“They’re pirates!” Sophie Neville as Titty in the EMI movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ made in 1973 and shown on ITV, Channel 4, BBC TV and Amazon Prime
“I hated you!” I was told after giving a talk at Denville Hall, the actor’s retirement home, this January. “I’d always loved the books and was upset when the film came out because I would have loved to have played Titty. I had been Titty as a child. Was Titty, and yet you got the part!” This left me wondering how many actors saw themselves as characters from Arthur Ransome books.
Julian Sands claimed to have had a Swallows and Amazons childhood, as did Dame Judi Dench who has mentions this in her audio book on Shakespeare and in interviews “…Swallows and Amazons, I remember that very well indeed.”
Timothy West and Prunella Scales talked about various Arthur Ransome books while on their canal barge series.
Alfred Enoch told Caitriona Balfe and Jack Edwards that he loved the series when they were reviewing the Booker Prize in 2023.
It was the late Sir Micheal Hordern admitted to be a devotee of Arthur Ransome and shared his love for fishing:
Miranda Hart, known for her work on Miranda, Call the Midwife, andNot Going Out, said, “Oh, I love these wonderful stories about outdoor life in one of the most beautiful parts of our country – the Lake District. Camping, sailing, exploring, discovering – it’s still the stuff of dreams for me. My favourite character was Peggy. She was shy and a little nervy but always kept up with her sister, who was captain of their boat. It was rather like me and my sister; although I was the elder, I was the shyer one, and often had to rely on my little sis to do the grown-up things. And I have to say Peggy is my favourite character still, because that’s partly who my dog is named after. I love that this book celebrates the importance and joy of friendship. But above all it harks back to a time when children had to use nature and their imagination to have fun through the long summer holidays. No iPads on tap here. I hope it inspires kids and adults who may have forgotten about the bliss and thrill and beauty of nature to rediscover it.” You magazine.
Victoria Wood and Martin Cloones have both referred to characters from Swallows and Amazons in spoofs.
Dan Stevens said of ‘Swallows and Amazons’, ‘It’s a book that was very very dear to my heart when I was young.’ He was going up for the part of Captain Flint at the time.
It would be easy to list those who have played characters in the films and television adaptations of ‘Coot Club’ and ‘Swallows and Amazons’ such as Dame Virginia McKenna or Ralph Spall who first loved the books, but I’d love to know more about Ransome’s fans.
Do you know of other actors who treasure his books or who have been influenced by any of the dramatised versions? Please add suggestions to the comments below.
A long-forgotten photograph of Sophie Neville aged 21
I reached the end of 2025 wondering what on Earth I’d accomplished apart from clearing out my mother’s house – an irksome project as she’d lived there for sixty years, but I found a lot of photos, piles of hand-written letters and other relics from making the original film ‘Swallows and Amazons’, including a news cuttings book and other finds, which I added to this website. I came across more graphics only yesterday, so watch this space.
Sue Anstruther, Alex Moore and Sophie Neville signing books at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith
February 2025, marked my first Doctor Who convention, when I was invited to speak on the panel after a screening of ‘Vengeance on Varos’. Great fun!
The fans have worked out that those on the production team have lots of stories and I was made very welcome. I’d forgotten that I had invented Varian knitting or wore red in the studio. Sadly, Nabil Shaban, who played our monster, Sil, was too ill to join us and died in October 2025.
Sophie Neville working on ‘Doctor Who’ with Nibil Shaban, Martin Jarvis and Forbes Collins
However, it was great to be reunited with other members of the cast including Geraldine Alexander who rushed over from the set of ‘Bridgerton’, and Colin Baker who I’d also worked with on ‘Coot Club’. You can read more about the day on this website.
Rob with Sophie Neville, Geraldine Alexander, Nicola Bryant, Stephen Yardley, Colin Baker and Forbes Collins
As a member of a film crew you are busy but invisible until your name is worthy of a credit. As a writer you are invisible until you win an award. One of my screenplays written in 2024 reached the semi-finals of the Scriptwriters & Co International Festival, which was exciting.
I was awarded an Honourable Mention for excellence in screenwriting at the glitzy International Film Gala in London, when I was joined by Lucy Calcott who has been editing my work.
This script was one of ten finalists in the Pitch Now screenplay competition.
I won a Lonely Wolf screenplay award, was in the running for a Creative Worlds Award
Being nominated and winning a screenwriters award at the New Media Film Festival in Los Angeles was exciting. While in Spain, I took part in an onscreen Writer’s Block Q&A chaired by Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings and was interviewed by Susan Johnston on what I’ve learnt as a writer. (I’ve learned that smelt is spelled smelled in America!)
The same WWII story won a genre award in the Page Turner Awards and another was shortlisted in their Culture Award.
Right at the end of the year, literally on 30th December, I won the Eyelands Book Award for an unpublished historical novel, which was encouraging. It’s the third award they have bestowed on me. I absolutely treasure the ceramic tree trophies.
From August 2025 onwards, I helped Children in Read raise nearly £10,000 for BBC Children in Read by taking part in an online charity book auction, which was fun and involved dialogue with many amazing writers.
It was great to receiver this illustrated review of the film ‘Swallows and Amazons’. My non-fiction books received flattering online reviews, which is always appreciated and Resolute Books inspired me to bring out my memoires as a trilogy of life as a single girl. This is exciting but on the back burner for now.
The Gondola on Coniston Water today, re-built and restored by the National Trust.
Meanwhile the National Trust asked if they could use my ‘Swallows and Amazons’ map of Coniston Water to promote MY Gondola’s cruises.
Map showing film locations around Coniston Water
Items featuring this map and others can be purchased from Redbubble:
Mugs printed with maps used to illustrate Sophie’s books
Meanwhile, real life continued to plung forward. We’ve had our house on the market and, whilst my mother was diagnosed with medium dementia, she refused to leave home. It made finding time for anything else tricky, but I managed a little litter picking.
We ploughed on with sorting through the vast number of letters and photographs Mum had stored all a-muddle.
What a task! As one friend said, ‘it’s bad enough finding homes in the house for things that come in use, let alone things that don’t!’
I was beginning to feel overwhelmed when I was asked to knit poppies for a commemorative installation at church. This was so calming that I made about 150 whilst watching dramas. My excuse for imbibing every crime serial available is that I need to examine script construction. I shot footage of our ‘towering achievement’ for BBC South Today and aided a drone photographer who took this shot for The Guardian and other national papers.
For some years now, I have been the webmaster for The Waterberg Trust, a UK registered charity supporting amazing projects in a corner of rural South Africa. We sponsor the role of the only school nurse working in the Limpopo Province. Along with caring for pupils, she has established four school vegetable gardens and distributes food parcels to those in need. I’ve started a project knitting hats to take them as an encouragement in 2026.
You can read about life at my parents’ house in my memoir ‘Funnily Enough’, which won a Rubery Book Award when it first came out and is now available as a paperback for £7.99, on Audible and other audiobook platforms. The illustrations look best on the ebook version. You can see a free sample here.
Funnily Enough – the paperback with black and white illustrations
Sophie Neville 