life started on earth.

Mercedes was born into a candlelit, horse-drawn world, but her lifespan enabled her to witness a man walk on the moon. Her interest in the 1960s space programme was passionate. She was hungry for any information she could acquire in order to follow the progress of the astronauts of that era. Because of her own strong desire to conquer new horizons, she was in tune with them, and understood why they took the risks they did.

She was a lover of classical music, especially Beethoven, Mozart and Mendelssohn. She particularly loved Felix Mendelssohn’s overture The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave) – the music of which I now realise must have reawakened memories of her time spent in the caves on the Scottish island of Sanda where she took refuge during the winter of 1929. However, her appreciation of all genres of music meant that she also found pleasure in joining in with my generation and becoming a fan of the Beatles and other pop artists of the time.

She followed the progress of participants in all sporting disciplines. As a 14-year-old schoolgirl I listened with her to radio coverage of the 1948 Olympic Games, and in particular I remember her applauding the success of Francina (Fanny) Blankers-Koen, the Dutch multi-gold Olympic medallist, who helped to break through the prejudices against women taking part in sport (Fanny received ‘hate mail’ telling her she should be at home looking after her children instead of running on a track in a foreign country, and also that she was too old to take part in sport). My mother was a great admirer of Sir Roger Bannister, the first sub-4-minute miler, and also of the boxers Sir Henry Cooper and Muhammad Ali. She was an unwavering supporter of the Oxford University boat crew, through good times and bad. She especially loved Wimbledon fortnight. Although her mobility was very poor, one day I found her sitting in a chair on the landing, too nervous to stay in her room to watch Christine Truman nearly win a semi-final against Maria Bueno.

With the installation of a TV in her room she was able to view not only sporting, but political and other events. She called it her ‘window to the world’, through which she was able to see what was happening both nationally and globally.

She was, of course, naturally interested in welfare issues, and was thankful to have witnessed the institution of the National Health Service in Britain. She also closely followed women’s issues – for example, the advent of family allowance, which she explained to me gave working-class housewives with children access to a small amount of money for the first time in their own right.

My mother was essentially a shy and modest person. She once told me of her shock when she boarded a bus and sat opposite a poster of herself advertising a product. However, her aspirations for a swimming career, and the associated need to raise funds to help destitute people, forced her to overcome her natural reticence and appreciate the publicity her status as a sporting celebrity brought her – at least until her charity was up and running, at which point she suddenly and completely withdrew from public life and retreated from practically all human contact.

The fact that during the Second World War her own mother was killed in Frankfurt by British bombs and her charitable homes in Leicester destroyed by German bombs must have been a double body blow, but it was really a combination of issues that caused her withdrawal, and her own natural solitary disposition eased the transition from celebrity to recluse. The debilitating ill health that afflicted her from her middle years facilitated this desire to cut herself off from everyone except her own immediate family.

For someone who took such chances with her own life she was almost paranoid about the safety of her own children and was happy for us to lead conventional lives. However, the parts of her character that I can link to the person she was in her youth – such as her ability to bear disabling pain without complaint, and not to succumb to the blows that life sometimes delivers – shone through. She was in herself a very positive person, and if she ever felt depressed, she seldom showed it.

During my own childhood and adult years, I often had to suppress feelings of both sadness and anger that she was so debilitated and reclusive, and unable to benefit in her later life from her sporting achievements. However, writing this memoir of her career has revealed to me that although throughout her maternal years she had a constant struggle with her health, as a young woman in control of her own destiny she lived ten hugely fulfilling years, during which time she realised most of her youthful dreams and aspirations.

