Katerina Nehua: endurance swimmer

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XIX, Issue 1, 1 May 1986, Page 83

Katerina Nehua: endurance swimmer

VICKI CURTIS

In Australia during the Depression endurance swimming was a fad recently arrived from the United States. Its principles were similar to those of the endurance dances of the 1950s —swim until exhaustion overtakes you. The endurance swims were advertised in a way which would attract large numbers of spectators as well as entrants, and were an inexpensive form of income and promotion for the baths’ owners who had only to provide venue and advertising, which was sometimes reimbursed.

Contestants were not required to swim lengths or distances, merely to stay afloat; it was forbidden to touch the sides or bottom of the pool. Audiences were large and the prize money sufficient to entice many would-be endurance champions into the water. Some swims were sponsored and attracted well-known swimmers, including some from overseas—English Channel swimmer Mercedes Gleitze, American Charles Zimmy, and Tom O’Neill, world long-distance backstroke record holder.

A twenty-eight year old Maori woman, Katherine Darley, under the name Katerina Nehua, 1 was to make her mark in this field. A small collection of papers in the Turnbull Library 2 gives some insight into a social phenomenon which for her was a means of supporting an unemployed husband and four children. It is difficult to glean from the press clippings in the collection exactly how many endurance swimming events Katerina Nehua entered, but from January to August 1931 she was involved in at least thirteen. Some were outright contests for prize money and one was a solo attempt to better her own world record.

On 30 and 31 January 1931 Katerina Nehua had entered an endurance contest at Manly Baths, Sydney, at which there were separate contests for men and women. The Darleys spent their last pence on a tram trip to the baths from their Collaroy home to save Katerina’s energy for the contest, and as they had not eaten for some time officials gave them beef tea and chocolate. They could not afford special grease so ‘scrounged a mixture of glycerine, olive oil and black axle grease’. 3 Katerina Nehua did not win that contest, leaving the water after 47 hours 50 minutes, but the winner, English Channel swimmer Miss Mercedes Gleitze (Mrs Pat Carey), gave

her a hundred pounds from the five hundred pounds prize money in sympathy for her plight.

In March 1931 Nehua entered an open-sea contest at Rushcutters Bay, Sydney, and went on to break the world record on 22 March 1931 at Balmoral Baths, Brisbane, with a swim of 72 hours 9 minutes. This she broke again with a time of 72 hours 21 minutes at the Brisbane Municipal Baths in April 1931, her successes attracting further commercial interest. Following her first world record swim at Balmoral, arrangements were begun for Katerina Nehua to visit New Zealand. A series of letters from the Goldberg Advertising Agency written to her at Glen Iris, Fielding Street, Collaroy, between 1 April and 11 November 1931 informed her of arrangements for an endurance swimming attempt in New Zealand. The visit was to be sponsored by Macky Logan Caldwell Ltd, merchants and warehousemen with offices in Elliott Street, Auckland. Nehua’s fare and expenses were to be paid in return for the use of her name for advertising and on condition that she wear Speedo swimsuits. However, the visit was postponed due to the illness of Macky Logan’s advertising manager, and eventually cancelled. Since Macky Logan had begun to sell retail it was deemed impossible for the original arrangement to be continued.

The Speedo swimsuit was viewed favourably by other endurance swimmers. Lily Copplestone, another New Zealand swimmer, wrote to Katerina Nehua in May 1931 and comments, amid her congratulations:

As you know I am a staunch supporter of the Speedo costume and you will be doing me a favour also if you wear one in NZ. They are the most comfortable costume on the market without a doubt and if you do wear one you would never wear another kind. 4

The next year, on 7 March 1932, Robert Campbell Shearer, proprietor of the Balmoral Baths, Brisbane, entered into a formal contract with Nehua for a one-hundred-hour attempt, to take place on 24 March. It was agreed that the swimmer would take all responsibility for any injury to herself and her assistants as well as provide food. Shearer promised to provide the baths and the ordinary baths’ assistant during the swim. He also undertook all advertising of the event, but it was agreed that all advertising expenses would be refunded to him from the proceeds of the swim. Katerina Nehua for her part would try to stay in the water for 100 hours, and would share the nett proceeds with the owners of the baths. It was stipulated that the baths would remain open for ordinary business at the usual rates for swimmers from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and spectators

were to be charged one shilling. The outcome of this attempt is not recorded. Endurance swimming may have been lucrative for the winners but it was money well earned. The discomfort of open sea and open air swimming prompted Katerina Nehua to comment, If ever I have to spend another 72 hours in the water I will do so only in enclosed baths with tepid water. . . ,5 She described her feelings during the last few hours of the effort saying ‘that she was afraid to go near the boat for nourishment as the temptation to hold onto the side might have been too much for her’. 6 In a radio address to Australian and New Zealand listeners on station 2UW Sydney (‘First on the Dial, Best all the While’) following her first world record she explained that ‘a person requires great courage to stay in the water over night. There fore my advice to young people who might like

to try endurance swimming is don’t. ’ 7 Staying awake and afloat for such a long time was a considerable achievement. It is interesting that Katerina Nehua chose to use her mother’s maiden name for publicity purposes while continuing to be known in her private life as Mrs Katherine Darley. Her Maori descent 8 was commonly referred to and she acknowledged it: ‘I am proud of being able to up hold my Maori race in this class of sport.’ 9 The Akarana Maori Association saw her world record-breaking swim at the Balmoral Baths in March 1931 as ‘thus again bringing to fame the Maori race, whose people can well claim to be equal to, if not better than, other peoples of the human family’. 10 As she perceived it, swimming was not just a way of adding ‘more laurels to my Maori race’, 11 but a trade or profession—the Darley family relied heavily on Katerina’s winnings for survival.

Katerina Nehua died on 15June 1948 of a heart attack. Her battles differed from those of her famous ancestor; she fought not to conquer southern tribes but to provide support for her family by methods which brought her into the limelight, and which also needed imagination and courage. Katerina’s papers tell little of her family life. What does emerge is a matter-of-fact ‘let’s get on with the job’ approach to her swimming and to the demands of her sudden fame. They show a brave, enterprising and down-to-earth woman.

REFERENCES 1 Nehua was her mother’s maiden name. She was born Katherine Waetford, daughter of Mereana and Hareperau Waetford, at Whakapara in the Bay of Islands in 1903. In 1923 she married Joseph Darley (a 24 year-old divorced farmer born in Birmingham) at Whakapara. 2 MS Papers 2754; 8 folders consisting of contracts and newspaper cuttings, letters of congratulation, photographs, and marriage and death certificates. Most of the material relates to her world record-breaking swim of 22 March 1931. 3 Man, May 1957, p. 58. 4 Letter to Katerina Nehua from Lily Copplestone, Kings Cross, Sydney, 5 May 1931. 5 Daily Telegraph (Sydney?), 24 March 1931. 6 Ibid. 7 Notes for a radio address to be delivered on Station 2UW, Sydney, on Wednesday 1 (or 8) April 1931 at 7.30 p.m. 8 Katerina Nehua was descended from the elder brother of Tamati Waaka Nene, a Ngapuhi chief who was involved in wars against the southern Maori tribes with Te Rauparaha and Hongi Hika in the 1820 s and early 1830 s. 9 Notes for a radio address. . . 10 Letter to Mrs Katerina Nehua from the Akarana Maori Association, 23 March 1931. 11 Notes for a radio address. . .