After being lucky enough to play the heroines in both ‘Swallows and Amazons’ and an adventure movie called ‘The Copter Kids’, a transgender role came my way.
I was asked if I would mind playing a Dutch messenger boy in ‘Kidnapped’ produced by HTV and Tele München Fernseh Produktionsgesellschaft (TMG) in 1978. It was a high profile television series at the time–a TV movie made in glorious locations, but my part was tiny.
Appearing as a messenger boy in ‘Kidnapped’ produced by Patrick Dromgoole for HTV.
I was literally given five minutes notice. They happened to be using a film location in Bisley, near my home in the Cotswolds, and had forgotten to cast the boy who brought a key message to the hero played by the German actor Ekkehardt Belle.
The formidable producer, Patrick Dromgoole, knew my little sister Tamzin had played Elka in ‘Arthur of the Britons’, which he’d produced in 1970. Tamzin had been carried out of a Saxon longboat in Oliver Tobias’s arms and rode over the hills with Michael Gothard.
Tamzin Neville with Oliver Tobias in ‘Arthur of the Britons’
Looking back, Patrick Droomgool may have asked if Tamzin had been available but any child under sixteen, including his own boys, would have needed a licence to act from the Department of Education. These took at least six weeks to come through. Being seventeen I had no need of one and yet was in the rare position of possessing an Equity card. Did my smart London agent broker the deal? No, my mother did. I knew the Robert Louis Stephenson’s story, put down my A’Level revision and agreed to take on the little part. I had nothing to lose.
The Scottish actor David McCallum was on set, starring in the series as Alan Breck Stewart, the Culloden hero. I had seen ‘The Great Escape’, ‘Colditz’ and knew him as The Invisible Man but had no idea that he had played The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a role that had made him something of a sex symbol in America. He is said to have received more fan mail than any other actor in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s history. He went on to star in ‘Saphire and Steel’ with Joanna Lumley and played the pathologist Dr “Ducky” Mallard in 460 episodes of ‘NICS’, the popular American crime series on CBS-TV. I gather he really disliked being famous. I was surprised to find that at 5’7″ he was shorter than me.
Ekkehardt Belle was only a few years older than me and gorgeous. He played the modest but handsome young David Balfour in search of his rightful inheritance. The ensuing adventure took him to the Netherlands where our scene was set. It was Sophie and the sex symbols – only I was made up to look like a grubby guttersnipe in tattered clothing and looked most unattractive.
My job was to dart across a courtyard and present the hero with an important message sealed with wax and wait for instruction before disappearing down an alley. I had to react to his response but had no lines, nothing to say.
The only difficult thing was coping with the cold. It was freezing and I was dressed in very little. No thermal vest or longjohns were provided. The peculiar item in the left hand side of the photo above is a snow machine. Real snow would not have been unexpected. Patrick Dromgoole was sympathetic and offered moral support as we waited for camera track to be laid.
The scene took a while to shoot thanks to various set ups that included a top shot of me running though the snow as the end credits roll.
Sophie Neville as a messenger boy in ‘Kidnapped’. There were very few female parts in the epic series
‘Kidnapped’ can now be watched on Youtube. It takes you back to the ‘seventies but is pretty clonky. I had to sit through the whole series to find our scenes at the end of the story. You won’t be able to spot me. I recognise the location and can just see myself dashing though an establishing shot . The delivery of the message – once thought so vital – seems to have been cut. I do not appear in close up, I was given no credit. It was all for nothing, apart from the fact that I was paid rather well for a teenager.
The theme music was memorable. You can see me briefly with the ducks in a single shot after Christopher Biggins (playing the Bonnie Prince) sends David McCallum packing. Watch if you dare. It all looks so dated.
To finance my way through university, I registered with an agent in Bournemouth called Lenny and appeared in the background action of about sixty dramas including ‘Tenko’ and ‘Agatha’. You can read a little more about my brief career as a film extra if you scroll down on this website here. It was a good, if humbling, way to gain experience in film and television production, but I never worked with David McCallum again. I can’t remember any more sex symbols but I played a guest at ‘Murder at the Wedding’ with Christopher Biggins, and found myself in Ronnie Barker’s arms. That was fun.
Sophie Neville as Titty – a photo montage of put together by a fan of the film
Google my name and you will come across rather astonishing newspaper headlines ingrained in the internet’s listing system. They are remarkably popular articles. I woke one morning to a comment from Australia alerting me to a peTITTYon in the Daily Telegraph – you could cast your vote online ‘More support for Titty!’ was one cry.
