Belfast (34 hours) – 21 to 22 April 1930
Ormeau Baths
The chosen venue for this event was the former 55 feet by 24 feet Ormeau Baths in Belfast.
Northern Whig & Belfast Post/British Newspaper Library/Gleitze Archive
The Northern Whig and Belfast Post
and the Belfast Telegraph
both covered the swim and a précis follows:
Mr J.S. McNamara, General Superintendent of the Corporation Baths, took responsibility for overseeing the event.
There was keen interest when her swim was announced – not only in Belfast and District sporting circles, but also with the public. It was commented in the covering media reports that endurance tests in any branch of sport seem to hold a fascination for the ordinary spectator too.
Thanks to media coverage of her previous endurance swims, Mr McNamara had a good idea of what arrangements had to be put in place for the swimmer, as well as for the entertainment of spectators at the pool. A nominal charge of one shilling and threepence was set for admission to the gallery.
Observers and timekeepers were appointed by the Ulster District IASA. Mr John Caughey (Belfast Amateur Swimming Association), was entrusted with the task of organising a party of 30 men and women, who were divided into ‘watches’ of three hours (the night watch spanning six hours), and each of them would be required to certify on the official log at the end of their session that the conditions of the swim had been adhered to.
Mercedes settled into lodgings in Great Victoria Street, Belfast and, in preparation for the endurance swim, she spent her early mornings training in Ormeau Baths. In the afternoons she did two hours of Indian club swinging exercises at the Falls Road Baths, while in the evenings an hour or so was occupied in the gymnasium and on the running track of the Methodist College, courtesy of the College authorities.
Before Mercedes entered the water at noon on Monday, 21 April, Councillor George Gray, a member of the Baths Committee, made a brief speech and expressed the hope that she would be successful in breaking her Huddersfield record. Also present at the start were Councillors J.D. McClure, W. Sweeney and J. Kilpatrick, and the Clerk to the Baths Committee, Mr W.J. Kennedy, was also there to wish her good luck.
As at her previous venues she chose to circle the pond rather than swim lengths. During the afternoon and evening she averaged 30 strokes to the minute, but gradually increased this to 33 strokes. Constant gramophone music and community singing were the order of the day, and she received her usual nourishment of coffee and milk at half-hour intervals, as well as throat lozenges.
During the long night hours she was having a hard job fighting off sleep and her stroke had shortened in consequence, causing her to make smaller circuits of the pond. However, the advent of a party of fellows with melodeons at about half-past two considerably enlivened the swim, and they responded to her request for some comic songs. Italiano
proved to be a good melody to swim to.
The last few hours of the swim – reported as the greatest aquatic endurance display ever seen in Belfast – were most exciting. Altogether 2,000 people attended, which compared poorly with the records set up in other centres, but there was no doubt that on Monday, the Easter exodus accounted for this. Tuesday, however, was a different story, and from 6.00 p.m. the stream of visitors at the pond increased to such an extent that it was impossible to sandwich another spectator onto the poolside. The entrance hall of the baths was completely jammed, while outside hundreds struggled in vain for admission.
Undoubtedly the community singing enabled her to make a strong finish. And it was reported that, as she acknowledged the energetic towel-flapping of spectators along the sides of the pond, her smile drew encouraging cheers from the crowded balconies.
At one minute after ten o’clock on Tuesday, 22 April, Mercedes successfully set a new British record for endurance swimming of 34 hours. Shortly before the finishing hour, four men – Messrs J.S. Donaldson (Hon. Sec., Ulster Branch Royal Life Saving Society), W.B. Graves BSc (Hon. Sec., Ulster Diving club), H. Graham (Hon. Sec., South End ASC), and Constable Archie McVicker of Donaghadee who had accompanied Mercedes in several of her North Channel efforts – all entered the water to assist her at the finish.
Two of her favourite hymns, Lead Kindly Light
and Abide with Me, were being sung when John Caughey signalled that time was up, and a huge burst of cheering accompanied the finish of the swim, which was witnessed by more than 600 people. Mercedes swam to the waiting group of men in the corner, who wrapped her in a sheet and carefully lifted her out of the pond. Although benumbed by her long immersion, she was smiling happily as she was carried on a stretcher to the dressing room, where she was examined by Dr J.S.J. Lee who had served as medical officer on this occasion. Nurse Mason and Miss Edyth Burnett were also in attendance during the swim, and Miss Burnett told waiting journalists that she was amazed by the swimmer’s speedy recovery, which underlined her wonderful stamina and recuperative powers.
Outside several hundred people – mostly women – had gathered round the entrance, and police had to keep the crowd in check as she was carried on a stretcher into the waiting ambulance and then on to her lodgings in Great Victoria Street.
