When I saw Simon West recently he told me that his father would love to see a copy of ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons’.
Nigel West soon wrote to say:
‘…it makes fascinating reading. Simon told me very little in the way of detail about his experiences when filming so your account is very welcome.Simon’s mother, Dorothy, and I only visited the Lake District once during that period and then we only saw Simon fairly briefly and saw nothing of the filming. Things that I can recall about the whole experience I will describe below.
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‘Our family took up dinghy sailing when I built a Mirror dinghy in our dining room at home. It was built from a flat-pack and took nearly a year to construct, in my spare time, during which the family had to eat meals in the sitting room. I had been sailing on the Norfolk Broads with friends a few times in my college days, which had started my interest in boating. The family joined the Dorchester Sailing Club which was based on an old gravel pit not far from our home. Eventually we also acquired two children’s Optimist dinghies for Virginia and Simon, who spent many weekends racing their boats at open meetings around the country.’
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‘One day at the club a notice appeared on the notice board asking children with sailing experience to audition for acting parts in a film to be made of Swallows and Amazons. Virginia immediately expressed interest and pressured Dorothy and me to take her to the auditions in London. We were reluctant to agree because we thought her chance of success would be so slim with thousands of other applicants, many with acting experience, queueing up for parts. Then, to my surprise, Simon said he was also interested, with his eye on the part of John, but surely, I thought, he would be too young and too short for that part and he had pooh-poohed the idea of trying for Roger.
‘As it happened we were due to visit Dorothy’s sister, who lived south of London, in Sussex, on the Saturday of the auditions, so we decided that a small detour would allow the children to attend without too much problem. Sadly Virginia fell at the first interview while Simon, to our utter amazement, won through that and all the other stages of selection to win the part of John. How pleased we were for him and proud – and sorry for Virginia who took her disappointment so well. You should ask Simon about the later stages of selection that included a long weekend living on an old motor torpedo boat at Burnham-on-Crouch having, among other things, his sailing proficiency assessed.
‘From the few things that Simon did tell us about the filming, I was extraordinarily impressed by the maturity he had so clearly gained in the whole experience. He explained how conscious he was of the crucial part he had to play in getting it right, in front of the camera, because the success of the whole project depended on that. With dozens of adults all working flat out as a team to a tight schedule meant that he had to concentrate on getting it right first time – a very maturing experience for an 11 year-old taking time out from his first year at secondary school.’
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‘With Simon having no acting experience I was intrigued to know how Claude Watham had managed to get what he wanted from his young cast. Simon explained one technique that Claude had used to stop them looking wooden in front of the camera. He would make sure they knew their lines, send the children to run to some point and back again, then shoot the scene while they were still animated from the running.
‘One aspect of the production mentioned in your book is the studio post-sychronisation. I can remember taking Simon up to Elstree Studios in Borehamwood to re-record some of the dialogue, sometime after the filming had been completed. Maybe you did the same. Simon had to wear headphones to listen to the film dialogue, while watching a scene from the film, and to repeat to a microphone the dialogue in exact synchronism with what he heard in the headphones and saw on the film. He said it was an extremely difficult thing to do, to talk over one’s own voice, exactly, and then to give it the right expression. I imagine it needs a lot of practice to get it right. The object was, of course, to dub over recorded dialogue which had either been poorly recorded or which included extraneous noise.
‘Finally, I did manage to watch one scene filmed, but from a great distance, which you do mention in your book, and that was the Darien scene shot at Runnymede sometime much later in the year. In 1973 it was the fashion for all schoolboys to wear their hair indecently long. At Simon’s school the rule was that the hair was just allowed to touch the collar but not an inch longer. Simon’s hair was no exception but he had had it shorn for and throughout the filming and it had just started to grow back when he was summoned to the Runnymede shoot. On our arrival at Runnymede Simon was immediately sat on a chair and had his locks shorn once again. I think he should have been paid a special indignity fee for that day’s work.’
