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Fridel Meyer
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.
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.
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Fridel Meyer
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.
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.