The Task in Hand

Moving forward in time, after my mother’s death in 1981 I transferred my share of the archives straight from her attic into a cupboard in my own home and a good many years passed before I felt able to read in depth about her youth and her achievements. When I did, I decided that her story should be accurately and fully recorded – not just for her descendants to read, but hopefully for the publication of what has been described recently as ‘hidden sporting history’.1

Much has already been written about the group of spirited young women – mainly from Britain, Europe and the United States – who, in the 1920s, all aspired to become the first woman to swim across the English Channel. This memoir, however, is focussed on the personal trials of just one of them. From her extensive archival material I have pieced together my mother’s early life and her ten years as a pioneering long-distance swimmer in the first part of the twentieth century. Her letters, and the edifying media coverage, throw light on the way she initiated and subsequently managed a unique career, and also on the way she responded to the occasional obstacles thrown in her path.

The project entailed making working copies of and reading and digesting over 2,000 faint and fragile documents, some four or five pages long, which Mercedes managed to safeguard, despite her peripatetic lifestyle. It is a sign of the times that when, during the Second World War, she organised the records of her career, she had to sew many of them into exercise books bought from Woolworths – glue being a scarce commodity because of shortages during the war.

The archives include photographs, press cuttings from national and local newspapers, notes of interviews, descriptions of swims, letters to and from family, friends, fans, sea pilots, coaches, voluntary helpers, corporation officials and witnesses, and correspondence with companies whose products she advertised. They also include legal documents covering the institution of her charity and the use it was put to in the city of Leicester.

It was an emotional journey, and there were many long periods when I put the project aside, always managing to find other ‘more urgent’ things to do. It is not easy to step backwards in time into the shoes of another person and try to imagine why they said this or why they did that. Although I was writing about my own mother, with whom I had almost daily contact until she died, her natural reticence had created huge gaps in my knowledge of her childhood and her achievements as a young woman. But after finally studying all the witness reports of her swims, reading about the thousands of people who turned out to watch her, and visiting some of the locations where she swam, I found myself able to visualise clearly a time in my mother’s life of which we, her children, had been given only a misty glimpse.

1

THE EARLY YEARS AND FAMILY TIES

Brighton 1900

Mercedes was born in Brighton on 18 November 1900, the youngest of three sisters. Her father, Heinrich Gleitze, was an economic migrant worker from Bavaria in south-eastern Germany, who had travelled to England some time during the last decade of the nineteenth century. On Mercedes’ birth certificate her father’s occupation is noted as ‘Journeyman Baker’, and he found permanent work at the newly opened Metropole Hotel on the Brighton seafront.

There was a growing German immigrant community in Brighton at that time and this helped to ease his transition into a new country. Mercedes’ mother, Anna Kerr, a governess and language teacher from Hertzogenaurach (Middle Franconia, Bavaria), came to Brighton at about the same time to look for work, and it is here that she met and married Heinrich. They rented 124 Freshfield Road, a house close to the seafront, and it became their family home. It was in Brighton that Mercedes learnt to swim, and she always spoke fondly of her years in that iconic seaside town.

Displacement

Twice in her young life Mercedes was removed from the country of her birth. The first time was as an infant of 18 months, when she was taken by her grandparents to live in Germany for nearly nine years. The second time was when, after being brought back to re-join her parents and siblings in Brighton, at the age of 13 she and her two sisters were taken back to Germany by their mother at the outbreak of the First World War. Both Anna and Heinrich Gleitze had been resident in Brighton for over two decades but had never applied to become naturalised, and consequently Heinrich was interned on the Isle of Man as a German alien. Although the authorities told Anna that she was free to remain in England because her three children were British by birth, she decided, understandably, to be repatriated back to Germany to be with her own relatives, and she took her three teenage daughters with her.

However, it is apparent that from a very young age Mercedes had a strong sense of who she was and, geographically, where she was meant to live her life. This was remarkable considering the era into which she was born. Although many young women from a working-class background had, through necessity, left their family homes to take live-in jobs as domestic servants or governesses, or as industrial or farm workers, most were conditioned to live in the parental home until they married. Mercedes dared to break this mindset, and at the tender age of 17 she was prepared to leave the shelter of her parents’ home in Germany, where they had resettled, and make a life for herself in England.

