It’s great when things come together. I have a passion to promote literacy, a resolve to rid the coast of plastic pollution and a need to keep fit.
Only 3 miles but I must have collected 300 small pieces of plastic
Day 2 – I love walking along beaches more than anything but litter picking can be challenging on a number of different levels. It takes time. I spent nearly two hours on the coast and, according to my Fit-bit, covered only 5km = 3.1 miles. Once home, I had to sort the rubbish and recycle the broken glass.
B is for bottles, balloons, barbed wire and a broken broom
C is for caring
C is for constant cleaning
C is for change – change a child’s life chances
Collecting cups, cartons, containers and coastal contaminates
Day 3 -Another two hours clearing the foreshore and mudflats when I only covered 3.71km = 2.3 miles, but removed items that will never rot. Here’s a selection:
Darling dog – distressing debris: 148 items in are this bucket
90 mins spent covering 1.8 miles collecting 162 pieces of litter and plastic pollution including 6 bags full of dog poo, despite the provision of a council bin.
D is for dinosaur
E is for Environment
E is for Everyone
E is for Energy
Day 5 – 90 minutes covering 2 miles along the coast and associated lanes.
Flotsam and fishing line found on the foreshore
F is for Fitness
F is for Friends
F is for Fishing debris
Day 6- 60 minutes in the fresh air covering half a mile through fields returning with baller-twine, a discard PVC dustbin and a broken wheelbarrow.
Gloves and glass – some of which was hazardous to wildlife, dogs and walkers
Day 7 – 90 minutes collecting 130 items of glass and plastic covering 3.75km = 2.3miles
Gillian, who accompanied me on one of my beach cleaning forays has written to say: ‘I found it surprisingly enjoyable and absorbing.’ She was once a volunteer school reader.
Glass-fibre and glass bottles with tubing and plastic
Would you sponsor me to continue to collect litter as I continue to walk along the coast for Race for Reading 2022? So far, I have only covered 12.2 miles but I have collected about 1,000 small pieces of rubbish, recycling the glass.
I’ve registered in my full name so Gift Aid can be added on my My JustGiving page. My company will match money given in sponsorship, so your donation will effectively be doubled.
Sophie Neville collecting flotsam from the Solent shoreline in the Race for Reading
Funds raised will go straight to Schoolreaders – a fantastic charity that supplies volunteers to listen to children read in school and whip up excitement about books and storytelling. A gift of £30 will fund the placement of a volunteer in a needy school for a year.
We’re asking you to step up for children’s literacy!
Over the next 80 days, supporters around the world will run, cycle, swim, row and walk to raise funds for the national charity Schoolreaders. They are encouraging litter-pickers to join their virtual race.
Spring Clean the coastline with Keep Britain Tidy
As an ambassador for Keep Britian Tidy, I have been litter-picking as I walk along the coast, cleaning beaches and shorelines of the United Kingdom on the Great British Spring Clean from 25th March to 10th April. I’m happy to extend this until 19th June 2022 when Schoolreaders virtual race ends.
Last year, a total of over 34,000 miles was covered by the registered participants. I kept a tally of miles walked while litter picking, clocking up 32 miles. My distance covered was not very impressive – but collecting flotsam takes time and my bucket can get heavy.
Litter collected whilst walking along the Solent shore
Somewhere I have a tally of the amount of rubbish collected. I certainly took a lot of photos. I’m hoping friends will join me this year as I’m aiming to walk a lot further.
I’m not sure if I will find anything that relates to books or reading but it is possible.
I quite often find reading glasses when I’m litter picking
If you would like to support children’s reading in the UK there are many ways you can do so:
You can sign up to become a Schoolreaders volunteer– they ask for a commitment of one academic year to provide the children with consistency.
You can set up a regular donation for as little as £5 by clicking here
Funds raised will provide weekly one-to-one reading support sessions from Schoolreaders volunteers across the country. We are hoping to be able to help over 2,500 children who may have fallen behind with their reading during Lockdown.
I grew up with boats in the garden. My father owned eight at one time, including two coracles and a vintage river launch called Ottor that he renovated himself.
Martin Neville with friends on the Norfolk Broads
As a young man, while setting up a team to develop the fibreglass hull, Dad raced on the Solent, volunteered on a tall ship, and wrangled an Atlantic crossing on the maiden return voyage of the QE2, taking us children around the liner when it reached Southampton.
