Worthing (47 hours) – 18 to 20 May 1933
Heen Road Baths
It is highly likely at this point in time that Mercedes realised her swimming career was drawing to a close. With the birth of her first child seven months earlier, domesticity was about to claim her. Additionally, she was currently very involved in the setting up of her charitable homes in Leicester. However, the spark still burned, because she had made plans for another attempt on the English Channel in August – this time in the reverse direction from England to France.
Although she had already arranged to do her next endurance swim at Grimsby, this was cancelled when it was realised that the pool did not have adequate spectator areas for an event of this sort. Worthing Corporation had also offered good facilities, and so arrangements were made for a 47-hour swim in their Heene Road Baths.
Photograph c1910 (possibly by Walter Gardiner)
Reproduced courtesy of the Walter Gardiner Photography Collection WGCOM0506, West Sussex County Council Library Service.
This swim was to serve two purposes. Mercedes was not a woman of means. Her earnings, after deducting global travel and living expenses for both her and her husband (plus the added expenses associated with a first baby), had been handed over to the Charity Commissioners. The expense of an attempt on the English Channel was heavy, so a further endurance swim, apart from increasing the British endurance record, would help her financial situation. Additionally, it would serve as fitness training for the fresh Channel attempt in the opposite direction (England to France).
What turned out to be her final endurance swim went without incident, apart from a strongly worded letter from the local Amateur Swimming Association to Worthing Swimming Club reminding them that their members would not be allowed to help as it was a professional swimming event. When interviewed by The Worthing Gazette
(24 May 1933) about the issue, Mercedes acknowledged with gratitude the help she had been given by the international ASA during her travels, but said she fully understood that her event was a professional undertaking and that asking British ASA members to help would infringe their rules.
In the event, volunteer stewards were drawn from the Worthing Amateur Boat and Cruising Club, which was not directly affected by the rules of the ASA. Members of both the Men’s and Women’s Sections of the Boat Club rendered invaluable help throughout the 47 hours. Mr A.E. Coleman was mainly responsible for making local arrangements, and Mr J.G.R. Squibb, the Superintendent at the Worthing Baths, together with members of his staff, also assisted in a variety of ways.
The swim itself went very well. She entered the water at 10.30 p.m. on Thursday night, 18 May, swam through Friday, and completed here target of 47 hours at 9.30 p.m. on Saturday evening, 20 May. As always music and singing by spectators kept her alert during the long second night of the swim. She was nourished throughout with soup, honey, grapes, coffee, and, at her request, mackerel on toast!
Of note, at the end of this, her final endurance swim, it was reported that Mercedes climbed up the steps unaided instead of having to be lifted out of the water. She was greeted with a handshake by the Mayor, Councillor T.E. Hawkins, who on Thursday night had given her a send-off, and crowds numbering several hundred cheered her success. (No final attendance numbers were recorded in the media.) She was then taken by police ambulance to her hotel to enjoy a well-earned rest before returning to her temporary home in Leicester.