This patriotic feeling for her birthplace was so deep-seated that she couldn’t contemplate living anywhere else. Towards the end of the First World War she broached the idea to her parents, but they refused to listen. Her mother also refused to allow her to work because she knew this would give her some financial independence. As she was under the age of consent (in those days, 21 years) she felt that she had no option but to run away. After an abortive flight to England with just 10 Reichsmark in her pocket, sleeping in cornfields and living on bread and butter, she negotiated a return back home to Germany with her mother (who had caught up with her on the island of Wangeroag – a Frisian island off the coast of the Netherlands) on the condition that she would be allowed to find employment. While marking time in Germany she also furthered her education by attending a school for languages in Frankfurt. Amongst her collection of letters is one from Charles Jacobs, the son of the college principal, who recollected she was there from 1920 to 1921 with the Quakers Society.

It is difficult to assess the feelings of rejection a child might have when the realisation comes that they have been removed from their natural family environment and sent to another country to live, albeit with grandparents. Given the fortitude and endurance Mercedes exhibited in the face of adversity during her pioneering swims, as well as during years of ill health, it seems likely that she would have faced those years of childhood separation from her parents and siblings with stoicism. But that act of separation also instilled in her a resolute determination to return to England, and it is clear from her writings that she considered it her birthright to make her home there.

The following passages are extracts reproduced from notes written by Mercedes in 1928, combined with those taken from a short summary she wrote in 1977 for the Nürnberg Press. In these two sets of notes she describes her childhood and teenage years, and the deep and persistent longing she felt to return to the country of her birth. They reveal how single-minded and courageous she was, even at such a young age.

A Memoir – in Mercedes’ Own Words

My native town was Brighton. I was about 18 months old when my grandmother came to England all the way from Hertzogenaurach because my mother, who at the time had three small children to look after, found it difficult to manage. When my mother recovered from her illness my grandmother asked her ‘Could I take your youngest child home with me to Hertzogenaurach?’ My mother replied ‘Yes’.

Thus it came about that eight and a half years of my life were spent in my grandparents’ house in Hertzogenaurach, where I had a happy time raising geese for my grandparents, whilst spending each Saturday delivering the weekend bread to customers far and wide and collecting for my aunt and uncle (Backerei Geschaeft Wagner) the bread monies due for the week.

When I reached the age of ten my mother arrived to take me back with her to England where she lived with my father and my two sisters. Here, in Brighton, I went to school until I was twelve.

At this stage of my life I was sent back to Germany with my sisters to enter the Maria Stern Convent School in Nördlingen. During the holiday we travelled from Nördlingen to Hertzogenaurach to stay for a few weeks with our grandparents, when I had a serious illness and was treated by a Dr Biermann. My mother came from England and the doctor told her that I needed my native sea air to bring me back to full health. So back to England I travelled.

When war broke out in 1914 my father, as a German national, was sent to join the other prisoners of war on the Isle of Man. My mother was told that since her three children were born in England they were of British nationality and, therefore, should stay in England. However she was anxious to return to Germany and so she left England taking her three children back to Hertzogenaurach with her.

…

On the 25th April 1918, on account of a terrible feeling of homesickness for England which I could not overcome, I decided to escape from Germany and attempt to get back to my native country.

I decided to make my escape on the morning of the 1st May and spent the five days I had left secretly making preparations and studying the map of Germany so as to enable me to find my way easily through the various towns. It was necessary for me to make the journey on foot as no-one was allowed to use the trains that year for the purpose of travelling without a permit, and, not being of age, I could not of course apply for a permit.

The first town I decided to reach was Bamberg; from Bamberg I made my way to Schweinfurt; from Schweinfurt I turned north to Bad Kissingen; from Bad Kissingen to Hersfeld and Fulda.