Everyone, it seems, wants to know what it is like to be called Titty.
It is a titualar title in that I have no power. I can do little more than respond with good humour to those who see me as a living representative of ‘Swallows and Amazons’. Like it or not, letters, emails and messages keep arriving addressed to Titty. They are all wonderful, some so enchanting they have been kept along with the old black and white stills taken on location. I attempt to answer each one.
Simon West as John and Sophie Neville as Titty on location on Peel Island, 1973
Having been known as Titty since 1973, I automatically respond when the name is called and wave back, as I’m sure the Able-seaman would. It is quite fun seeing the reaction of passers-by if children call out ‘Titty!’ when they see me coming, but as one church warden pointed out, ‘At least your real name is not John Prescott.’
I found there was a Facebook group called ‘Titty from Swallows & Amazons is one hot cookie.’ When I asked to join the group, all the other members fled. You can see for yourself. It is still there. I am pretty sure they were a group of fashion students – or hope so.
Sophie Neville as Titty Walker
What creepy people don’t seem realise is that I can see the words typed into search engines that bring people to my own website. I’ve had some crackers. It was the navy blue gym knickers I wore to play the part of Titty that attracted quite a bit of unfortunate attention. I had to remove a few photographs featuring this particular item of my costume and talk about the green parrot instead. Children often ask if I still have one.
Susie, Taqui, Titty and Roger Altounyan in 1928
Although Titty Walker is a fictional character, with adventures of her own, she was inspired by a real child known to Arthur Ransome when he was writing ‘Swallows and Amazons’ back in 1929. I have written about her here and have more photos of her on this website. Titty Altounyan’s real name was Norah Mavis Altounyan but she preferred the nickname of Titty. Ransome explained in a note to Miss Joyce Cartmell that ‘Titty is short for Tittymouse which is what she was called when she was a baby. Nobody ever calls her anything but Titty now’. Tittymouse was a character in English folktale Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse.
If anything, Titty Altounyan lived rather reluctantly with the fame that came along when the novel became a bestseller. Her descendants were upset to hear that the character’s name was changed to Tatty in the 2016 film adaptation of ‘Swallows and Amazons’. Her daughter was tearful about the lack of consultation and her niece outraged. They saw it as ‘history being re-written’. Ransome was a journalist but what he would have thought of the editor of the Guardian coining the ‘Titty Tatty’ story, which others called ‘Tittle-Tattle’ or the ‘Tittygate debate’, I do not know.
Simon West and Sophie Neville bring Swallow into the Secret Harbour on Wildcat Island
I learned that it wasn’t until after 1929, that the word ‘titty’ took on meaning as a mammary gland. The character’s name was changed to Kitty when the BBC made a black and white television serial of the book back in 1962 when Susan George played the part. Ransome was still living in the Lake District at the time. He seemed to accept the name change, but loathed additions to the story-line and the attitude of the director who had wanted to blast rocks from the entrance to Peel Island on Coniston Water. As you can see from an earlier post, I was contracted to play the part of ‘Titania’ in the movie made in 1973, but the name TITTY was typed throughout the screenplay. Mrs Ransome was the script editor.
Sophie Neville as Titty and Stephen Grendon as Roger rowing to Cormorant Island
Ransome’s brilliance was that he made Able-seaman Titty, the little sister into the heroine of ‘Swallows and Amazons’. CS Lewis did the same by making Lucy Pevensie heroine of ‘The Chronicles of Nania’. It is not surprising that most little girls reading the story want to ‘be Titty’. They find the syllables easy to pronounce and don’t give a second thought to an alternative meaning to the name. It is accepted as genuine, and they tend to regard jokers as immature. ‘May I call you Titty?’ one five-year-old asked. What could I say? She knows that her cat has titties on her tummy but that’s not rude and it’s no reason to change the name in her eyes. I am assured that girls in the US don’t bat an eyelid. Boys may snicker at first but are soon swept away by the story.
The new audiobook
You can read about how I came by the part and what it was like to be on location in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ now available as an audio book.
The crossed flags my publisher asked me to draw (with permission) that were later used on the call sheet of the 2016 movie.
“The graphic novel version of ‘Swallows and Amazons’?” Not exactly. These illustrations made up a five-part “serialisation strip” or “picture strip” provided for cinemas to include in promotional material advertising screenings of the original movie. They were designed to be, “particularly suitable for running on the Children’s Page of your local newspaper for the five days proceeding the film’s premiere.”
