Enduring glory of swimmer Florence

Up and down she swam, for hours and hours; sometimes on her back, sometimes doing breast stroke.

For sustenance, while in the water, she consumed three bananas, three spoonfuls of honey and three small pieces of bread and cheese.

Eventually, she strained her left knee and was forced from the water after nine hours and 20 minutes. She had covered 12 miles and 46 yards.

"The fact that the Amateur Swimming Association has no records for swims of longer distance than a mile makes it a difficult matter to obtain accurate information of previous long distance attempts, but there can be little doubt that Miss Trusler's performance constitutes a world's record for still fresh water," said The Northern Echo.

So Florence Trusler became Darlington's first world record holder - beating Willie Smith, who featured in Echo Memories a fortnight ago, by a decade or so.

Willie Smith, it will be remembered, was twice billiards world champion during the 1920s and regularly broke the world record for the highest break.

"Miss Trusler is, in short, something in the nature of a phenomenon," said The Northern Echo.

Her grandparents had moved to Darlington from Surrey 60 years earlier, and the family ran cobblers' shops in Northgate and Bondgate.

Florence seems to have announced herself to the world in 1909 when, without any training, she dived into Kendrew Street and swam ten miles in seven hours 43 minutes and 28 seconds.

She then took part in the Richmond to Blackfriars swim along the Thames, in August 1909.

"Her condition at the finish astounded the doctors and judges," said the Echo.

"The other ladies and most of the men in the race were completely exhausted; but Miss Trusler was quite warm and fresh."

During the summer of 1910, Florence trained a couple of times before winning the Darlington Ladies' Swimming championship. A couple of weeks later, she embarked on her marathon swim.

The Echo marvelled at her endurance. If it wasn't for the knee strain, it said, she could have carried on swimming for ever.

"Physically, she was almost as fresh and strong as when she entered the water, in proof of which Miss Trusler covered her last length in 31 seconds - five seconds better than when she won the Darlington championship," it said.

Even more extraordinary, said the paper, was that she was a vegetarian.

"She is a non-flesh eater, never has more than two meals a day, and on the morning of her most recent performance had at six o'clock a breakfast consisting of two boiled eggs and a little brown bread," it reported.

"Afterwards, she ate two apples and a little bread and cheese, and drank a glass of milk."

Florence married and took her husband's surname of Evans. She moved to Reeth, but did not have children. She died in 1984, aged 92.

l The current world record for the longest swim in the world is 1,826 miles along the Mississippi River, in the US, by Fred P Newton, of Oklahoma. It took him 742 hours in July 1930. The record distance swum in 24 hours in a swimming pool is 63 miles 560 yards, by Anders Forrass of Sweden, in 1989.

l With thanks to Jennifer Harrison of Darlington for her help with this article. She is Florence Trusler's great-niece.

A commemorative postcard was issued to celebrate Florence's achievements. Should anyone have one, Echo Memories would love to see it. Should anyone know of other world titles or records held by south Durham people, please let us know.

THE story of the Kendrew Street baths, which are now beneath Darlington's ring-road and car parks off Northgate, is told in detail in the magnificent, best-selling Memories of Darlington 3 (still available in Ottakar's and at The Northern Echo offices for £4.95, or by post for £5.70 from the Echo Memories address below), so there is no need to repeat it here.

The book also features the tragic tales of the Brebners of Bondgate. RG Brebner was Darlington's amateur international goalkeeper, who died in 1914 as a result of injuries he received in a football match.

He is buried in the same grave in West Cemetery as his father, David, a gunsmith, who drowned in 1884 in the Tees at Neasham.

David, who had defective eyesight in the dark, was returning in his horse-drawn cart from a day's shooting at Eryholme when he failed to notice that the Tees was in full flood. He was washed away as he tried to cross the ford.

The Memories book has been around the world many times, and one copy has reached Southport, where Mary Smart lives.

She writes: "My great-grandfather, Benjamin McDermid, was a friend of David Brebner and had arranged to go shooting with him on that tragic day.

"However, he had a dream in which he saw the waters of the River Tees rising rapidly and sweeping away a body at Neasham. He was so alarmed by his vivid dream that he decided not to accompany his friend on the shooting expedition."

Benjamin McDermid was born in Edinburgh, but was a member of the Society of Friends - the Quakers - and so naturally came to Darlington. His first job on arriving was to paint the Friends Meeting House in Skinnergate. He received sixpence for his efforts.

