The Great Swim [Hardcover]

This is most certainly not "just a book about swimming" which, according to the author, was the dismissive response of many potential publishers. To be sure the nub of the story is the race between four swimmers who in the summer of 1926 were attempting to become the first woman to cross the treacherous waters of the English Channel. But the rivalry is conveyed not as a simple narrative but is, in the author's skilful hands, played out against a backdrop of intrigue and drama. Especially influential were the press. Rival newspapers signed up the two leading aspirants, both young and photogenic, and proceeded to stoke the rivalry between them. The tension was heightened by the close proximity of the two camps on the same French beach during the several weeks of preparation for the challenge.
The drama builds chapter by chapter as some of the swimmers, spotting a break in the unseasonably cold weather, strike out from either side of the Channel but all are forced out of the water at some stage by combinations of prolonged exposure, heavy swells, tidal drift, cross-currents, jellyfish, seasickness, stomach cramps, or (in one case) an impenetrable fog. It is the nineteen-year-old American Gertrude Ederle who eventually triumphs. Not only does she do so in the teeth of a Channel storm but in a time which beats the men's record - the world record - by more than two hours - a first in any sporting event.
All in all it is a rattling good tale of sporting courage and endurance told with verve and a good eye for detail. My one criticism - which concerns the publisher not the author -is the absence of an index.

America, 1925. Women had only just won the vote. Flappers were scandalising respectable society with their short hair and cigarette smoking. In a huge concession to women's sport, the International Olympics Committee had just allowed women to compete in 100m backstroke and 200m breastsroke swimming competition in the 1924 Olympics - up until then it had been deemed improbable that a woman would be able to swim further than 100m.

Meanwhile, the race to become the first woman to swim the English Channel was being staged by an improbable but amazingly stubborn and intrepid cast of female swimmers. Gertrude Ederle, Mille Gade, Lillian Cannon and Clarabelle Barrett from the US - a diverse collection of swimmers from different backgrounds and with different temperaments - were all racing to become the first woman to swim the Channel. The strict social mores of the time meant that national newspapers entered a bidding war to sponsor each of the female swimmers: they realised it was a legitimate way to get previously frowned upon photos of scantily clad women on their pages to boost circulation. Each of the swimmers became regular columnists in a national paper, recording the trials and tribulations of their training and swims, exciting the imagination of the general public to the race. Poor humble Clarabelle Barrett was the exception to this - too tall and large framed to be deemed photogenic in a swimsuit and therefore spurned by the press - she had to fund the whole costly affair herself.

From America at fever pitch, the isolated windswept beaches and cliffs of Cap Griz Nez and Dover, where the swimmers moved to train for the summer of 1926, were a very different thing. Tussles for the best hotels and coaches and pilots, in a time where there had been very few successful crossings of the Channel, ensued. Rivalries developed and were played out on the beach and in the column inches of the press across the Atlantic.

However different the circus and hype surrounding the race was, the emotions and fears and tensions of the swimmers were eerily exactly the same as they are today. The nerves of the women before their big day, the mental torture of waiting for a good tide, the rhythm of the actual crossings themselves with their excitement and optimism at the start of the swim followed by boredom, misery, anxiety and exhaustion and guts and determination have not changed one bit. (Of course although there are amazing similarities between their swims eighty years ago and Channel swims today, the amazing self belief and drive of these pioneer women, swimming at a time when women were told that they were only good to stay at home, sets them apart from any endeavor today!)

The last section of the book is the most poignant. The race is over and the resulting fortune of the swimmers - successful and unsuccessful - is followed over the years. Swimming the Channel is a life changing experience today - imagine how much more so it was then when the stakes were so high.

Gavin Mortimer's is the best I've read on Channel swimming to date. He documents wonderfully the atmosphere and social background to the race, setting the scene and the tension for each woman's swim, darting back and forth in the book between each of the camps to build up a real dramatic tension to the race. The wait is almost unbearable - even if you know the outcome

Thanks Sally for your review - made me buy the book which I read quickly and have already recomended to two friends. I would add to Sally's review that this book has introduced me to a new world of press sponsorship/manipulation from 80 years ago that I thought was a more modern day phenomonen. This well written 'story' with an extensive bibliography will appeal to swimmers, cross channel wannanbees/swimmers, those intersted in 1920's US and England and probably Womens Rights advocates too. Trudie in particular was quite inspirational and as you'll read did much to change society's view of women in sport.