CAPE GRIS NEZ

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 104, 29 October 1925, Page 18

CAPE GRIS NEZ

RAIN AND WIND-SWEPT

MECCA OF CHANNEL SWIMMERS

WOMEN OF SPLENDID PLUCK,

Years ago one used to arrive at the tiny village of ]<>amezelle, perched on the neck of the promontory of the Grey Nose, and realise one had reached the end of the earth. .Rainswept, hail-swept, wind-swept Gris Nez was beyond the back of beyond, redeemed from outer darkness, by .two, things only, the first''being th'c kindly welcome of Mmc. Barbaut at . the Lighthouse Hotel,' and the second her superb omelettes, inmitable from Dunkirk to Brest and from Bellgarde lo Collioures. When the wind and the hail and the rain ceased (writes S.H.M. in tho "Manchester Guardian") one found that there were attractions—climbs over the fantastic , and enormous boulders, bathing in one of the finest bays on either side of the Channel, the amazing air, the sands of gold of Picardy. To-day Gris Nez is another world, a swimmer's world. Instead of an occasional conversation in French with one of the few inhabitants, one hears on all sides the argot of the swimmers, and that mainly English. Great swimmers, indeed, are to be met with everywhere, for it is not your six-lengths-of-the-bath man or your common or backwater sort of splasher who is at Gris Nez to-day. . Great masters of the past like Burgess and Jabez Woolf are here; so too arc. newer experts like Helmi, the laughing Egyptian giant; Nishimura, tho dour little Japanese champion; Mac. Sion, the Trench crack, who swam so splendidly more than two-thirds of the Saraits; Miss Harrison, the heroine of the La Plataand of the Argentine; and Miss Ederlo, the seventeen-year-old hope of New York and holder already of eight world records. Pine sporting folk they are too; the desperately .difficult rescue by Helmi of Miss Harrison when she collapsed eight miles out from the Capo' was' only typical of the comradely spirit of the whole band.

. MAKING A STAET. It is impossible to realise the com: motion which follows when word comes that " Mr.. X' is . leaving at 12.15 to-night." ''How the news gets round we cannot tell, but everyone knows it in a flash. First comes a hurried packing of. provision boxes —• for did not Burgess occupy over twenty-three hours in his epoch-mak-ing crossing of 1911, and was not Sullivan twenty-seven mortal hours in doing the same swim in 1923?' Then follows the hasty departure of crowded motors to Boulogne, where the small

tug must be boarded; it is not safe I to trust your fate to Gris Nez's one I small boat, which will be required to put the trainer and the swimmer's ' personal friends on the tug when it arrives hero. By midnight the beach is crowded; the moon has not yet risen and the night, though fine, ia a trifle cold. Away yonder across the black waste of waters is the Varne Light. Hero in the quiet little bay tho huge flash of our splendid lighthouse makes day of night every live seconds. Throe hoots from the darkness bespeak the arrival of the tug, and ■ a whispered "Here they come" that of the hero of the night and his trainer. Hastily w^aps are east aside, tho flashlight, photographers have their turn, and the swimmer approaches the. first' small ripples of the ebb tide. Even to his friends he is now scarcely recognisable. Tho radiant white flesh we have seen so many limes breasting the billows of the bay is now brown with vaseline and the black curly hair smeared into plaster-like evenness by the splashing and squeezing on of great liandfuls of, tallow. Good-byes are exchanged, cheers are raised, the swimmer walks for twenty-five yards into the deeper water, and—" He's off!" - THE COURSE TAKEN. The course taken by Channel swimmers to-day is very different from that tried again and again by Burgess and finally mastered by him in. 1911. Scientific study of tides arid currents has established the fact that, given expert selection, a course of minimum 'length and- exhaustion can be set—as was proved by the last two men, Tiraboschi and Toth, who made the complete swim. Each of them got over in sixteen hours. So our swimmer to night does not believe in being carried past Diane Ness and in front of Calais, .but,,, goes., with, a fine dash,..through the erbss-curr'ciits surrounding ' Capo Gris IScz and then makes straight for Dover Castlo. The first two or Hype miles are hard work and prove fascinating to the spectator, but after that looking on grows fearfully dull. The swimmer's attention is'diverted from his grim task by various methods, including a gramophone concert from the tug. The ] "Excelsior," pictures of the last Harrison swim,' showed Mmc, Sion swimming abreast of Miss Harrison and reading to her the while the evening papers! I'robably no distraction is so helpful as this companionship in tho water. To it' Miss Harrison, in the swim just mentioned, undoubtedly owed her life. Hcbni. the charming Egyptian Colossus, had been swimming with her for over two hours when she suddenly steered towards him, threw hei 1 arms round his neck, and, with a cry of "Save me, llelmi," incontinently fainted. Probably few of us would have wished for a burden of that sort on a choppy dark evening miles away from land. ■ Nothing but Helmi's superb strength and skill saved a. tragedy. He trod water hard, gradually liberated one arm, and then cleverly worked bis way to the side of the tug. The pressmen deserve a paragraph to themselves. It is not easy in this remote region for them to send that swift,news to their agencies which these desire. Yet on a recent occasion one of them took ;i series ot photographs of a swim leaving Gris Nez :it 12.20 and hail them in Fk-ot slra ; |. ]>y 6 o'clock. Tlx> way they handle Un>" language, problem is unique. "Now, ma, put a jerk into it," shouted one of them, who wa.s as short, of Kreiich as ho was of Limp,- and, strangely enough, "ma," innocent of all English though she. was, understood and gave the "jock" required.

It is a clean, hearty, lie;iHhy lit.;, l.liis of the men and women who go down to make (heir way llirough great waioi's Whether n woman will ever accomplish this particular swim is discussed in every farmhouse on the headland. Probably one, of supprliuiiiiin mifcle and rudiirancp, will some flay acroiiipli.-.!) the feat. liut whether (hat is ll'e -case nr not.., tlifsc su'immers arc wom.cn. .of pplendid pluck, and, if thry don't gel across, nil one can say is thai, totnc of them 1-iavc %\ell deserved to do to.