Eventually I reached the Dutch Border which I had made up my mind to penetrate. However, it being Armistice time, the boundary was strictly guarded in every direction and I realised I would have a very difficult task. One night I decided to make the attempt to get across. About 8 o’clock in the evening I lay in wait behind some bushes in a forest facing a Dutch forest until darkness came on. After waiting for about an hour it began to rain very heavily. Through the bushes I saw guards walking and cycling about. Eventually darkness came on and I emerged from the forest, crossed the road, and then into the Dutch forest which I hoped would lead me to a Dutch town. I groped my way through the darkness.

Mercedes’ sketch of her planned ‘escape route’.

The way home for Mercedes.

At last the forest terminated and I found myself in a big country road – it was still dark and raining very hard. When dawn appeared the first thing I cast my eyes on was a notice on which was written ‘Verbodene Kiostraat’ which I took to mean ‘Forbidden Pathway’. I was not discouraged and continued my walk until presently I saw a sentry box in front of which two armed soldiers were marching up and down. I hid myself a minute or two and waited until their backs were turned and succeeded in evading detection by these guards.

A little later in the morning I actually reached the first Dutch town, but when I reached the first road leading into this town I noticed, to my horror, that the street was filled with armed soldiers. It was too late for me to turn back, so I decided I could do nothing but walk straight on until I was stopped. It was not long before I was approached by two soldiers. ‘Where are you going?’ they said to me, to which I replied ‘I am going to Church.’ (I could not of course have said to them that I intended to make my way to the border to get to England, for they would not have believed me.) The soldiers being Dutch could not quite understand what I was saying, so I took out of my pocket a little prayer book I carried with me and repeated that I was going to Church. They comprehended, and said to me ‘With so many beautiful churches in Germany, surely there is no need for you to break the boundary at night in order to attend Mass in Holland.’ Presently I heard the church bells ringing and I said to the soldiers ‘Excuse me, but I must go now because the bells are ringing and I may be late for Mass.’ As I turned to go, they grasped my wrist, and I realised that I was under their arrest. They said to me ‘Look around you girl, can’t you see the town is full of soldiers, and we assure you that if any of the other guards in the street take you they will not deal so leniently with you as we intend.’ I replied ‘All right, I will stay with you.’ They took me to their officer and induced him to let me off for having broken the boundary, and they got permission from their officer to hand me over to the German guard.

I turned to the north, since the northward direction offered me an alternate water-line where I might perhaps be able to plead for a passage to England. However it was not to be, so I decided to swim out from Carolinensiel in the direction of the Heligoland lighthouse beam, intending to swim through the gap between the off-shore [Frisian] islands of Wangeroag and Langeog.

It was in the early hours of the morning and although I could see the island, it was two or three miles distant. I had never attempted a task like this before but I was confident that I would reach my ultimate goal. I shut my eyes and plunged into the water, fully dressed with the exception of my shoes and stockings. How long I was swimming I do not know, but I kept on battling against the currents which I had never before experienced, and eventually the reigning tidal forces threw me onto the shores of Wangeroag. It was not until later that I was to know my extreme peril. As a matter of fact, it was only providence that saved me from death. It must have been 10 or 11 a.m. My blood was frozen; my lips were blue and I was shivering. I saw a ship lying anchored on the beach. I climbed into it to see if there was a fire where I could warm myself. I found the ship empty, so I left it. Then, in the distance I noticed a group of workmen. I felt too shy to walk up to them on account of wearing no shoes or stockings. Glancing to the left I noticed two ladies walking about bare-footed and I thought to myself evidently this must be the fashion on this island, so I walked up to the group of working men. I said to them: ‘I have just swum across the Wattenmeer.’ The workmen seemed very surprised and said: ‘That can’t be true because no one has ever swum across because the currents are too dangerous.’ The skipper of a ship offered me shelter in his cabin and gave me food. In the cabin I wrote my third letter to my mother. The skipper, on his way to post this for me, mentioned my plight to the proprietor of a hotel and brought two ladies back with him, and I went to the hotel in order that I might spend the night in comfort.