Sophie Neville with her younger sisters aboard the QEII in 1969
I learnt to sail dinghies at Newport Bay in Pembrokeshire, later making my own sail for a Thames skiff so that I could take it down the lake where I grew up in Gloucestershire.
My father wanted a Mirror dinghy, but since they were beyond his budget we had a dubious one-design with a ? on its sail.
A family holiday in a Hullabaloo boat on the Broads – off season
Dad bought one of the first Toppers, which seemed quite daring at the time. It had no halyards. Its arrival caused much excitement. Called Earwig, the fibreglass hull was portable but proved precarious, soaking the crew as waves sloshed over her orange deck. I wasn’t much good at withstanding the cold and grew to loath setting off with wet feet.
Sophie Neville as Titty and Sten Grendon as Roger rowing to Cormorant Island
Playing Titty in original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ involved quite a bit of rowing, which I kept up first as a member of the Collingwood Ladies Four at Durham University and later on the crew of The Drapers’ Shallop, a ceremonial barge that can be spotted on the Thames and River Lea, the Dart or Poole Harbour.
Rowing the Drapers’ shallop down to Runnymede
My dedication to fixed thwart rowing enabled me to take part in a Jubilee Pageant for The Queen at Henley, transport a copy of the Magna Carta to Windsor, and man an oar of the royal barge Gloriana in the Boat Race flotilla at Putney a year when Cambridge won.
Sophie Neville rowing in black cap on the River Thames at Putney
Belonging to the rowing club,City Barge, enabled me to take part in the Voga Longa in Venice – a 35km marathon – with the gold medalist Ed Coode as stroke. I later rowed a sandalo down the Amstel into Amsterdam standing to row Venetian-style, getting used to the idea of using a forcola in windy weather.
In the bows of a sandalo on the River Amstel in Amsterdam
We navigated the shallop down a tributary of the Loire in Brittany, leading a procession of two hundred and forty traditional boats into Nantes for the Rendez-vous de l’Erdre. I was asked to take the helm on the way back, great Dutch barges bearing down on us.
With the presenter and crew of France 3 news
One of my favourite vessels is a two-man canvas canoe my sister found on a rubbish dump. I nearly drowned after getting stuck in a kayak and prefer an open dugout or fibreglass equivalent. These have taken me on adventures in Papua New Guinea, across Lake Malawi and through the Okavango Delta in Botswana.
Bird watching on the Boro River – Sophie Neville with Jez Lye
Back in 1978, I helped my father, Martin Neville, to restore a 1901 steamboat called Daffodil, which they kept near Oxford at Port Meadow on the Thames.
SL Daffodil on the River Thames
We would steam down to Henley each year for the royal regatta or upstream towards Letchlade. You can read about how we renovated here here.
We took a Humber Yawl that Dad built to take part in a Steam Boat Association rally on Windermere and pay homage to launches used in the film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ kept by George Pattinson at the Steam Boat Museum, now known as Windermere Jetty.
Lullaby undersail, playing the Teasel on the broads
I a lot of time on the water while filming the 1984 BBC adaptation of ‘Coot Club’ and ‘The Big Six’ when we spent three months filming on the Norfolk Broads. The series starred a yacht called Lullaby from Hunter’s Yard, which you can now hire for holidays.
I went away from my wedding in a punt, Dad polling while I sat with my new husband, holding an umbrella while a rainbow appeared over the water.
At the Brewery Arts Cinema in Kendal for the launch of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ and the 40th Anniversary DVD
While serving as President of The Arthur Ransome Society, I gave twelve Q&As at cinemas. Members of SailRansome have often come along with the little clinker-built dinghy used as Swallow, which I helped purchase when she came up for auction in 2010.
I am often asked to write articles about my life afloat, and have spoken at literary festivals, on BBC Radio and on ITV News when I nearly capsized.
On ITV News at Ten with Nina Nannar
It is with The Arthur Ransome Society that I have been able to sail an historic wherry down the Norfolk Broads, take an old German ferry to Lundy Island and cruise down Coniston Water on SL Gondola.
Aboard Wherry Maud – photo Diana Dicker
As a member of the Nancy Blackett Trust, I’ve sailed on the Orwell, in the Solent and through the inland waterways of the Netherlands, visiting Middleburg.
~Nancy Blackett in the Netherlands~
I enjoyed crossing the Veersemere to Zierikzee in the wake of my own forefathers.