These were distributed in April 1974 along with colour photographs, black and white stills and background information on the characters and the actors who played them. The quotes are quite fun: ‘Ronald Fraser has few illusions about either his face or his dramatic abilities. “…it’s the old hooter that does it you know… I read Swallows and Amazons many years ago as a young rip and seem to remember imagining myself as John, leader of the Swallows. Now it turns out that I’m Uncle Jim after all.”‘
Dame Virginia McKenna said how much she loved the books, explaining that she was on a family holiday in Sardinia when she was offered the part of mrs Walker. Her husband, the film actor Bill Travers, accepted on her behalf, knowing she would love working in the Lake District.
The film director, Claude Whatham was also profiled. He had previously made the movie “That’ll Be The Day” with Ringo Starr and David Essex, which was released in cinemas with an LP featuring pop songs of the 1950s.
The LP that accompanied ‘Swallows and Amazons’ was narrated by David Wood, the screenwriter who had adapted Arthur Ransome’s novel. It is rather wonderful to have a recording of Wilfred Joseph’s iconic score. I was amazed to find pictures of myself on the cover.
Specialist advertising material such as this, being over fifty years old, is both rare and collectable. Four jigsaw puzzles and the Puffin paperback were produced, featuring film stills taken on location by Albert C Clarke.
There were puzzels, such as this maze, along with pictures to colour and “spot the difference” blocks, which you can see on an earlier post on this website. All these ideas were probably generated by our wonderful film publicist Brian Doyle. I’ve written about the preview screenings and his work on an eariler post here.
Brian was on location the entire time we were filming, showing around journalists almost every day. You can read the full account of how we made the film in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’, which is now available as an audiobook, narrated by me, Sophie Neville.
Sophie Neville, who played Titty in the original film ‘Swallows and Amazons’, gave a special talk on what is was like to take the lead part in a feature film at the Museum of Carpet in Kidderminster, on Saturday 21st February.
Richard Pilbrow, who produced the original film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ had been married to Vicky Brinton whose family donated many of the items on display at the former mill, along with a huge poster in the conference room.
Sophie was born in Worcestershire, seven miles from the venue. Her great-grandfather, Canon Hastings Neville, was a curate in Kidderminster and one of his ten sons, the Olympic athlete Dick Neville, pioneered the manufacture of woolen carpets in New Zealand, developing a crossbreed of sheep for the purpose. In 1960, he employed Richard Pugh-Cook who returned to the Midlands and founded the Museum of Carpet thirteen years ago.
About seventy people packed into the conference room to listen to the talk, which enjoyed a great response. “The degree of factual information contained in it is amazing…all those details of 50 years ago conveyed with such clarity and enthusiasm!”
“….such an inspiration to so many people especially younger people who have such different lives these days – another era then, it seems, but one we should not forget.”
“a great success – everyone seemed to have throughly enjoyed your talk, hearing about the other side of filming!”
Sophie signed copies of her books after the talk when she had a chance to meet ‘Swallows and Amazons’ enthusiasts and a little girl hoping to become a film actress. The event was covered in the local news.
“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
I thought I’d lost it! But, on clearing out our mother’s house, my sister found the cuttings book I kept whilst making the original movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in 1973.
It includes a plan of the London double-decker bus where we received rudimentary lessons on location. Three bunkbeds on the top floor were meant to be used so we could rest after lunch. Mum said she forced me to lie down everyday but I can only remember a couple of occasion, once when I was reluctant, once when I was freezing cold after a swimming scene.
We changed into our costumes at the top of that bus, enjoying warmth from a gas stove that leaked rather alarmingly on one day necessitating an evacuation.
The exterior looked liked a conventional Routemaster with added curtains.
Once sitting at my desk, I found my italic fountain pen and began keeping a diary. One version of the first seven days spent in Cumbria is pasted into the scrap book. I later re-wrote a slightly more detailed and interesting version in a couple of notebooks and wrote about how I got the part of Titty, and the filming from different perspectives.
These pages describe the day spent travelling to Ambleside and a couple of days spent getting to know each other along with Dame Virginia McKenna, who played the Swallows’ mother, the producer Richard Pilbrow, David Blagden who was in charge of the sailing and the film director Cluade Whatham.
Encouraged by my mother, we began pasting in newspaper cuttings.
The Times and the Guardian were at Havethwaite Railway Station to take photographs on the first day of filming. The BBC Radio 4 newsreader, Alan Smith, who grew up in Cumbria, was a film extra that day and can be spotted standing in train doorway with his brother. He wrote to me with his memories of the day.