Here on this island I had my first experience of the extra special kindness shown towards a long distance swimmer. The family of Hermann Rosing took me into their home where I enjoyed the friendship of their daughter, Elfriede, who was about the same age as myself. The family owned a number of guest bungalows and they let me use one of these during my stay on the island. Elfriede and I became close friends and I still remember her pleading voice saying to me ‘Mercedes, please don’t swim out towards Heligoland’. ‘Stay with us.’ However, how can one suddenly ‘still’ a drive to somehow or other look for an opportunity to reach one’s native land.

Whilst enjoying this new-found friendship with Elfriede and her parents, events were taking their course. I had given a servant of the Rosing family a postcard to my mother, but before sending it she showed it to the Rosing family, who forthwith wrote to my mother telling her of my whereabouts. Little wonder that a few days later there stood in front of me, not by wishful thinking, but factually, my mother. She was so overjoyed at finding me safe and well that no rebuke was spoken. She told me that she was going to take me back home next morning.

So great was my anxiety to reach England again that I decided during the night to escape. Knowing my mother would peep into my room before she retired, I placed a doll in my bed, leaving the hair showing. Then I ran from the hotel, climbed over the sand dunes and waded into the sea fully dressed. I did not know, but here I was attempting a more difficult feat than swimming the English Channel, for my goal – Heligoland – was 22 miles away. I had not been swimming long when I reached a sand bank. It was pitch dark when I started and before I reached the sand bank a storm broke and there was thunder and lightning which made my experience more weird. It was only about 40 yards of sand jutting from the water and when I reached it I realised the peril I was in. I knelt down and prayed and then, on the impulse of the moment, dived into the sea again in the direction of Heligoland thinking that I might reach it. The fury of the seas however increased to such an extent that I was compelled, with a feeling of intense bitterness and disappointment, to turn round and attempt to reach the sand bank again, but my direction was wrong and I had to continue swimming in seas which threatened to overwhelm me at any moment. At last, utterly exhausted, I found myself back on the island and returned to the hotel.

‘I will go south with you’ I said [to my mother], ‘but only if you will let me go to work.’ She acquiesced, although she knew that after giving her a share of my future wages, I would inevitably put most of the rest into a Post Office account pending the time when it would suffice to purchase the ticket needed for the return journey to my native England.

… Back now in the country of my birth I set out to get myself a job in London, which I soon managed to do. Thus economically settled, I should have been happy and content. I was, however, becoming more and more aware of the homeless and food-deprived peoples of this world and made up my mind to try to help these less fortunate people.

During the years I spent in London as a typist, I used to practice long-distance swimming in the River Thames. On one of these hours-long swims [Westminster to Folkestone] I nearly drowned because I was pulled under by a very strong downward current. As I went under I saw the large crowd that had stood on Westminster Bridge to watch the start of my swim, and I thought to myself ‘tonight they will read in the newspapers that I am dead’, because the river current seemed to me to be too strong to negotiate. However, contrary to expectations, I suddenly saw the sky again and found myself about a yard away from a boat-full of river policemen who had been searching the waters for me. They said to me: ‘You are the only one we know who, having been grabbed by the strong current at this particular spot, has come up again alive. Usually it is only dead bodies that come up.’

My swimming career started with these Thames practice swims. When it was holiday time I travelled to Folkestone where I hired a boat for sea swimming. I made several attempts at swimming across the Channel before I finally succeeded. When I did, I gave up office work to concentrate on long-distance swimming, which I loved to do because it came easy to me, and it was financially rewarding enough to save up sufficient money to buy a ‘Home for the Poor’. This wish of mine eventually became a reality in the City of Leicester.

