Excerpt from the short film ‘Our Sporting Greats’ made for Kirklees Museums and Galleries by Chris Squire and Andy Wicks of Impossible Theatre (www.impossible.org.uk).
Archive footage courtesy of the Pathe.
Film commentary:
Following her auspicious start, aged two, at Dewsbury baths, by her teens Eileen Fenton had taken part in several long distance swimming competitions, including a gruelling hack across Morecambe Bay. With these sorts of credentials there was only one way to go...
Archive film commentary:
Eileen Fenton, Yorkshire and proud of it, is the smallest competitor.
Eileen Fenton:
This was the very first time that they'd ever had an international race across the Channel. We had swimmers from 17 countries who came, every one who had a swimmer who was willing to come and have a go.
Film commentary:
They're all in line...any minute now... and they're off...
Eileen Fenton:
You get in the water, it's pitch black, you can't see the difference between the sea and the sky. All you can see are a few little lights dotted about, and you don't know what's in the water with you. It really is very, very scary. I quite enjoyed the first seven hours. It was cold and it was dark and I kept thinking, oh if only it would come light. Then after nine hours I got this drink - my arms were aching of course by then - and I was holding this in my hand and I had to throw it back to the boat and when I'd finished throwing it my arm went.
Archive film commentary:
After 10 hours Eileen Fenton is swimming with a strained shoulder.
Eileen Fenton:
It just couldn't move properly and I kept on trying to use it for a while and then I just put it under my stomach and started swimming with the other arm. At nine hours I could see Dover Harbour, I could even make out the wall and the space in the wall and it took me another six and a half hours before I got in.
I was just going to try to put my feet down when Mr Betts called out: 'Keep on swimming!' so I went on swimming, and I was swimming utill the water lifted me and dropped me just at the edge of the water. Thousands of people all crammed round and there
were people
holding them back so that they didn't touch me before I got far enough out.
Archive film Commentary:
A popular British success is Eileen Fenton, first woman across, she also wins a thousand pounds, her grand victory due to sheer courage.
Eileen Fenton:
They just picked me up, wrapped me up in towels and they passed me from one lot of people to the next till I got to the edge and there they put me into an ambulance and took me home. When I got home, which was the hotel, the number of telegrams I got, they were spread all over the bed, there were hundreds of them, literally hundreds. Then they said they want to know if you'll go down and go on Pathe news.
Archive film commentary:
And to end, here is Eileen, freshened up after swimming for nearly 16 hours
Eileen Fenton, on archive film footage:
I was very pleased to have won this race, naturally. And I set out to do an ordinary job, and I managed to do it quite successfully with the help of my trainer Mr Betts. Oh I feel fine thanks, I bruised my shoulder a little, but otherwise I'm perfectly clear.
Eileen Fenton:
My arm was bad. I know I said on there I bruised my arm a bit, but it just wouldn't move. It was three months before I could make it move again properly. Did the Pathe news, then had something to eat, and then went to bed.
My arm was bad. I know I said on there I bruised my arm a bit, but it just wouldn't move. It was three months before I could make it move again properly. Did the Pathe news, then had something to eat, and then went to bed.
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