I began adding photos from contact sheets that Albert Clarke, the film’s stills photographer, took of the cast and crew. I wrote about the opening locations here.
There are pages of dictation and a few sketches of the film props. I drew the yellow Austin ‘taxi’ we drove in at the station.
There were some cuttings that I hadn’t seen for years until until I opened the pages of this mislaid cuttings book. Others can be found on earlier posts.
I took pages of dictation, learning about the plants and geology of the Lake District, about Beatrix Potter and the National Trust, but it’s a wonder any schoolwork was accomplished at all. We spent so much time on set. I fell behind in French and Maths but gained respectable exam grades that summer, gaining 80% in Geography. Perhaps I wrote about glacial lakes.
You can read more about the adventures we had whilst filming ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in books detailed on this website.
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
There is now an audiobook on ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ published by The Lutterworth Press and available on all online platforms including Audible.
I arrived two weeks early and was born at home, delivered by my great-grandmother in my parents’ cottage, the Old Bakery in the village of Clent in Worcestershire in 1960. Tell Laura I Love Her and Save the Last Dance For Me were top of the charts.
Sophie Neville as a child ~ photo: Martin Neville
Can you give us background on your parents and what they did for a living?
My father worked in Press and Publicity at BIP where he launched fibre glass boat manufacturing by setting up an experimental workshop in Covent Garden. My mother married on her 21st birthday just before graduating from RADA. She was in the same year as Susannah York and the playwright Hugh Whitmore, but took a break in her career to get married and have us children.
Painting with my father on the shore of Coniston Water
Do you have any siblings?
I have three little sisters, so I was never lonely. Perry had a small part in the classic HTV series Arthur of The Britains and later played the teacher in Bernard’s Watch. Tamzin had leading roles in six television productions playing Elka in Arthur of the Britons, Anthea in The Phoenix and the Carpet and Linda in Love in a Cold Climate with Judi Dench and Michael Aldridge playing her parents.
My mother playing mother and Tamzin as Anthea in The Phoenix and the Carpet
My adopted sister Mary-Dieu suffered from polio as a baby so was in hospital a lot or on crutches, but appeared as a film extra in Abide With Me and the wartime drama Tenko, which she enjoyed.
Appearing in the BBC drama serial Tenko
Where were you schooled and were you academic?
I am a visual learner and could have gone to art college but concentrated on English, history and geography, going on to read anthropology with ethnography and psychology, subjects I draw on continuously as a writer. The most useful subject I took at university was cartography. All the best books contain maps and I draw my own.
Swallows and Amazons map of Coniston Water
Did you have any early career aspirations and did you go onto further education?
I went to the University of Durham, where I made wonderful friends including Alastair Fothergill who produced Our Planet and most of Sir David Attenborough’s iconic serials, along with a number of wildlife movies for Disney. I missed my viva – an oral aspect of my Finals – because I opted to go filming in the Charmague, but would you turn down that opportunity? We went on to film in Kenya and recce locations in Zaire and Uganda.
Alastair Fothergill making ‘Wildlife on One’ at Lake Nakuru ~ photo: Sophie Neville
Where did your creative flair and love for acting and writing come from?
We are all born to create. There are times when I have been tempted to take a more managerial path but I feel called to write, so that’s what I do.
Sophie Neville with some of the books she has written
Did you come from a creative family?
My father loved design concepts and developed products with his team at work, notably the cable tie. You find them everywhere now. My mother has always held a burning desire to act and brought out a children’s book in the 1980s, which is still in print. I feel she has more talent as a writer than an actress but she loves the social aspect of filming. At the age of 85, she appeared in Top Boy and was involved in filming The Repair Shop when they visited Denville Hall, the actors’ retirement home in November 2025.
Daphne Neville with Christopher Lee in ‘Diagnosis Murder’
How did you manage to get your lucky break as an actress?
I was able to play the piano. I took my music along, practiced seven or eight hours a day, and did what I was told.
Sophie Neville playing Elieen Brown in the BBC adaptation of ‘Cider with Rosie’
Can you recall your first acting credit?
As a child, I appeared as a film extra in classic drama serials such as The Changes and Arthur of the Britons but gained my first acting credit as Eileen Brown in the BBC play Cider With Rosie, adapted by Hugh Whitmore. I had my hair chopped off for my first movie, and went on to act in a few more productions.
