Good morning, Swansea!

In the summer of 1933, crowds gathered at Swansea's West Pier to witness something extraordinary - a man attempting to cross the waves on a water bike he’d made himself. This week, discover the remarkable story of Harry Holmes, better known as 'The Great Cyclino'.

Catch you on Sunday!

Andrew.

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Who Was Cyclino?

Passing along Walter Road one spring day in the late 1950s, Neath historian Bernard Lloyd was surprised to see a small crowd gathered at the foot of Constitution Hill.

He watched a man “defy the laws of gravity as he pedalled, zig-zagging at a dizzy angle, to the top of the cobbled hill in one minute, 45 seconds, and then down it backwards in one minute, 30 seconds!"

The hill's daunting one-in-two-and-a-half gradient was, as Lloyd noted, "enough to deter any professional cyclist used to the Tour de France's hills." But for Swansea local Harry Holmes - better known as The Great Cyclino - it was nothing he hadn’t done many times before.

In 1933, Cyclino demonstrated his cycling prowess along Swansea's seafront, riding backwards from Rutland Street to the Mermaid Hotel in Mumbles - a distance of five miles - in just 28 minutes. The feat began as a wager when a local man claimed such a journey was impossible and offered £5 (to be donated to Swansea Hospital) that it couldn't be done.

The Water Dragon is Born

Long before amazing audiences on his bicycle, Holmes had developed grander ambitions. As early as 1929, word spread that he was planning to build his own water cycle, with initial plans to cross Swansea Bay.

He constructed what he called "The Dragon" - a machine mounted on four floats made from 10-gallon Castrol oil drums, which he had specially fitted with conical noses at each end.

"I hope the weather is rough and the sea runs high," he told the Evening Post before one test, "because it will give me more experience in negotiating the waves. Practice on a choppy sea is far more valuable than when it is calm."

By early 1933, Cyclino had successfully crossed Swansea Bay twice, navigating from West Pier to Mumbles Pier in under an hour and a half.

The Great Crossing

On July 4, 1933, at 8:45 AM, Cyclino set off from Mumbles Pier on his most ambitious journey yet - an attempt to reach Porthcawl, a distance of between 15 and 20 miles. During the six-hour journey, he sustained himself with four flagons of E.T. minerals and a pint of coffee.

"In the latter stages he was almost blinded by perspiration," reported the Evening Post, "and when about a mile from Porthcawl encountered a rough ground swell, which interfered with his progress to some extent."

Cyclino arrived at Porthcawl harbour to cheers from crowds of visitors and sailors from H.M. Battleships Crusader and Comet. That evening, the chairman of the Porthcawl Urban District Council formally welcomed him, praising his "gallant" attempt and "ingenious invention."

The success led Cyclino to consider an even more ambitious crossing - from Swansea to Ilfracombe, across the Bristol Channel. In 1934, he made considerable improvements to his craft, doubling its speed and adding a sail for emergencies.

He had his doubters, of course. As one local put it in a letter to the local newspaper, "Harry Holmes ('Cyclino') is to attempt the crossing of the Bristol Channel in his hydro-cycle, and good luck to him, for the swimming of the Channel from Mumbles to Devonshire is an accepted physical impossibility."

However, as Bernard Lloyd later explained, "He abandoned this as too dangerous because he could not swim."

Holmes’ Later Life

Despite his daredevil side, Holmes continued to work ordinary jobs - including as a ticket checker and night watchman at Swansea’s Moss Empire cinema for over a decade in the 1940s and 50s. However, he never lost his love of performing - "Harry, who was very fit, led the Swansea Hospital carnival parade each summer on his cycle and did much unpaid, charity work," remembered Gwyn Rees, manager of the cinema.

In later life, Holmes also developed an unexpected new interest - the paranormal. It led him to investigate several alleged hauntings and poltergeist occurrences in South Wales, and he even invented what he claimed was a ghost-detecting device, though Rowley Davies, another local historian, suspected it was "a camera with a tripwire."

Cyclino’s Legacy

Debate surrounded some of his Harry’s achievements for decades. Alex Kostrmin, writing to the Evening Post in 1990, claimed to be "the only person left alive who actually witnessed Harry's one and only trip over the water." However, the various newspaper reports, photographs, and eyewitness accounts above tell of multiple successful crossings.

"Surely Harry Holmes, the Great Cyclino, was one of Swansea's most amazing characters ever?" reflected Bernard Lloyd, and it's hard to disagree.

Holmes continued to cycle up Constitution Hill, if challenged, until he was 77, four years before his death.

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