Steve Canavan: A birthday tribute to the Channel’s first woman

Steve honours Gertrude Ederle, the woman who fought misogyny to be the first female to swim the English Channel
In 1926, on her second attempt, 19-year-old Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the 21 miles from Dover (pictured) across the English ChannelIn 1926, on her second attempt, 19-year-old Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the 21 miles from Dover (pictured) across the English Channel
In 1926, on her second attempt, 19-year-old Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the 21 miles from Dover (pictured) across the English Channel

I feel it appropriate to pay tribute to one of my heroes, Mrs Gertrude Jacobs Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, and tomorrow marks 115 years since her birth.

I’ve always been fascinated by folk who attempt daring deeds (racing to the South Pole, trekking through dangerous forests and deserts, answering back to the wife, that kind of thing) and swimming the Channel is right up there – especially back in the day when hardly anyone had done it.

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Gertrude is inspiring because she was told by everyone that it wasn’t possible for a woman to swim the Channel, yet she decided to have a bash anyway.

Only five people had done it before, the first – famously – being Captain Matthew Webb, in August 1875.

I like Webb hugely because he was a fascinating chap. He swam a lot as a child and hit the headlines when, as a teenager on a ship travelling from New York to Liverpool, jumped into the icy Atlantic Ocean in an attempt to rescue a man who had fallen overboard.

The idea of swimming the Channel occurred to Webb after he read about a failed attempt in the paper and he began training at his local swimming baths and then in the Thames, where the locals presumably whispered, as he approached in trunks and goggles at 9am on a Monday morning, ‘here’s that mad nutter Webby again’.

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He had the last laugh, though, for after wading into the water near Dover and setting off with a steady breast-stroke, he arrived in Cap Gris Nez in Calais 21 hours and 45 minutes later. It took him a lot longer than it should have, mainly because he took an odd zig-zag route that extended what should have been a 21-mile swim by a further 19 miles. He emerged from the water in France exhausted and covered from head to toe in jellyfish stings, but an international hero.

Alas he got a bit carried away, wrote a book called The Art of Swimming, and announced he would prove how strong, powerful and perfect his swimming was by breast-stroking his way through the Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara Falls. Most observers thought it impossible – and they were spot on. Webb didn’t emerge from the other side and his lifeless body was later dragged from the water. Presumably, sales of his book slumped a little afterwards.

But fair play to Webb and his crossing of the Channel for – and this shows how tough it was back then – it was another 36 years and 80 failed attempts before someone else managed it, a chap called Thomas Burgess (who in himself is an interesting bloke in that he didn’t bother doing any training beforehand; prior to attempting his Channel-crossing his longest swim had been six miles).

Anyway back to Gertrude, whose father, a New York butcher, was keen on the idea of his daughter becoming good at something and so taught her to swim. She developed into a ridiculously good athlete and before her 18th birthday held eight world records and an Olympic gold medal (as a member of the US 4x100m freestyle team at the 1924 Olympics).

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She then decided to have a crack at outdoor swimming and set her sights on the Channel. Only six others had successfully crossed it at that point in history – all men – and it was considered way too difficult for a female to even contemplate.

On her first attempt, in 1925, she was disqualified when her coach – a chap called Jacob Wolffe, who had attempted and failed to swim the Channel 22 times – ordered she be dragged from the water. Gertrude and several other witnesses reported she wasn’t in trouble or drowning but was resting, floating face down. It later emerged Wolffe did not think a woman capable of completing the Channel swim and didn’t want her to succeed.

Not surprisingly, for her next attempt a year later Gertrude changed to a different coach – the aforementioned Thomas Burgess.

Wearing motorcycle goggles sealed with paraffin to make them watertight, and swimming front-crawl, she set off from Calais at the crack of dawn on August 6, 1926, and came ashore at Kent 14 hours and 34 minutes later – not only shocking the world by succeeding, but setting a record for the quickest crossing, bettering the previous best time by a full two hours.

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The only slightly alarming moment came 12 hours into the swim when Burgess, her trainer, became so concerned by the strong winds he shouted, “Gertie, you must come out”. She lifted her head from the choppy waters and called back in chirpy fashion, “what for?”

In the British way, the first person to greet her on the beach in Kent was an immigration officer who demanded a passport and wouldn’t let her or her support crew go any further until he had seen their documentation. Is it any wonder we have a reputation as being a snooty, formal kind of country?

Gertrude returned to the States a hero and more than two million people attended a homecoming parade through New York. She played herself in a film (Swim Girl, Swim), met the President (Calvin Coolidge since you ask), and had a dance-step named after.

But a combination of a bad manager and the Great Depression led to her lose money and, in 1933, she fell down the steps of her apartment, twisted her spine and was left bedridden for years.

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She spent the remainder of her life in obscurity, teaching deaf children in New York to swim (her own hearing had been damaged in childhood due to measles), before dying at the grand old age of 98 in 2003.

At the last count, 1,831 people have successfully swum the Channel, Gertrude being an inspiration for so many of them. What a woman.

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