What was regarded by watching experts as a remarkable feature of the endurance swim was that Mercedes, even up to the finish, was averaging 32 strokes to the minute, and she swam smoothly and without effort despite having to fight off several attacks of cramp. The only real problem she encountered towards the end was a lack of sufficient fresh air, and no doubt this was caused by being enclosed in a small, heated building, packed to the hilt with spectators.
She gave an interview the following morning to journalists from the Belfast Telegraph and told them she had enjoyed a sound sleep and had suffered no ill effects from her long immersion. Discussing her endurance swims she laughingly objected to these being termed ‘ordeals’. She certainly did not regard them so, pointing out that she was “always in first rate training, and the test really one of stamina.”
She asked her interviewers to convey her most cordial thanks to all the officials who had served during the swim, and in particular to Mr McNamara and his staff and to members of the Swimming Association for their cooperation.
The Belfast Telegraph
(6 May 1930) reported that, at a meeting of the Ulster Council of the Irish Swimming Association held in the Lambard Café, Belfast, there were enthusiastic echoes of her Eastertide swim. “There is hope for the Swimming Association in Ulster when you can have such a happy band of 30 workers who could work day and night!” said Mr J. Caughey, replying to a vote of thanks for the part he played in Miss Gleitze’s successful attempt.
The official observers and timekeepers at the swim were: Misses E Ellis, E.Annesley, I. Rutherford, Messrs J. Caughey*, J. Kernaghan, W. Glenn, J. Carmichael, and W.B. Groves B.Sc. (Belfast Amateurs); Mr H. Lemon (RLSS); Messrs J. Hill, S. Auld, E. Kinnell, F. Murphy, T. Bracken, W. Nimick (Ewarts); J. Allen, J. Miller, G. McKelvie (East End); Messrs H. Graham, Cecil D. McCullagh, J.S. Donaldson (South End); Messrs J.P. Bradley, T.H. McDonald (Central); Miss A. Irwin (Ulster Diving Club); Mr H. Megarry (Neptune); Messrs R.J. McCullough, John Millar (CPA); Mr H. McMechin (Sirocco). (* John Caughey went on to actively help Mercedes set up further endurance swims.)
Some comments by journalist ‘Porpoise’ in his Swimming Gossip column are reproduced below as they give the local media’s reaction to the swim, and highlight the obvious need for better swimming facilities to be made available for the general public:
Easter week is usually a blank in the local swimming circles, but this year has been an outstanding exception, thanks to the record endurance swim put up by Miss Gleitze in Ormeau Baths. Public and private opinion may be divided about the utility – or some would put it the futility – of such performances when Nature is strained almost to the breaking point, but anyone who was present in Ormeau Baths, especially when the long-drawn effort was at its critical closing stages, could not fail to be spontaneously moved to feelings of the most unqualified admiration for the girl whose doggedness marked such a triumph of the spirit when the flesh was weak and quivering, and to the most ardent sporting desire that she would successfully accomplish her self-imposed task. Indeed, there was not a man or woman in the crowded baths on Tuesday evening who would not, had it not been a breach of the conditions, have liked to jump in to help her along, if such a thing were permissible. That Miss Gleitze emerged triumphantly and put up a new British record of 34 hours’ continuous swimming was a source of satisfaction to all spectators and to a wider public outside. Mathematics is not my strong skill, but I compute that, taking the average at 30 strokes per minute, Miss Gleitze made something like 61,200 strokes in her super-human effort. Had it not been so well attested one would have been sceptical that a human being could endure such a test. The log of the swim with its observations and signatures of all the observers makes a most interesting document.One feature which appeals, I was about to say, to my sense of humour, is to think of a British swimming record being put up in so small a pond as at Ormeau. It is most ironical. It is now surely impressed on the members of the Baths Committee how utterly inadequate is the accommodation for the public at that enclosure. Mr Maguire and his colleagues were keenly interested in the swim, and it was pleasant to see the civic representatives and Association members mingling together at the baths.
After the swim Mercedes spent a few days relaxing and enjoying the city of Belfast. She told a Belfast Telegraph
representative, “I leave Belfast with happy memories of a delightful holiday following my endurance swim, and I would like to convey my most cordial thanks to the many friends who, during my stay in this city, did so much to make me feel thoroughly at home.”
She left on the Liverpool-bound MV Ulster Queen
on Wednesday evening on her way to Pontefract where she was booked to take part in a gala display. A bracelet to commemorate her swim at Ormeau Baths was sent to Mercedes by the Town Clerk the following month.