Sophie Neville having her hair cut on location for the part of Titty Walker in 1973
Your C.V. covers several areas including behind the scenes television and film related roles. Let’s start at the beginning of your career and find out what inspired you to become an actress and did you have any early influences?
I wasn’t so much inspired as simply offered an amazing opportunity, which is exceptionally rare. I was invited to an interview to appear in an adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s book, Swallows and Amazons when I was aged twelve. Of all the parts in all the books, I was asked if I would like to play Titty. How could I turn that down? I loved the Lake District, enjoyed camping and was happy in a boat. I did it for fun.
Sophie Neville as Titty
Swallows and Amazons is a classic family film released in 1974. Can you tell us about your experiences working on the film? What are your overriding memories and what does the film mean to you personally?
It proved hard work and involved a lot of hanging around in the cold, but I loved the period aspect and thrived spending time outdoors on location. Filming on Derwentwater was amazing. We had our own desert island, pine trees to climb and a houseboat to attack. Making Ronald Fraser walk the plank was fun. He did it rather well.
Sophie Neville as Titty on Cormorant Island ~ photo: Daphne Neville
You’ve written two books on your experiences of working on Swallows and Amazons: The Making of Swallows and Amazons and The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons. What made you decide to write two books on the film and were your memories still fresh and vivid when recounting the stories?
I had the amazing cine footage that my parents took behind-the-scenes on location that they BBC put on a DVD when they made Countryfile and Big Screen Britain, presented by Ben Fogle. I’d already set up my own publishing company and was employing a formatter who suggested we brought The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons as a multi-media ebook, including this unique footage and my parents photos (that you would never be allowed to take on location these days). This did so well as an ebook that it was picked up by the publisher Classic TV Press. They gained permission to add official stills from the film and brought it out as a large paperback with colour plates entitled The Making of Swallows and Amazons. It was then bought by The Lutterworth Press who re-designed it in 2017.
How were your books on Swallows and Amazons received by fans and critics?
Each edition had been received with huge enthusiasm. I had terrific publicity in the Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail and am hugely appreciative of all the book reviews left by readers online. I didn’t want to spoil the magic of the film but nearly fifty years have passed since it first came out and fans like to visit the locations. I’ve included maps and all the information needed to find them.
Can I ask your take on the film’s fanbase, how it’s regularly shown and embraced by new audiences? What do you think is the film’s overall appeal?
Being a family classic, as you say, it has become generational. People who originally watched it in the cinema in 1974 want their children and children’s children to see it. When an audience of 250 piles into a cinema to see the re-mastered version, you can appreciate what an amazing landscape movie it is. The humour is drawn out when you watch it with an audience, which is wonderful and you emerge from the auditorium feeling elated.
A recent cinema screening
You’ve appeared in several classic television serials and programmes: Crossroads, The Two Ronnies and Cider With Rosie. What are your memories from working on those shows and did that exposure lead to other opportunities?
I didn’t realise that Ronnie Baker directed the Two Ronnies, or at least the Charley Farley and Piggy Malone serial with in it. He inspired me to direct comedy. I adored working with him and only wish we’d done more together. He had me for an informal interview on location one lunchtime. I blew it, but did end up directing a bit of comedy at the BBC.
Ronnie Corbet with Sophie Neville filming ‘The Two Ronnies’
6. Who have you enjoyed working with the most in front and behind the camera? Have any of your colleagues acted as mentors and have you gained greater knowledge about the industry from any of them?
So many! Suzanna Hamilton and Anthony Calf are the actors I’d want to work with again. They brought out the best in me. Claude Whatham was the mentor who advised me before I went for my first interview to work in television production. He said, ‘Filming is all about using your time well.’ Writers are wonderful about sharing every tiny piece of knowledge but my own formatter Lisa Skullard mentored me on new technology, for which I am grateful.
Claude Whatham ~ photo: Daphne Neville
7. What made you decide to make the transition from an actress to a behind-the scenes member?
Even as a child I was more interested in the logistics and production side of making dramas.
Can you talk about some of the projects you’ve worked on including being an assistant floor manager of EastEnders, My Family and Other Animals, Bluebell, Doctor Who along with your directing and producing credits?
I was very fortunate to work in BBC Drama Series and Serials at the very zenith of production in the 1980s. It was such a privilege to work on My Family and Other Animals as it was made entirely on location in Corfu. I helped cast the little boy and did the research, interviewing Gerald Durrell, who came out on location with his lovely wife Lee Durrell. I carried out the historical and film research on Miss BlueBell’s life and met her in Paris where we filmed one summer. I also worked on the zoo vet series One by One, and became a location manager on Rockcliffe’s Babies. Producing my own series, INSET, shot in Cumbria, Wiltshire and Sheffield was unforgettable. I had such a good team and we were in a position to do ground-breaking work.
