Points to add to the third edition of ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’ part ten.

It’s fascinating to hear about links people have with the original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ made on location in the Lake District in the early 1970s.

Amanda Currie wrote to say, ‘My family had quite a lot to do with the film. My cousin’s bro-in-law was the art director… My Dad was one of the Lake Wardens he had great fun keeping tourists away from the filming on the lake. Captain Flint stayed at our friends’ hotel and boy did they have some funny tales to tell. The couple who owned it were called Tim and Eileen, they would be in their eighties now I would think. Of course we were all extras.’

She added, ‘We were all massive Swallows and Amazons fans long before the film, as when my Grandma lived in Blackpool they used to stay at what was the Blackett’s house, and on occasion bumped into Arthur Ransome.’

Jean McGill, our unit driver, used to pick up Ronald Fraser every morning, a difficult task as he was always drunk. “Dreadful man, swearing and shouting around the place,” she said. “Appalling behaviour.” Jean had been the Chief Air Stewardess and cabin services superintendent in Bahrain for what is now Gulf Air. “I had to leave because I wouldn’t marry the general manager, who was having a nervous breakdown.” She was going out with the Captain of the Sir Galahad, the ship that went down in the Falklands, “along with the coffee pot I’d given him.” She also told me that they had a known terrorist one of her flights, “who then got on the BOAC flight that landed in the desert.” He had wanted to free Lela Kallard.

The Arthur Ransome Group have been discussing the true model for the Peak at Darien. Mrs Ransome told the film producer Richard Pilbrow that you could find it on Windermere.

Paul Flint says that, ‘good contenders are Brathay Rocks and Gale Naze Crag on Windermere’, pointing out that both were well known to the Ransomes. It would be interesting to know what islands you can see from these.

Friar’s Crag on Derwent Water was used for the opening titles of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974) Stuart Clague informed me that it  is a dolerite dyke intruded into softer Skiddaw slate, as mentioned in the book Lakeland Geology.

The Arthur Ransome Trust has an App to help you find locations detailed here

This is the platform at Haverthwaite station on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway in Haverthwaite, Cumbria. Manuel Gurtner points out that the heritage railway also appears in ‘Without a Clue’ (1988), the witty movie starring Michael Caine as Sherlock Holmes and Ben Kingsley as Dr Watson. You can spot the carriages at scenes shot in the Lake District in the film trailer.

You can read more about how the original film was made back in 1973 in the ebook ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’ or the paperback ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ also available on Audible. There are a few pages about it in another memoir, ‘Funnily Enough’.