In 1852, he founded a painting and decorating business in Bondgate which survived for 120 years.

Horace McDermid, his grandson, was the last member of the family to be involved in the business.

Horace, of Abbey Road, died in 1982 at the age of 90. Mary Smart, in Southport, is his daughter.

Out of the darkness and on to the silver screen

HARRY Wilson was one of the very last people out of Toronto pit when it closed on July 25, 1975. He was the last putter at the pit, which had opened as a deep mine in the late 1850s and which had in its heyday employed 500 people. The putter's role was to haul coal out of the mine.

When Mr Wilson, of Witton Park left, he was one of only eight who worked underground.

In its last years, the pit produced about 600 tons of low-grade coal annually and 1,000 tons of "seggar", or fireclay. "You got the coal out first - it was about 20 inches thick," says Mr Wilson. "Then you drilled and fired the seggar. Sometimes it was very hard and sometime you could hew it with a windy pick."

The seggar was turned into firebricks on the site. The insides of many of Teesside's furnaces are lined with the bricks.

Toronto was a large operation.

"We were under Hunwick old village," says Mr Wilson.

"We had about three miles to walk to get to the face. It took us about 45 minutes to get there, and we took the ponies in with us. They were stabled at the bankhead and we brought them back each day. It was hard work for them and it was hard work for us."

Shortly before the pit closed, Mr Wilson remembers that it featured in a television film, possibly made by Tyne Tees, about an 1844 dispute in the Welsh coalfield.

Toronto was chosen for the filming because it was supposedly the only pit in the land which had not changed in over 100 years. The film, apparently, was so controversial it has only been shown once.

EVEN more extraordinary is the word from Derek Wilson, of Spennymoor, that Toronto pit ponies were film stars.

Mr Wilson was working for the National Coal Board at Bowburn in the early 1970s when he heard that the Walt Disney studios were making a film in the area. This film seems to have been Escape From the Dark, which was released in 1976 starring Alastair Sim, Peter Barkworth and Geraldine McEwan.

A synopsis of its plot says: "In 1909 Yorkshire, two boys save pit ponies from the slaughterhouse."

The pit ponies used were from Toronto. Mr Wilson believes they were chosen because they were the smallest ones around - Northumbrian pit ponies, apparently, are bigger.

When the film was released in the US, it was called The Littlest Horse Thieves.

SEVERAL weeks ago, we mentioned the fortune-teller of Newton Cap.

Pauline Griffiths, from Howden-le-Wear, has been in touch to say that she was Sally Slater.

"She had the gift alright, no doubt about it," says Pauline, who is 80.

"She was a proper medium. She told fortunes with hands, cards and by looking into your eyes. I was born in Crook, and a lot of people wouldn't answer the door to her because they were so frightened of her."

There were silver pine trees on the riverbank at Newton Cap in those days, and Sally made six-inch long pegs out of them. She also carried handkerchiefs and dishclothes, which she had crocheted, in her basket with which she toured much of south Durham.

IN the original articles on Newton Cap Viaduct, Echo Memories said that in 1994 it became the first railway bridge to be converted into a road bridge.

This was the claim made at the time, but Harry Watson, from Darlington, says that the A82 between Oban and Fort William, in Scotland, uses a converted railway bridge to cross Loch Etive at Connell.

He first used this bridge in 1982 and so it clearly pre-dates Newton Cap.

THE Weardale Railway is on the move, and a photographic exhibition about it is touring County Durham.

It is showing at Wolsingham Library until March 30.

It will be at Bishop Auckland Town Hall and Library, April 6 to 27; Shildon Library, May 3 to 31; Crook Library, June 10 to 28; Stanhope Station, June 29 to 30; at Willington Library in July; and at the Discovery Centre, Bishop Auckland, from August 15 to 31. The exhibition also gives details of the Heritage Line's progress. For details call Weardale Railway Trust on (01388) 526262.

TALKING of railways, the North Eastern Railway Association has reprinted its Ken Hoole bibliography, which lists the 56 books and many articles that the rail enthusiast wrote. The bibliography is available for £1 (cheques payable to NERA and with a SAE) from: The Membership Secretary, 8 Prunus Avenue, Willerby, East Yorkshire, HU10 6PH.

Published: Wednesday, March 13, 2002