Who from Brighton’s past should we be remembering? The film ‘Vindication Swim’ recalls the achievements of the amazing Mercedes Gleitze

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 13th March 2024)

Brighton has a poor record of preserving the memory of those who have gone before. How many Brightonians, not least those who are recent arrivals, know who Herbert Carden, Dorothy Stringer or Lewis Cohen were? And why should they? The City Council does little to commemorate these and other individuals who helped make the city what it is. The Argus remembers them, and Brighton and Hove Buses names significant people from Brighton’s past on its buses and on a special website. It should be commended for this.

From time to time I write about people I have known who have died, people like Selma Montford, Dennis Hobden, Ruth Larkin, Bernie Jordan and Bob Cristofili. Mary Clarke is the ‘forgotten suffragette’ in spite of being Emmeline Pankhurst’s sister. Mary ran the Brighton office of the Women’s Social and Political Union. She died on Christmas Day 1910 from a brain haemorrhage probably caused by rough treatment at the hands of the police and prison authorities immediately before her passing. There is no memorial for Mary other than her name appearing on the front of a Brighton bus. There is now a campaign to have a statue of Mary Clarke erected in the gardens of the Royal Pavilion estate. 

Another long-forgotten Brightonian is Mercedes Gleitze. She was born in Brighton who, in 1927, became the first British woman to swim the English Channel. Her swimming achievements were not ‘limited’ to that. She is believed to be the first person to swim the Straights of Gibraltar and was the first person to swim to Robben Island and back to Cape Town, a sea I know well as I was brought up there and can testify to the currents and coldness of those waters.

After nearly 100 years during which time she had become largely forgotten, her legacy is now secure through a film that went on general release last Friday, deliberately coinciding with International Women’s Day. The film, Vindication Swim, features the amazing Kirsten Callaghan and the equally impressive John Locke. Remarkably, it was written and directed by a 23-year-old Brightonian, Elliott Hasler. If you warch just one film this year, make sure it’s Vindication Swim.

With Kirsten Callaghan and John Locke (I’m the one who didn’t dress up for the occasion!)

After a special screening of the film on International Women’s Day at Brighton’s Duke of York cinema, a cinema that Mercedes herself had visited, Kirsten Callaghan, John Locke and Elliott Hasler answered questions from the audience. Kirsten described some of the discomforts and challenges faced by Mercedes which she, too, had experienced. For example, she wore a heavy 100-year-old one-piece bathing suit. The leather in the goggles she used bled, resulting in a disgusting taste seeping into her mouth. On one occasion she was in the water for four hours, with the salt affecting her mouth and sense of taste. Elliott, too, spent lengthy periods filming in the water, but he had the protection of a wetsuit! John, on the other hand, stayed in a small support boat as had his character, Harold Best, who had coached Mercedes.

All the scenes in the sea were filmed off the south coast. No use was made of stage tanks nor ‘green screen’ technology where subjects can be superimposed onto virtual backgrounds. 

Back to Mercedes herself. Her first endurance swimming record was for 26 hours. Over several years she extended this record to 45 and, subsequently, 46 hours. She had become a popular and famous personality, and when she undertook these endurance swims in public swimming baths, crowds would attend and encourage her by singing together.

Most of Mercedes epic swims, including her world records for endurance swimming, were sponsored.  She used her sponsorship and winnings to open accommodation for homeless people, particularly homeless women, with the first Mercedes Gleitze Home opening in Leicester in 1933. The charity bearing her name continues to operate providing accommodation for homeless people but, sadly, not in Brighton. She helped unemployed people to move from the north to Leicester where there were jobs. She is also said to have supported the extension of the franchise to women below the age of 30 in 1928.

Towards the end of her life, Mercedes became increasingly reclusive. She denied her past achievements and would not discuss them with her family.  She died in1981 in London aged 80. There is now a blue plaque commemorating this daughter of Brighton at the house in Freshfield Road where she was born in 1900.

