A signed first edition paperback of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ sells for £251 in an auction in aid of BBC Children in Need

I woke up this morning to find an anonymous donor bid £251 for a signed first edition of my book ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’. The money raised goes directly to BBC Children in Need, where it is carefully monitored.

Nearly eight hundred amazing books had been donated to the Children in Read charity auction organised by Paddy Heron, which raised a staggering total of £24,888.

Online bidding began about seven weeks ago and was advertised by the authors themselves on social media.

Rare copies of my first edition paperback of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ are often priced highly on Amazon so, when the bidding went above £75, I promised to include a signed first edition hardback of my memoir ‘Funnily Enough’, which includes a brief section on appearing in the film.

When the bidding went above £101, I promised to add my third illustrated memoir about Swallows and Amazons style adventures in Africa, written in letter form.

However, £251 is so very generous that I am off to my archive store to see if I can find a hand-painted map to include in the package.

I drew three different maps showing our film locations in the Lake District and reproduced them in different colour-ways, using one on the cover of my original ebook entitled ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons (1974)’, which is still available on Kindle and any of the ebook outlets.

You can see a selection of my other maps on my Instagram page here

I added these ones to mugs and other useful items available to order from Redbubble They make good presents.