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‘I remember watching the S&A float in the Lord Mayor’s Show pass by but the float passed too quickly to let you all spot our family in the crowd.
‘I also remember attending the film’s premier at the cinema in Shaftesbury Avenue, also attended by some minor member of royalty. It was a grand event and brought home to me that this was not some trivial little children’s entertainment but was a full length feature film of some standing. It must have been shown on British TV a dozen times over the years, particularly at Christmas, so it has stood the test of time by anybody’s standards.
‘That reminds me that at one point we made a half-hearted attempt to get Simon into Equity but without success. The result was that Simon only got paid a daily fee for his work on the film, with no residual payments for TV showings, overseas viewings or video and DVD earnings, to say nothing of his image appearing on a number of jigsaws!
‘You probably know that Simon also acted in a film made for children’s television in 1974, when he took the title role in Sam and the River. This was recorded on film and was shown on BBC TV in the form of six 30 minute episodes. It was before the days of video recorders so we have only ever seen the original transmission. Fifteen years ago I approached the production company to see if I could obtain a copy, but they had been reorganised since the film was shot and had kept no copy, nor record, of the production. I then approached the BBC and they did a search for me but they drew a blank. At one stage the BBC had a Philistine in charge who infamously threw out masses of, now priceless, BBC archives as being a waste of space. One day I hope to put a name to him. Simon has since found that the BFI have an archive copy of Sam and the River so I will approach them, but they do emphasise that they have no authority to make or issue copies of archive films. Might, however, get them to show it to us one day perhaps.’
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There were four jigsaws issued with the film. There is full image of the jigsaw above on an earlier post.
To read more about the adventures had during the filming, please click here
to read the first part of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’
Sophie Neville 
A fascinating piece of history for anyone interested in the film and how Simon came to get the part of John. Many thanks for sharing it with us, Sophie. Also, regarding Sam and the River, if the BFI have a copy, although it’s true that they don’t have the authority to release it on DVD, someone, most probably the BBC, could give them that authority. The West’s should contact the BBC again, tell them that the BFI have the series and would they please give the BFI permission to release it. If neither the BBC nor the company that made the film wish to retain any ownership on it, then it would have fallen into the public domain and the BFI could release it. However, I would be surprised if the copyright doesn’t still belong to someone and that someone could give the BFI permission to release it.
Thank you so much for such helpful comments. I have forwarded your advice to Simon.
Another route (the cheapest) is to encourage a DVD distributor to release the series. They would do all the leg-work. Revelation Films tell me that the DVD of the adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s Norfolk books, that we made back in 1983, has reached the top 10 in their DVD distribution. I have a feeling this could be due to my blog and a talk given to the NBT, after which the Nancy Blackett Trust bought a whole load for their shop. I wonder who sells other classic drama serials from the 1970’s and if programmes such as ‘Black Beauty’ are now available on DVD? I know you can get hold of ‘Arthur of the Britons’, which my sisters and I were in. I gather it’s become cult viewing in the States.
Quite a number of early 1970s British television series are available in full on DVD, Sophie, including Black Beauty; Boy Dominic (with Murray Dale) and Sam (with Kevin Moreton) and are available from amazon; Movie Mail; Network and all the usual outlets. So I see no reason why Sam and the River shouldn’t be released as well. In fact, I look forward to any potential release in the near future, if possible, and not another ten years from now.
Great. I wonder which is the best DVD company to approach with a request.
Network is the best for anything like that, as, although they mainly release titles that were originally shown on ITV, they maybe could licence it from the BBC if they BBC aren’t interested. In fact, the BBC have released very little of their back catalogue and, if it isn’t Doctor Who; Dad’s Army, or Only Fools and Horses, they don’t seem interested. But the BFI could also release it if they could get permission from the BBC, as they have released a lot of the old Children’s Film Foundation titles in the past two or three years. Tell Simon not to give up and to keep campaigning and pressing them for a release. It’s an excellent series and it’s very unfair that he has been denied seeing it since it was first broadcast some forty years ago. Something has to be done about this.
