The classic film Swallows and Amazons – currently streaming on Amazon – was made fifty years ago, and yet it still fascinates viewers. Here are a few interesting questions and points raised by Arthur Ransome enthusiasts that I ought to include in the next edition of my book written to accompany the remastered DVDs. It’s now out as an audiobook.
Roy Haslam wrote: ‘Must be a wonderful feeling to be connected to Swallows and Amazons that is loved by millions.’
I replied saying it could be overwhelming, but his comment made me think: If you could chose any movie to appear in what would it be? The amazing thing about the 1974 version of Swallows and Amazons was that we made it entirely on location. There were no computer graphics. There was no studio work until we reached the post-sync stage. We simply lived out the pages of the book.
Mike Clay thought, ‘for you children it must have been a confusing mixture of great excitement, frustration and boredom!’
It was in someways, but I would not say I was frustrated by anything more than falling behind at school. Missing the summer term put me in the second stream for Maths.
Hilary Dodd wrote: ‘I worked at the Warterhead Hotel at the time they were making Swallows and Amazons and the lead actors stayed there. Virginia McKenna, Brenda Bruce, Ronald Fraser, if memory serves. I was in charge of taking their order for dinner and generally making sure that they had everything they wanted in the restaurant. Miss McKenna was charming and treated all of us with courtesy, respect and politeness. The film company threw a big party at the end of filming for the locals as a thank you for the hospitality they received. We all worked incredibly hard but it was an exciting experience.’
David Thomson says he was sixteen at the time and a film extra in the Bowness scenes. ‘One member of the crew used the name Pierse Jessop when chatting up pretty girls in Ambleside.’ He was around on set but not a member of the film crew. As I remember, he provided the mobile loos.
A local lady told everyone she played Dame Virginia McKenna in the long-shots. I miss-spelt her name Toni Turner. It was Joni Turner. This idea could have been mooted as a possibility, but in the end there was no need for a double. Joni worked on set as Suzanna’s stand-in for a few days and is wearing Mrs Walker’s cardigan in one behind-the-scenes shot so she might have worked as a stand-in for Virginia McKenna, enabling the lighting cameraman to set up before the actors arrived on set.
Mike wrote that, “re-reading the stories virtually taught me to handle a dinghy. My thanks go to Arthur Ransome!”
Roger Sturge added, “Roger Altounyan taught my parents to sail in Mavis aka Amazon on Coniston Water in 1936.” He would have been aged about fourteen. “They always said while they were learning, Arthur Ransome would sail round them, but I’m not sure of the veracity of that… My first of many childhood adventures sailing on Coniston was in Amazon as a one year-old.”
…. a review of the DVD by Kieron Tyler who later observes, ‘it is also amusing watching… John (Simon West) bossing his younger brother and sisters about’, which is true! He read the wind, while we just sat in the boat waiting for orders.
Noel Flay Cass of The Arthur Ransome Group: ‘To put it in sailing terms, it can be very easy to think that you are a good sailor, or that sailing is easy, when the wind and tide are with you. It’s worth remembering that it might not seem so when you are always tacking against an ebb.’
Jennifer Bailey writes: ‘For the record, my daughter loves that you call out “Kill, kill!” approaching the houseboat. She finds Titty gratifyingly bloodthirsty.’
Neil Jeffery ‘Living on the coast in Cornwall as a child, I fell in love with the lakes first through your film and then the books! As a young child I so wanted a friend like Titty.’ He added, ‘I always escape back in time every year or so, most often with Swallows & Amazons. All classics, and probably led to my first career as a Deck Officer in Merchant Navy.’
The 1974 film was described as, ‘An escapade that brims over with laughter.’
‘I certainly think ‘Swallows and Amazons’ is top-of-the-crop of those made in 1973/74. The others haven’t stayed in the public mind anywhere near as long. I think ‘Swallows and Amazons'(1974) fully deserves the appellation ‘Timeless Classic’.’ Daivd Butters ‘You don’t realise how much thought and hard work goes into filming even a short sequence. I love the story about the sheep!’
I’m often greeted as a long-lost friend. It’s because characters in the stories have become friends to many.
Sekhmet of the Terven KPSS wrote that as a child, ‘I was so convinced that the Swallows and Amazons were all real people that I wrote to them to ask if I could go sailing with them. My mum kindly wrote me a postcard back from them. I recognised her handwriting, but it was still a lovely thing to do.’
One good thing about the film is that it helps us understand more about the book of Swallows and Amazons and subsequent novels in the series. Jon Blanchard writes, ‘I am just reading Picts and Martyrs noticing it is the only book where the Amazons appear without the Swallows. Then I wondered why the Amazons, unlike the Ds and Swallows, do not appear in a book on their own. And I came up with an answer. Nancy and Peggy are only seen through the eyes of the others. We get to see through the eyes of Titty, Roger and Dorothea and know their thoughts. We also see into the minds of Dick and occasionally John, although they are less interested in other people. But we do not get into the minds of Susan and the Amazons. Everyone looks up to Nancy and Peggy is her sidekick, so they would not work as the centre of consciousness in a whole book. All the others have doubts and anxieties however much they long for adventure, but Nancy never. There would not be any tension.
Sophie Neville 