Since Classic TV Press published ‘The Making of Swallows & Amazons’ in 2014, a number of facts have floated to the surface. The most amazing recollection was one that occurred to my mother.
‘The letter inviting you to come for an interview for a part in the film was addressed to your father. He was working abroad when it arrived. I never, ever opened his mail but something urged me to open that one envelope. It was a good thing I did as he was away for three weeks and we would have missed the opportunity altogether.’ She was amazed by the contents and replied at once, sending a photograph to Theatre Projects. I think it was this rather miserable one of me wearing a Laura Ashley dress.
Sophie Neville in 1972
A date was made to meet the director. I now remember that I was taken up to Long Acre in the West End to meet Claude Whatham very soon after Dad arrived back from his business trip. We walked through Soho and visited a Chinese grocery store on the way home.
Daphne Neville on HTV in 1973
‘I was never paid to work on the set as chaperone,’ Mum told me. ‘Neither was Jane. We were just happy that our expenses were covered but it ended up costing me quite a bit as I had to travel back to Bristol to work now and again.’ She was working for HTV as a television presenter alongside Jan Leeming, who is currently appearing on ‘The Real Marigold Hotel’. For the photo of them both on an HTV West show, please click here
Jean McGill said she didn’t get paid for acting as the Unit Nurse, as far as she could remember, ‘But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
The most exciting thing was meeting Kerry Darbyshire, who played Vicky’s nurse, at Zeffirelli’s cinema in Ambleside for the 40th Anniversary screening of the film. I learnt to my horror that I had mis-spelt her name in the credits I gave the actors. All I had to go on was her signature in the back of my copy of the hardback book of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ where I’d collected autographs.
Kerry laughed, telling me, ‘I should have had more legible handwriting.’ She appeared in the film quite a bit. ‘It was a pity I wasn’t able to bring my own child. She was the exact same age and colouring as the little girl they found to play baby Vicky.’ Kerry was with us in the compartment of the train on day one of the shoot. ‘I found it very difficult to laugh with you when the train went into the tunnel.’ I couldn’t think what she meant at first but it was the laughter that followed Virginia McKenna’s line: ‘He’d say, “Just look at that scenery”.’ at the moment the train goes into a dark tunnel. ‘You children found it no problem at all, but I couldn’t laugh. I was too shy.’ Zeffirelli’s are next screening ‘Swallows & Amazons’ (1974) at 7.30pm on 2nd March.
I never knew the name of the snake wrangler – who brought the charcoal burners’ adder along, but Ken Foster wrote in recently to say it was his father, John Foster whose family farmed near Satterthwaite. He was once employed as an assistant at the fresh-water biology research establishment at Windermere and became a biological specimen supplier. You can read more about his unusual occupation here
To read more about the day the adder arrived on location, please click here.
Simon West, who played Captain John, remembered that Claude Whatham often used to take us for a quick run before going for a take. It freshened us up and was appropriate when we had to run into shot, slightly out of breath.
One little girl wrote to tell me how she pulls her dress over her knees just as I did when I played Titty, as I got rather cold in a scene when were were first sailing Swallow to the island.
George Marshall, the veteran film accountant, assured me we had a very talented film crew. Mark Birmingham, a film producer currently working on the bio-pic of Noel Coward, knew quite a few of the individuals working on ‘Swallows & Amazons’ and told me of the amazing careers they went on to lead. ‘Your Best Boy, Denis Carrigan, went on to run Sherperton Studios.’ Denis worked closely with Ridley Scott who made many great films there. ‘Sadly one of the other electricians died when he grabbed a live cable.’
Other people have written with interesting stories relating to the film locations.
‘The shop in Woodland Road was my grandfather Tom Kirkbride’s cobblers shop from 1930s to 1956,’ Brian Salisbury wrote. ‘After he retired, the wooden building became Stan Cropper’s sweet shop doing a roaring trade with the boys at St Mary’s Boys School just along the road and the newly built Droomer Estate.’ This was the shop where we bought rope for the Light House Tree that is now a barber’s in Windermere. To read more about this location and others in Windermere, please click here
Is there anything you would like to add?
Sophie Neville 
Thanks Sophie for some more interesting information about the film.
Are you planning a second edition (or should I say are the publishers letting you produce one!)
Sorry, there were lots of typos in that post – now corrected, I hope.
Roger Wardale promised me that the filmography would always be a ‘work in progress’. I hope we will bring out a second edition if only to correct the spelling of Kerry’s name and add John Fosters’.
Thanks Sophie. I’m sure you are aware that sadly Roger died in December, but according to recent posts on TarBoard he left arrangements in his will etc for his Ransome archives etc to be preserved.
Yes, I was told that Roger died. A great loss. He was always so supportive and helpful. I asked when his funeral or thanksgiving service would be held but have not heard.
Yes, rather stilted. It was filmed early on when Suzanna was ill and rain was falling outside. John was given too much brown make up so looks rather odd.
Life imitates art, even anticipates it. Remember the absent Father in Swallows and Amazons. My only query is why their mother was not having an affair…the drawing room scene was pretty awful, wasn’t it? Out of Dostoevsky. Now tell me, do you like Riddle of the Sands?
Yes, I loved ‘Riddle of the Sands’ but haven’t read it for ages.
Thank you Sophie for these reminiscences and behind-the-scenes stories, they really are so entertaining and at the same time so valuable. They make one wish that someone had done the same for the films of Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffiths, Eisenstein, etc.
I’m sure that the reason we kept more memorabilia than normal was that because we incorporated it in our school work. I kept very little from the other film I appeared in and virtually nothing from any of the television drama serials I worked on. I have address books and one or two photos but nothing like the collection gathered as a child.
Well, I am really pleased that you did for ‘Swallows & Amazons’.