Transvestia

taken an interest in shoes, and admired girls who wore high heels, but on seeing these boots, and being told I had to wear them, I was sure I would be unable to do so. My family gave me every encouragement to try, and I found that, with practice, I could manage quite well, and had a lot of fun at the dance, where I was mistaken even by my friends for a girl, and danced all the dances with male partners.

Next year we had a committee meeting to discuss plans for Charities Day some three months before the due date, and I suggested that, as there was great interest that year in the swim across the English Channel, we should go one better, and have someone swim the Atlantic Ocean. After a lot of talk we eventually agreed to this, and we started the hoax by calling in representatives of the local press, telling them our plans, and asking for their support, which they readily promised.

From then onwards, the newspapers started to men- tion reports of a magnificent attempt being made to swim the Atlantic by a young girl Miss Ann Dapenny, who was expected to arrive in Glasgow on Charities Day.

The idea caught on, and we had messages from all sorts of places, including Atlantic Liners which reported having seen the swimmer going well, and that she was keeping up her strength by a regular diet of, for instance, Johnny Walker Scotch Whiskey! For this advertising boost we asked for a donation to our Charities Day from the whiskey manufacturers, and got it! We then can- vassed the makers of foods, drinks, etc. for contribu- tions for similar advertising boosts in the daily reports of progress of the swimmer. By this time everyone was talking about the mythical swimmer and as the newspapers kept their reports on a serious vein, there was a large number of people who were not sure whether the reports were a hoax or not. We kept up interest by writing let- ters to the Editor about the unfair strain the swim im- posed on a girl's heart, or protesting that she was cheat- ing by using the Gulf Stream to help her on her way, a hundred other such arguments.

and

On the approach of Charities Day, we stepped up the tempo of the press reports, and began to make arrange- ments for the arrival of the swimmer in Glasgow. We had

51