Family Bonds

Although from the age of 21 Mercedes had branched away from her birth family and lived independently of them, she never lost touch. Her eldest sister, Doloranda, remained in Germany with their parents, but before her tragically early death in 1928 from a heart defect, Doloranda visited Mercedes in England and supported her in her 1926 Channel attempt. The middle of the three sisters, Estella (Stella), had also resettled in England, and although they lived separate lives, Stella also encouraged Mercedes in her swimming ambitions.

In those days it was more customary for children to help support parents in their retirement, and before her marriage in November 1927, Stella sent sums of money to help them. However, after Stella married, Mercedes took over the responsibility. At first, she sent a small but regular weekly money order, and later a more convenient monthly standing order to Anna and Heinrich, who were struggling financially in Frankfurt. She also supplemented these regular payments with occasional larger, one-off sums whenever she could.

Mercedes and her mother corresponded regularly. Anna’s letters are written half in English and half in German, sometimes with a language change in the middle of a sentence. It is clear from the letters exchanged between them that a loving bond had developed since Mercedes returned to England at the age of 10, and became an inclusive member of the family.

On 4 June 1928, she wrote to her mother at the time of Doloranda’s early death:

It is a pity that she has been taken from us so soon. Stella and I were so keen on having her in London and would have done our best to make her happy. But perhaps God was wise in relieving her from physical pain, as evidently the state of her heart caused her much suffering. Stella and I are so pleased we visited Randa and we shall always treasure the memory of our last meeting with her. You must take things easy now and not worry too much as, after all, we cannot alter God’s plans.

Anna wrote to Mercedes, on notepaper edged in black:

Since your last letter with the money order I have seen nothing in the papers about you. Where are you my Darling? Please let me have a line or two to consolate my suffering heart. It is such a joy to find a letter from you in my letter box. I am not well at the moment and I feel so lonely, so sad. Papa is like he was always, not loving to me although I bemother him in every way. I wish you could live with me again my Darling …

My Darling, time is nearing again for your great undertaking [a North Channel attempt]. I feel so sorry for you that you have laid such a difficult, heavy burden on your shoulders. I will pray for you that the Holy Powers of Goodness, Wisdom, Love and Power may protect and lead and help you along to success this time.

Mercedes replied:

My dear Mamma, I am glad Randa has a nice grave in that beautiful cemetery and that she is so near you. It is good of Papa to visit her grave so often …

This morning I sent off your weekly pound.

My Irish and Scotch friends have already made all preparations for me. They have placed a nice comfortable boat with a saloon and nice stove at my disposal. The temperature is being taken for me every day in the Irish Channel and it has already gone up 10 degrees to what it was when I swam two weeks ago. It will constitute a fine historic record if I achieve the swim. Will tell you more news when I write again next Saturday. In the meantime I remain with love to you both.

In a follow-up, Anna informs her:

The postman has just brought me the money order from you. It does help me so. My health is so troublesome, therefore this little money of yours is such a God-send to me. I do hope that you may never be hindered by anything from sending it to me regularly.

I am so glad that people are kind to you. I am glad you have got your dog back and that Stella is able to keep him.

In a later letter, Anna advises Mercedes, ‘… my dear, never marry into a poor condition or to a man lower than yourself in education and spirit.’

The year 1928 was a tragic one for Anna and Heinrich, losing their first born at such a young age, and Anna’s letters convey how desolate she was and how eager for contact with her surviving daughters far away in another country. Mercedes regularly kept her mother informed of her swimming plans as they were unfolding and one of the letters that she wrote in June 1929 reads:

My Dear Mamma,

Today has been a very happy and successful one for me. My swim across the Wash is now an accomplished fact, having landed at Heacham on the Norfolk coast at 6.30 this evening. I had some hot drinks every half hour all the way across and when I felt like having something solid to eat I was given some roast duck. During the whole of the thirteen and a half hours it took me to reach my destination I had musical entertainment – songs and gramophone – and three seals followed me three parts of the way. I expect they were wondering what kind of a fish I was.

About three hundred people witnessed my landing. I was given flowers, chocolates and a gold bangle, and all my expenses were paid.

