Fridel Meyer (4 February 1904 – 17 December 1982) was a German kayaker who was born in Kitzingen, Bavaria. She publicly retained her maiden name for kayaking events after marrying Edward Engert, but later used the name Fridel Dalling-Hay after marrying a second time. She made two failed attempts at the circumnavigation of the United Kingdom, but clocked up an informal 1933 women's record for long-distance sea-kayaking after paddling to Montrose from Westminster.
Meyer's first anticlockwise circumnavigation attempt in 1933 ended with a car accident and injury near Montrose, and the second clockwise attempt in 1934 was curtailed by bad weather in the English Channel. However, after she died a myth arose that she had been the first to complete a circumnavigation of the UK. That myth was corrected in 1989, but nevertheless it persisted in the media for some decades after that.
Following the circumnavigation attempts, Meyer was imprisoned as an alien during the Second World War under Defence Regulation 18B, and held in Holloway Prison for around six months until she was released under the evidence of barrister Norman Birkett. She gave up canoeing events, and lived for most of the rest of her life in Harrogate, West Riding of Yorkshire, where she and her second husband Glen Dalling-Hay renovated the former Empire Theatre and ran a pram shop.
Background and character Although Fridel Meyer was born in Bavaria, she said in 1934 that her parentage was Tyrolean, and that she spent much of her early life in the Tyrol. Fridel Meyer's grandfather was a lifeguard at the swimming pool in Kitzingen, Bavaria, Germany. Although she gave her birth year as 1908, Fridel Meyer was born on 4 February 1904, in the same town on the River Main, and her grandfather trained her in watersports. "Her father was a sea captain and an able engineer and taught her how to use spanners on engines". However he did not approve of her 1933 UK coastal voyage, saying, "It is scandalous".
In October 1931 in Knaresborough, Meyer married a British man of German extraction, Edward Joseph Engert (born 1909), who was "in the hotel trade". However, as a kayaker she used her maiden name and was erroneously called a Fräulein by the English newspapers. Before she started on her first long-distance paddle up the British coast, she was observed in London:
a slip of a girl who seemed quite unconcerned by the general notice she was attracting. She was wearing light grey trousers, blue shirt open at the neck, and a rakish grey sombrero. Her arms, bare to the elbow, were tanned to the colour of ebony. At her heels trotted a chow. The fact that she stopped once or twice to inquire the way showed she was a stranger to London.
When Meyer reached Aberdeen, The Scotsman described her:
A pretty, flaxen-haired young lady, speaks almost perfect English. She was very modest when her adventures were referred to. They had not been so very wonderful, she said. But the scenery of the Scottish coasts and the hospitality she had received had more than repaid her for her hardships.
Meyer spoke for peace, too. Interviewed in 1933 on the stage of Berwick Playhouse, she said,
I want the English people to know that we Germans want to be friends. We are of the same race, and the same blood runs in our veins. It is ridiculous that we should ever hate each other. We young people did not make the War, and our fathers only did their duty to their Governments. It is much wiser to start a new, clean peace.
Canoeing In 1932, having trained in kayaking, Meyer kayaked from Bavaria, via the Main and Rhine, the North Sea's coastline, Belgium, Calais, the English Channel and River Thames to Westminster, London. She had come as a student, to learn English. By the time she was making a second attempt at circumnavigating Britain, she had already clocked up of canoeing, and newspapers were reporting that she was a long-distance sea-kayaking record-holder for women.
Challenge In 1933, Meyer read some news in The Wide World magazine, which she took as a challenge to a race. John Nolan, a Londoner of Irish extraction, aged 37 years, intended to canoe around the British Isles on his own. He would start from Westminster on 3 June 1933, "and break the long distance sea kayak record" (it is possible that there was a previous such record already held by a German). Nolan was an experienced canoeist, having used an open canoe on the Mississippi River in 1928, from Canada to Winona. However, he chose a single folding kayak, also known as a folbot or folboat, for the UK circumnavigation; and it was a craft with which he had had little experience. On 2 June 1933, the day before he planned to set off, Meyer published in The Daily Express that she would attempt to break the record for Germany. She had been in training, but she too was unfamiliar with the folding kayak; she had so far owned one for a single day. She was only 24 years old, she said, and tall.
Equipment
Meyer had to sell her violin to pay for a new £12 () kayak suitable for the challenge, but it was just a kayak, with no sail, no radio, no lifejacket and no rudder for the sea, and no trolley for the land. She named her new Folbot single folding kayak Stella Maris, after Our Lady, Star of the Sea, and it carried the painted words, "Folboating round the British Isles". The kayak was in length, by in width, with a cockpit of covered with a spray deck of canvas. It was British-made, coloured blue, and flew the black-white-and-red German flag. By 1934 her flag had been stolen seven times. Unladen, the kayak weighed around . She used an paddle, and carried two compasses. At Sunderland a reporter checked out her canoe, and reported that she carried only "a small primus stove, a thermos flask, a map, and a tiny four-yards sail, used only when absolutely essential".