As fascinated as I am iwth Mr. West’s account and as excited as I am by the possibility of Sam and the River appearing one day on DVD, I’m most interested by the fact that a jigsaw puzzle was issued with images from the film. Do I understand correctly? And who in the world has a copy? Wouldn’t it be interesting to have an image of a completed puzzle!?!
I’ve seen about three different jigsaw images. One had the hateful publicity photograph of us all at Bank Ground Farm. I gave mine to the Nancy Blackett Trust to auction. You will find the full image of the one shown on a post about Ronald Fraser: https://sophieneville.net/2012/03/27/ronald-fraser-arrives-in-the-lake-district-to-play-captain-flint-in-1973/
If you are referring to the Swallows and Amazons jigsaw puzzles, four of them were issued in 1974 each containing a different scene from the film. I have three of them, which are the Walker children and their mother arriving at the railway station; the Walker children sailing Swallow and the Swallows and Amazons on Wild Cat Island. The fourth, which I have yet to obtain, was a scene of the Walker family sitting on the grass near Coniston Water.
Yes, if there are S&A jigsaws out there, it would be interesting to see images of the completed puzzles. A rainy afternoon project perhaps. Were there other collectibles issued back then? Perhaps I should explore Sophie’s site a little further!
Do write to Network and ask if they have ‘Sam and the River’ on DVD. If they receive enough requests they will stock it.
You really don’t want that fourth jigsaw puzzel.
But do write to Network and ask if they have ‘Sam and the River’ on DVD. If they receive enough requests they will stock it.
I may be wrong, but I think there may be some images of the jigsaw puzzle boxes somewhere on Sophie’s site (or did I see them in the film’s press book which I have in my collection?). There was also a 1974 LP record on EMI’s Music For Pleasure label of the story of the film taken directly from the film’s soundtrack that I have in my collection. I also have the original 35mm colour cinema sound trailer for the film in excellent condition that I can’t play because I haven’t got a projector to play it on, but it runs about three minutes, as well as original cinema quad and crown posters (30 x 40 inches and 60 x 80 inches respectively), as well as the original Front-of-House set of eight colour stills and a number of black and white press stills. I have known these items to appear on eBay on rare occasions, but they haven’t been on there for quite a while now. Unfortunately, I don’t have a digital camera (although I’ve promised myself I’d get one some day), so I can’t take photos of the jigsaws.
I’d love to see the original Front-of-House set of eight colour stills. See if you can find a scanner. I had to buy a new printer and managed to find an excellent Kodak ESP 5250 Printer and scanner for under £100.
I have two spare copies of the LP which I will take to the TARS IAGM. You just need a gramaphone player.
I already have scans of each of the eight Front-of-House stills in the set, Sophie, but there are no facilities for visitors to upload images on here. I used to have them all up on my flickr photostream, but deleted my flickr account last May when Google took the site over and changed things so much that I just couldn’t use it any more. I bought the LP many years ago and still have my early 1970s stereo record player. It’s over forty years old and still going strong.
Would you be able to email me copies of the scans?
No problem at all, Sophie, but I’d have to be given an email address to send them to. They would have to be sent across a number of emails, as if I tried to send eight large scans in one email, it would probably bounce back as undeliverable.
Why do you say that particular photo of you all sitting on the grass at Bank Ground Farm is hateful, Sophie? It looks alright to me. Does it hold an unhappy memory for you in some way? If so, I’m sorry.
We just thought it was silly to photograph us all together in such a crummy posed way. It would have been so much better to be down by the lake with the dinghies.
As Sam and the River was quite popular in Germany and there is a reissue on DVD ‘Tom und die Themse’ it would be nice to use the audio from the BFI as a second track for the next Eedition if they don’t do their on DVD at the BFI.
Do contact BFI.
More great memories of the film, thank you Sophie. And thank you Mr. West. I hope Simon’s sister has got over her disappointment by now!