Serpentine Swimming Club

Tales of Mary, Wendy and the Serpentine's link with Peter Pan

Child of the sixties who graced the Serpentine in armbands

In 2015, thirty years after she joined the club, Mary was asked to step into a vacant slot on the club fixture card and sponsor a race. A cup was available and, at Mary's request, was styled the "Wendy cup" in deference to the club's Peter Pan Christmas Day connection. The cup is dedicated to all of us Serpentine swimmers who at heart refuse to grow up.

As a child of the 1960s Mary would attend the Serpentine Lido in the summer holidays with her brother. She could not swim but was happy to float around in her armbands. In summer 1983 a "grown-up" Mary started swimming in the Lido daily until the day before the birth of Athena, her first daughter, that September. The following year she came back early mornings on roller skates pushing Athena in her buggy. It was then that she met club member Ron Miller, who acted as "nanny" to Athena whilst Mary swam. In 1985 Mary joined the club and began to participate in the races. Mary intended to swim through the summer until September, then November, then someone suggested she race on Christmas morning. The rest is history.

Young Mary, on the board and ready to race. Christmas morning 1994

New Year's morning, 2000. The Millennium Race.

The Wendy connection

The late 1970s/early 1980s saw women begin to participate in the race calendar, being allocated a handicap and swimming alongside the men. Associate member status for women had been agreed by an AGM vote in 1973. Full member status for women was established by a vote in 1985.

By the early 2000s there was no gender distinction, all swimmers competing "as equals under the eyes of the handicapper". The exception was the Christmas Day race for the Peter Pan cup. During the 1980s and 90s, to encourage the still handful of women winter swimmers, a small “Wendy cup" was provided each year by the club to be presented to the first woman home. Like the Peter Pan cup, this was retained each year by the winner.

As time went on more and more women competed and many began to feel it unfair that only men could win the Peter Pan cup - all swimmers in the Christmas race were competing under a handicap. The small cup provided by the club was in no manner as grand as the Peter Pan trophy presented by the race sponsors, the Greenbury family.

The AGM of 2003 sought to rectify this. The concept was by no means acceptable to all at the meeting. The compromise outcome was for the first swimmer home to be deemed the winner of the Christmas Day race - the Peter Pan cup being presented to the first man home and a Wendy cup to the first woman. No issue arose for the 2003 Christmas Day race, which was won by Alan Lacy.

No issue that was, until the following year.

The 2004 the race was won by the very popular veteran Emmi Hunte. Many, including race sponsors the Greenbury family, thought it very strange and unsatisfactory that a small alternative cup was presented to the race winner rather than the grand Peter Pan trophy for which the club and the event has a global reputation. The issue was addressed at the 2005 AGM with a proposal that the race winner would be presented with the Peter Pan cup, irrespective of gender. The motion was passed virtually unanimously, with many who opposed the proposal at the 2003 AGM speaking this time strongly in favour.

Emmi Hunte won the Christmas Day race for the second time in 2015, and this time rightfully received the grand trophy that is the Peter Pan cup.

The spirit of Sir James Barrie's Wendy now lives on in the guise of Mary's Wendy cup. After all, as Mary recounts, without a Wendy all of us lost boys and girls and wannabe Peter Pans would sadly soon find our way back into our perambulators (from which we had fallen in Kensimgton Gardens) and return to grown-up reality.

Lucy's Peter Pan and Wendy connection

Today's cup winner has a long Peter Pan and Wendy predigree. Lucy's grandfather Albert Greenbury joined the club in 1909. A prominent member of the club, in 1933 Albert followed in Sir James Barrie's footsteps to present the Christmas morning Peter Pan cup. To this day the Greenbury family continue the tradition.

Lucy has been a year-round racing member of the club since 2014. Last Christmas she stepped up and presented the 2024 Peter Pan cup on behalf of the Greenbury family.