Dog on board
From the moment of casting off in June 1933, Meyer paddled with her Chow Chow Wuffles in the canoe. Although Wuffles was photographed sitting on top of the canoe, the dog usually travelled lying below the spray deck. His formal name was reported to be Wu Pei Fu, which the newspapers said was the contemporary Chinese warlord Wu Peifu's name, meaning (according to the newspapers) "respect demanding friend". The dog was an added liability for Meyer, in that he would waste time by escaping to chase wildfowl and rabbits; on the other hand he fed media publicity and served as a security alert while camping. There was some talk of the dog having been "presented to her when she won the world's canoeing record", but she already possessed him when she began her first circumnavigation attempt in June 1933.
Meyer's first UK circumnavigation attempt, 1933 Although Meyer saw this event primarily as a race, Nolan saw it mainly as a long distance sea kayak record attempt, and some newspapers attributed this intention to Meyer too. Nolan published his diary of his record attempt in The Wide World in 1934. Meyer kept no diary, but The Express, considering that Meyer's apparent youth and frailty pitted against British seas was newsworthy, followed her progress with some interest. Thus although the two competitors were lone canoeists, the public has been given a view of both sides of "the first kayak race around the UK". At places visited during the voyage, Meyer gave lectures about her journey in local theatres, for the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation.
When the race started on 3 June 1933 at Westminster, "a big crowd gave a rousing send off". Meyer and Nolan had their photographs taken, Nolan started off in his canoe, then Meyer "cheekily" waited for half an hour to give him a "head start", (although the Leeds Mercury reported that Meyer started first). A brief film was made of Meyer's start along the river, with her dog in the kayak. (Note: Meyer appears briefly in the video after about two minutes) The Northern Whig stated that Meyer's "only provision [was] a supply of milk chocolate" and that the estimate for the duration of the circumnavigation at that point was "over four months".
Meyer and Nolan intended an anticlockwise circumnavigation of the British Isles, This was to be a challenge in the North Sea, with frequent wind-against-tide conditions, and paddling upwind. They were paddling and camping separately. It took them four days to travel downriver and reach the Thames Estuary and Shoeburyness. Shoeburyness was a military firing range in constant operation at that time, so that was the one occasion when they teamed up and camped side by side, for safety reasons. They were nevertheless arrested for spying, but not before they had secured their kayaks and rung the newspapers for help. The newspapers informed the British Army of the race, they were promptly released, and the resultant publicity was favourable to them both.
Meyer arrived at Clacton-on-Sea on 16 or 17 June. On 21 June while she was paddling from Southwold to Lowestoft, "a gale was blowing with a heavy sea". Meyer's husband Engert attempted to join her at sea, but capsized. His canoe was "stove in and submerged", and he had to be rescued by Meyer, who carried him lying across the bows of her canoe, while the dog swam in a lifebelt for 45 minutes. She tried to paddle to shore, but could not make headway. By the time Engert was picked up by the Lowestoft coast guard, he was "in a state of collapse [and] hanging on to the outside [of Meyer's canoe]". Later, the Lowestoft crew and launchers of the lifeboat Agnes Cross were rewarded with a sum of money for the rescue, by the RNLI. The Daily Mirror gave a slightly different version of the story:
They were caught in the swell, and Engert's canoe capsized. The girl knew he was a poor swimmer. He was some distance away, and with great difficulty the girl went to his rescue. She threw her inflated rubber cushion to Engert and then recovered his water-logged canoe. She took the painter between her teeth, and towed the canoe to Engert. 'I shouted at him in the hope of rousing him', Fraulein Meyer said afterwards. 'At last I succeeded in gripping him by his clothes and hoisting him on the back of my boat'. She tied a flag to her paddle and waved it to get attention. The lifeboat saw her signals, and went out and rescued them. They were cheered by holidaymakers on the pier as they came in, and Fraulein Meyer kissed the coxswain.Engert's identity as Meyer's husband was hidden in reports of this incident, due to Meyer's wish to use her maiden name. Subsequently Engert's contribution to the race was land support only. Engert was not only providing accommodation and clean, fashionable clothing; he was organising financially-advantageous publicity, including the fiction that Meyer was an unmarried young girl. The publicity included events, saleable souvenirs and newspaper articles.
After the rescue, Meyer "spent two days in hospital", saying later, "I lost my voice through shouting" and took a while to "recover it properly". By the time she reached Mundesley, after , Meyer was "exhausted" by the North Sea wind, tide and surf, and lost several days by stopping to rest. Off Blakeney Point, she and the dog met a 20-strong school of seals. The dog barked and Meyer was "scared stiff". She said "I paddled for my life and said a prayer [but] eventually lost sight of them". She paddled on to Sheringham for a strawberry tea provided by fishermen, then continued on to Brancaster, piloted in by the coastguard. On 10 July she reached Mablethorpe. She left Mablethorpe for Saltfleet on 11 July, watched by "hundreds of spectators".