Over the years, I’ve grabbed the chance to sail yachts to Salcombe, up the coast of Norway and through the Mediterranean but I still love taking out a small boat in the Lake District or on the Norfolk Broads.
At Wroxham on the Norfolk Broads
You can read more in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ available on line.
Sophie Neville searching for marine plastic on the Solent
As a small child, I longed to find a unicorn. Nowadays they litter the New Forest.
Unicorns seem to be popping up everywhere, along with Disney princesses.
A stranded mermaid illustration how helpless most of us feel about sea plastic
And underpants. We find a lot.
Men’s underpants caught in the brambles
Frilly knickers found in a church car park within the New Forest National Park
Anti-perspirant and after shave is often discarded by a sniffers in the New Forest
A garden rake, the second I’ve found of this type, possibly from a cannabis farm
An elf’s shoe – the pencil is just for scale, although I sometimes find them
I often find fenders and floats washed up on the Solent
Did the peak drift across the English Channel by itself?
A pin from a sailing pontoon that has been washed down the coast
Small pieces of asbestos roofing washed up on the Solent
It is not unusual to rubber lining the coast. Helium ballons are washed up almost every day
Fluorescent tubing found washed up intact on the Solent foreshore
Shockingly, I have been told, ‘we get ORDERED to throw them overboard as sending them back ashore is expensive due to them been classified as hazardous waste. Happens everyday in some way or another. 200 old fire extinguishers once but there’s a lot worse.’
plastic effecting wildlife
These look like regurgitated owl pellets comprised of plastic, found in woodland on the Solent Way footpath. I often find PVC rope in the dung of New Forest ponies.
It looks like a broken branch but it’s the remains of a ‘hangman’s noose’ or swing found on the coast with polystyrene, PPE masks and a discarded picnic mug
Here is a tree bearing three, although you can only just see the remains of a blue rope. It’s killed the branch.
Ropes hung from trees on private land within the New Forest National Park
‘Why do people litter?’
Annie Soulsby says, “It’s about caring. If someone doesn’t care about themselves they tend to not care much about anything else, including the environment. “
“The crux of the problem is that all sorts of people litter all sorts of items for all sorts of reasons” says Samantha Harding, the director of the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s litter campaign. “Men aged 18-25 often see it as cool to drop litter, but hauliers, smokers, users of fast food outlets and drive-through takeaways and commuters are all groups of society who litter”.
Litter on a stick
The animals seem to resent rubbish left in their pristine environment. The rabbits excavated these cans.
Unwanted lager cans excavated by rabbits?
May be its because people use holes as litter bins.
A plastic bottle repulsed from a rabbit hole
Litter pickers often encounter wildlife – especially lizards or wood mice, snails and insects, which use the litter or become trapped inside it. I found this healthy slow worm under a water trough when I was cleaning a field.
A slow worm found whilst collecting plastic from a field
Our most exciting and treasured find was a brand new basket ball with plenty of bounce, washed up on a remote Solent shore.
A fine find – a new basket ball, washed up on a remote sandbank
Litter is pollution. It’s vital that we remove it. Dave Regos has asked to show you an award-winning documentary entitled ‘A Fist Full of Rubbish’:
2021, and we thought we would be coming out of Lockdown but life remained restricted.
Litter Art made from sea plastic I’ve collected
Walking the Solent Way – in search of plastic pollution washed up on the shore
Winter walks along the coast litter-picking
Becoming a Patron of the charity ‘Covid Reflections’
Speaking on BBC Radio Cumbria’s Saturday morning Breakfast Show
Appearing on BBC Antiques Roadshow with ‘Swallows and Amazons’ movie memorabilia including a hazel bow and arrow.
Marc Allum and Sophie Neville on BBC Antiques Roadshow
Taking Part in School Readers ‘Race for Reading’ challenge 2021, collecting litter on a section of the Welsh coastline
Collecting sea plastic whilst walking along the south coast of England
Writing articles for The Herald to encourage people to beach-clean
Representing Litter Pickers of the New Forest
Interviewed by JJ Walsh in Japan for a podcast on beach cleaning and meeting the head of Eco-Bricks UK who took some of my fishing net finds for a talk.
