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.

Selma Montford – a true servant of Brighton, its architecture and its people

I was very sad to learn that Selma Montford passed away on Easter Monday at the age of 87. Just this Wednesday I mentioned her in my Argus column, saying: “Over the years organisations like the Brighton Society and the Regency Society, along with people like Selma Montford, have done their best to safeguard our architectural heritage.”

Selma Montford MBE

Selma was one of the founders of the Brighton Society, its Secretary for 40 years until she stood down in 2017 and, most recently, its President. In 2002, the Argus described her as “the high priestess of the city conservation movement.”  She disliked Hove Town Hall, saying that the lavatories were the only redeeming feature.

But it would be wrong to think she opposed all modern buildings. She liked the Van Alen Building in Marine Parade, and encouraged me when we at BHT Sussex (then known as Brighton Housing Trust) were planning our shipping container homes development, Richardson’s Yard.

Selma was, for almost half a century, an outstanding servant of Brighton and its architectural heritage. Whether you agreed with her or not (and we had our disagreements over the years), one could not but admire her and have total respect for the integrity with which she fought to preserve the values she held so dear. 

I always hoped that Brighton and Hove would find a suitable way of recognising her contribution, perhaps by giving her the Freedom of the City although, given what the City has become, it might not have been something that Selma would have wanted.  She was recognised nationally for her work by being awarded an MBE. Perhaps she had put too many noses out of joint locally.

Selma believed passionately in affordable housing.  She was a long-term supporter of BHT Sussex from its establishment in 1968, showing that she cared not just for Brighton’s buildings but also for its people, not least the ones with nowhere to live. She had such high standards of herself, I felt that I might have occasionally disappointed her.

There was something mischievous about her, and she would have a twinkle in her eye when confiding in you about some misdemeanour committed by others that she had uncovered. There has been a suspicion that she might have been a regular contributor to the Piloti column in Private Eye since the content of that column, when dealing with Brighton, must have come from someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the city, and few could match Selma’s knowledge.

For many years she was the director of the Lewis Cohen Urban Studies Centre, named after a former Labour Councillor and Mayor who was the founder of the Alliance Building Society and who ended up as a Labour Peer.  The Urban Studies Centre, based at Brighton Polytechnic in Grand Parade, catalogued and produced books and pamphlets about Brighton’s history and communities. Its demise and closure was a sign of how this City does not value its past. 

But much of what we have retained is due to people like Selma, and to a large extent to Selma.