At Elstree Studios for the BBC Drama Directors’ studio course. I am wearing a green sweater.
You are an award-winning writer with several books to your credit. What made you decide to become a published author and of the books you’ve written, which are you most proud of and why?
Writing Funnily Enough was a huge challenge. I felt I was laying my whole life out before the world. It’s a dark comedy. As all the stories expose my friends and family, I opted to self publish so that I could make changes. My brother-in-law was working in Libya and I didn’t want him to be shot. In the end I was only asked to change the name of a town and the names of three characters. I’ve changed them back now. My brother-in-law now regularly talks about his book on Libya on Sky Television.
Funnily Enough – the paperback with black and white illustrations
9. How does the creative writing process work for you? How long does it take you to prepare and plan a book and do you have a set time for writing?
I need at least two years to write, edit and develop a novel, even though I put in about eight hours work a day. I often start at 6.30am and am a complete work-aholic. Only other writing, such as articles, and inevitable admin get in the way. My husband has to do the shopping.
A travel book with a difference
We’ve spoken about the many areas and capacities you’ve worked in: Acting, a floor manager, a researcher, producer, director and a published author. Do you have a favourite discipline and if so, why?
I loved every aspect of directing – felt as if I was flying – but you need huge stamina and total application. My husband needs me at home, so writing is an easier career path to follow although I travel quite a bit giving talks and conducting research.
Giving a talk in Cowes
11. Away from your creative endeavours, can we discuss some of your other loves and interests: Anthropology, your love of animals, charity work and archery.
My family have kept tame otters for almost forty years, hand-rearing abandoned babies and lecturing on conservation. I am now Patron of the UK Wild Otter Trust. I emigrated to southern Africa in 1992 and ended up volunteering on a number of projects, helping to set up a charity to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. One million people still die from AIDS every year. We continue to run HIV prevention and awareness in schools, employing a nurse to care for those on anti-retrovirals and keep an eye on the orphans, many of whom are in their teens.
I learnt to shoot with a long bow on the set of Swallows and Amazons. This was pivotable as it led to a leading role in an adventure movie, The Copter Kids, with Sophie Ward and Vic Armstrong. The sport also introduced me to my husband. He was Chairman of the archery society my parents belonged to.
Sophie with her husband on the coast of South Africa
Can I also ask you what made you decide to emigrate to South Africa and can you tell us about your 12-years living there?
You’ll have to read my books, ‘Funnily Enough’ and ‘Ride the Wings of Morning’. Every details lies within the pages.
Final Questions to Finish Interview
1. What’s your favourite past time? Walking along beaches
2. What’s your favourite film and why? I have to admit that Swallows and Amazons (1974) is a nostalgia trip for me. It’s been described as ‘mesmerizing’.
3. Who’s your favourite novelist? Karen Rosario Ingerslev
4. If you could have had a different profession what would it have been? Mother
5. Who has been your greatest inspiration in life? Jesus
6. Do you read a newspaper? If so which one? The Telegraph
7. What’s your favourite food? Black cherries
8. Who is your favourite cultural icon? Virginia McKenna
9. What’s your favourite curse word and why? I try not to swear
10. What’s your favourite place or holiday destination? The Okavango Delta
11. Who is your favourite music artist and what’s your favourite album? Cat Stevens greatest hits
12. What’s your greatest achievement to date? Publishing Funnily Enough and finishing my historical novels.
13. How do you wish to be remembered? As an inspiration to others.
A book signed by the author always makes a good Christmas present. Each year, I take part in an annual online charity auction organised by Children in Read to raise funds for BBC Children in Need.
You can scroll through the site on Jumblebee. co.uk. and choose from an amazing selection of biographies and other books donated by contemporary authors.
Taking part is always great fun and offers authors a bit of publicity whilst presenting readers a choice of signed and dedicated books and illustrations.
In 2023, items in the Authors and Illustrators’ auction, raised a total of £24,061 for BBC Children in Need.
This year, authors and illustrators raised £9,766.
Over the eleven years that the annual event has been running a stunning total of £141,766 has been raised. I joined in 2020 and have raised a total of £616 for this cause.
Bidding has now closed but put the event in your diary for next year.
Sophie Neville 