Enclosed I am sending you a photograph of which I am very proud. It shows a whole shop window at Boston devoted exclusively to photographs of myself. I am also sending you a cutting describing my Wash swim.

The next achievement on my list is Donaghadee to Portpatrick [Irish Channel]. I am going there next week and do not intend to leave Irish soil until this swim is also an accomplished fact.

Trusting that you are both well and happy,

I remain your loving daughter, Mercedes.

From October 1928 onwards Mercedes did not have a permanent home, and she asked her mother to address any letters care of a friend and mentor, Mr William Hope-Jones, a tutor of mathematics at Eton College, who would then forward them on to her as and when she notified him of her current whereabouts.

Separated by War

In 1939, at the outbreak of the Second World War, all contact between Mercedes and her parents was lost. Sadly, this contact was not restored when the war ended. In 1949, after a local search was instigated by Dr Mathias Gleitze (a kinsman), the Chief Constable of Frankfurt confirmed to him that Anna Gleitze had been killed during the war. No actual death certificate was available, but Rechneigrabenstrasse in Frankfurt, where Anna lived – in fact, the whole borough – had been completely obliterated in a bombing raid. All files with the local council had been lost as well. A new register for surviving residents had been established locally in October 1945, but Anna was not listed. As she is referred to in Dr Gleitze’s report as ‘Widow Gleitze’, it must be assumed that Heinrich had predeceased her at some time during the war years.

2

LONDON 1921

Back Home at Last

When Mercedes returned home to England at the age of 21, the First World War had radically changed the way many young women perceived themselves. Throughout 1914–18 women had, of necessity, been asked to step into the shoes of the male workforce that had been drafted into the armed forces. They toiled in munitions factories and as land girls providing food for the country, they drove ambulances, they worked as Voluntary Aid Detachments2 at home and in war zones, and generally helped to keep the nation’s industries running. But at the end of hostilities, those directly employed in war work found their jobs disappearing, and other female employees working, for example, in tram and railway companies or for local authorities, were dispensed with in order to accommodate the returning demobbed troops.3

However, for many thousands of women who had contributed in numerous ways to the war effort, their self-perception had changed forever. They had become aware of their own capabilities and were not prepared to return to low paid, menial work in domestic service or textile mills.

Alongside the greater social freedoms these ‘new women’ were enjoying (chaperones were unheard of after the war4), the Suffrage movement, led by the resolute Pankhurst women, was slowly gaining ground in its battle to secure the enfranchisement of all women – not just certain categories – into Britain’s political system.

It was into this environment that Mercedes returned as a young woman in 1921, and she gladly embraced this new social order. Although there was a post-war slump in Britain, the changing economy had produced a substantial growth in the number of white-collar positions opening up to women,5 and she quickly found employment with Messrs T.J. Eaton & Company, a shipping company in Westminster. (In practically every one of the hundreds of press reports covering her career, Mercedes was referred to somewhere in the text as ‘The London Typist’.)

It was a well-paid job for a woman at that time. Mercedes spoke both English and German fluently, had a readable knowledge of French and Spanish, and had also taught herself the universal language of Esperanto. Her proficiency with languages, together with her shorthand and typing skills, was reflected in her salary. This enabled her to rent a small flat in Pimlico, buy some furniture on an instalment plan from Drages,6 and settle down to a life of her own choosing. In so doing, she became one of an emerging class of independent, self-supporting young women.

Dreams and Aspirations

However, despite having a secure job and her own little flat, Mercedes felt that her life was not fulfilling. Although at an age when most young women of that era were contemplating marriage and bearing children, she harboured two very different ambitions that together became her driving force.

Firstly, she always felt she could swim great distances. Indeed, as part of her escape route out of Germany she had planned to complete the final stage by swimming across the sea from Holland to England. And she wanted to use this inherent ability to pursue an aquatic career as a professional long-distance swimmer.