Tag Archives: Virginia McKenna

Jan Leeming, Sophie Neville and Daphne Neville at a charity event in about 1975.

One of the reasons why I did not continue acting as a child was that it seemed rather more important to concentrate on my education. Another reason was that I simply grew too tall. I was all legs, like a foal.

Appearing as Kevin’s sister in the wedding episodes of the ATV Soap opera ‘Crossroads’. This continuity photograph shows how tall I’d grown. I wasn’t wearing high heels.

After a few years, the fact that I had appeared in both Swallows and Amazons and The Copter Kids meant surprisingly little professionally, except that I was able to gain a much coveted Equity card. In the late 1970′s the Unions were very strong in Britain, holding the film and television industry under a ‘closed shop’ policy. If you were not a Union member you could not work, but you could not gain a Union card without having worked professionally. Even though I had taken lead parts in two movies and had appeared in a number of television dramas, I had only just worked for enough days to get a ‘Provisional Equity membership’ – although another reason for this might have been because I was still only sixteen. Virginia McKenna’s lovely daughter Louise, who I had met at the premiere, was working as a dancer in Spain to gain an Equity card. Meanwhile, directors in the UK could not find young actors in Equity to cast in their dramas. Not being fussy about how I looked, I volunteered to play the part of a boy in the HTV movie Kidnapped. 

Sophie Neville on location at Bisley in Gloucestershire, appearing as a messenger boy in the HTV movie ‘Kidnapped’ in about 1977.

Although the snow was not real, I nearly froze to death.  I must have appeared a more than twenty television dramas, wearing ever more uncomfortable costumes.  Wearing wigs was the worst thing. They can be terribly itchy.

Sophie Neville in a corset for ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’

Concentrating on academic work was certainly a warmer way to spend the day. I ploughed on with my studies only accepting work that I was offered close to where we lived. The exception was The Two Ronnies, which was recorded on the south coast but it was an opportunity not to be missed. I was about nineteen and had an amusing part in their long running story of Charley Farley and Piggy Malone.

Sophie Neville, second from left, on location at Southampton Docks, appearing in The Two Ronnies for the BBC in about 1979

Since I was cast by Paul Jackson, the Producer, I hadn’t realised that Ronnie Barker would be directing the drama. It was the first time that I had acted with an actor/director, which was slightly tricky when I had my arms around him. The whole experience was surreal – and good fun. Ronnie had a wonderful costume designer who had great fun pouring us into outrageous outfits, including a commodious Yashmaks.  She gave me little round spectacles.  Since I put on a Southern American accent I thought, ‘No one will ever recognise me in this part,’ – but they did.The series ended with a large wooden crate being lowered by a crane from a ship on Southampton docks. One side of the crate fell open and I marched out playing For all the Saints on a trombone, followed by all these ladies dress in pink. I’m holding a tuba in this shot but it was swapped for a trombone. My heel got stuck in one of the tram lines on the dockside but I kept marching on.

Sophie Neville playing a trombone for Ronnie Barker

My mother would have loved me to have followed her dream and try for RADA, where she was a student in the late 1950′s. Instead I was accepted by the University of Durham where I read Anthropology and made a number of very good friends.

In the summer of 1980 we went to see Virginia McKenna who was staring opposite Yule Brynner in the musical of The King and I in the West End. We would never have gone backstage if we hadn’t known her so well, if I hadn’t played her daughter in Swallows and Amazons. Virginia needed someone to look after her family in the country, while she was on the London stage. She wrote to ask my mother if she could recommend a cook-housekeeper. It was this domestic role I took on for the long university vacation, armed with a my school cookery book. It was just the Susan-ish job I needed to ground me. Bill Travers, Ginny’s husband, was working at home for much of the time, developing a screenplay for a film set in Africa.  Her son Will Travers had just returned from working on the crew of a movie made in the Nongorogro Crater in Tanzania, and, while her daughter Louise was still dancing in Spain, her second son was at boarding school, her youngest at day school. My feet did not touch the ground.

I couldn’t complain. Virginia hardly slept, and yet due to her obscure hours she could only ever see her youngest son when he was sleeping. She spent sixteen months at the London Palladium, with numerous other demands on her time such as performing at the Royal Variety Performance at the Theatre Royal in Dury Lane. While Yule Brynner had a bodyguard she would drive back though the night in her little blue car.

In her autobiography  The Life in my Years Virginia describes how The King and I  proved one of the highlights of her career. Yul Brynner was a complete perfectionist, which could make life hard, but she welcomed the discipline he bought to the theatre.  You don’t need to watch much of this clip to see  how demanding he could be ~

Almost as soon as I gained my Full Equity Union Membership, I decided that I really didn’t want to devote my life to acting.  After I finished working for Virginia McKenna, London Weekend Television came to make a drama called Dark Secret,  a two-part Sunday Night Thriller, shot at my parents’ house in the Cotswolds. Christopher Hodson, the director, thought it would be amusing if we turned up and knocked on the front door in the final scene, so I am regrettably credited is ‘Member of family party’ along with my mother.

Sophie Neville looking scary in The Sunday Night Thriller ‘Dark Secret’ for London Weekend Television in 1980

I’d actually been employed to help the Designer and his assistant modify our house in line with the story. I remember running errands for the Prop-buyer, who had no idea how to acquire action props of a rural nature such as dead rabbits. I got on so well with the LWT technicians that I decided that working on the crew was far more fulfilling that standing in front of the camera with an itchy hair-do. In 1982 I made a decision to opt for a career in television production. What I did not know is how soon Arthur Ransome would come back into my life.

For further details on the dramas I appeared in at this time, please scroll down on my About page.