I hope that in future more Brighton women, perhaps not as exceptional as Mercedes Gleitze, can be remembered for their own extraordinary achievements.

Bernie Jordan: Conservative, Labour, Great Escaper

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 16th August 2023)

It would have been easy to miss Bernie and Irene as they did their shopping in the Co-op Food Hall on a Saturday morning. In the late 1990’s I saw them quite regularly and would chat with them.  He knew that I had been a Labour councillor and worked for Brighton Housing Trust. I suspected he didn’t approve of either. He was, however, always very friendly.

Irene and Bernie Jordan during his year as Mayor of Hove

Other shoppers would have had no idea that this old man, with his dear wife on his arm, had a few years earlier been the Conservative Leader of Hove Borough Council. Bernie Jordan served as a councillor for 34 years and was Mayor of Hove in 1995/96. After Brighton and Hove came together as a unitary authority in 1997, he served one further term, standing down in 1999.

Afterwards, at an age when most people would be looking for a quiet life, Bernie was to make headlines again, not once but three more times.

The first occasion was in 2000 when, on the eve of its Conference in Brighton, he joined the Labour Party. He was one of the very last individuals I would have expected to join Labour. But perhaps the Labour Party of Tony Blair was not too much of a transition for him. He was photographed with Blair in the conference hotel and it made headline news.

A former Hove Labour councillor, Andy Richards, wrote to The Argus at the time: “(Bernie) was not known for his criticism of Tory policies and may best be remembered for assisting in the Tories’ attempt to privatise the management of council housing in Hove – a policy thankfully reversed by the incoming Labour administration in 1995.  Bernie’s defection may, as Ivor Caplin says, be a sign of how Labour is broadening its appeal. Even Tories can now join!”

That might have been it for Bernie. As Irene grew more frail, she moved into a care home to be joined later by Bernie himself. My mother-in-law, Molly Calder, was in the same home around that time. My wife Jean would see Bernie when she visited. He wasn’t yet a resident himself but visited Irene daily. They remained devoted to each other.

But Bernie wasn’t finished. When he turned 17 in 1941, he joined the Royal Navy as an electrician.   He survived the deadly Arctic Convoys taking supplies to Russia, and in the North Atlantic. Among the medals awarded to him was the Atlantic Star.  In June 1944, shortly before his 20th birthday, he took part in the D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy. Those of us who have never been under relentless enemy bombardment cannot even begin to appreciate the noise, the smell, the terror of those landings.

June 2014 saw the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Old comrades gathered on the beaches of Normandy for what was likely to be the last such gathering of veterans. Bernie Jordan was determined to be there to honour his fallen comrades. Efforts to get him a ticket for this memorial event were, for some reason, not successful. So, defying the care home management and concealing his medals under his raincoat, he made his own way to France and proudly took his place at the remembrance service sitting no more than 100 metres away from The Queen and countless other heads of state.

Notwithstanding the consternation caused by his sudden disappearance from the care home, his return to Hove led the television news, and Bernie appeared smiling and waving on the front page of almost every daily newspaper. He told the press: “I expect I will be in some trouble. But it was worth it … I loved every minute. I’d do it again tomorrow!”

Following his ‘great escape’, he became an Honorary Alderman of Brighton and Hove. The mayor at the time, Brian Fitch (who sadly passed away recently) said of Bernie that “his recent exploits delighted the media, entertained the general public, worried his friends at (the care home) and completely bemused his family. It’s his mix of self-effacing bravery and humour, wisdom and warmth, experience and perspective that prompted me to nominate Bernie as honorary alderman.”

Bernie died six months later, in January 2015. His beloved wife of 68 years, Irene, passed away just 24 hours later, devoted to each other to the very end.

But that is not the end of Bernie and Irene’s story. Bernie’s determined return to the beaches of Normandy has now been immortalised on film. The Great Escaper is due to be released in the autumn. It stars Michael Caine as Bernie and the late Glenda Jackson as Irene. It was Jackson’s last film role.