Having my unpublished novels placed in a number of literary awards:
Two historical novels Long-listed by Retreat West, 2021
Semi-Finalist in ACFW Genesis novel writing contest in the USA, 2021
Page Turner Finalist, 2021
Reaching the finals of the 2021 Eyelands Book Awards for an unpublished historical novel
Long-listed by Roadmap’s Write Start Competition in the USA, 2021
Longlisted for Adventures in Fiction New Voices, Flash 500 first page competition and The Eludia Awards in the USA.
Mounting my sketchbook drawings on Instagram – here’s one that got away (the aspect ratio didn’t fit)
My sketchbook paintings
A few sporting achievements:
Worcestershire Archery Society’s prize for Lady’s Most Hits
First Lady’s Gold at the West Berks Archery Society
Best Lady’s Gold at Meriden
Lady’s Championship Trophy for highest score Worcestershire Archery Society
Celebrating the first wedding after Lockdown lifted
Visiting the Yarmouth and the Needles
Sailing to the Isle of Wight while Lockdown was eased
Giving a talk at ‘The Late Summer Festival of Romantic Books and Writing’
Contributing to a handbook for Christian Writers entitled ‘Write Well’ published by Instant Apostle
Riding across the wild areas of Sicily
Riding up Mouth Etna in Sicily
Writing a Foreword to ‘Boats Yet Sailing’ by Trevor Boult
Finding a bid of £251 on a signed first edition paperback of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ in an auction in aid of BBC Children in Need
Bringing out a second edition of ‘Funnily Enough’ with added illustrations
Being able to go to restaurants with my family – if only for one birthday lunch
Raising funds for welfare projects in the Waterberg, South Africa
Fighting period poverty in rural South Africa
And helping to rebuild the church that burnt down
Being interviewed about my dog, Flint
I was honoured to be awarded ‘New Forest Litter Picker of the Year’
You can see photos of flotsam on an earlier post here
Very many thanks to all my readers who have reviewed my books
An online book review on the Waterstone’s site
Reviews have appeared on Amazon for ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ and on Goodreads here.
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
You can watch the interview on BBC Antiques Roadshow here:
This is the Solent foreshore within the New Forest National Park in Hampshire where wildfowl gather and ponies wander free. Looking ahead to 2022, I have made a commitment to spend a total of 25 hours clearing this area of plastic pollution as part of Keep Britain Tidy’s Million Mile Mission. They reckon I will be walking nearly 75 miles, whilst collecting litter.
This is not difficult as I live near the Solent shore. It is a beautiful area, part of the Crown Estates, but sadly we have to continually clear it of rubbish washing in on the tide.
Danger, in the form of broken bottles, lies in the mud.
I need to take great care when looking for flotsam with my dog. What of the wild animals – geese, swans and egrets? They need their feet.
We always collect a bucket full of plastic pollution, usually removing 2-4Kgs a day, made up of about 160 pieces, many of which are tiny.
The short pieces of green PVC rope are known as ‘sea-kisses’, the remains of old fishing nets shredded and discarded at sea.
Can you see the glinting shard of green glass (above)? It could easily be missed. I find a lot of tennis balls used by dog walkers despite the lead content being toxic.
cephalopod and palsticopod
It’s no wonder that seabirds die with stomachs full of plastic. You can see they have been pecking this inner sole looking for calcium normally gained from cephalopods.
There is always heavy plastic and glass, often a cap.
This peak may have floated over from France. There are sometimes larger items.
This canvas deck cover was 6 metres long and too heavy for me to carry home. Custom-made, it must be sorely missed and expensive to replace.
I must report this enormous marker buoy. It’s the third I’ve found.
People are naughty. Someone shoved a large metal baking tray smelling of fish under one of these bushes. It was heavy – too big for my bucket.
Odd things like forks are often left on the beach.
I have no idea what distance this crate has floated but Box Pool Solutions are based in Peterhead, north of Aberdeen, about 650 miles from the beach where this ended up.
How far has this bottle floated? It was made in South Korea.
Some of the litter is quite elderly.
This polystyrene beam had been languishing on private land bordering the shore for years.
I reported this to the estate manager but it was not collected and broke into pieces, which are time consuming to collect.
Some of the rubbish has grown into the landscape and is not easy to extract.
Why people keep leaving litter on beaches astounds me. Someone was obviously having a Funki cocktail party on the beach. One of the bottles was half full. The Council bin can’t be missed.
Far more worrying are the florescent light bulbs I keep finding washed up on the shore. Over the years I have come across these four, washed up on the Solent – intact! If broken the toxins within are said to pollute 30,000 litres of water. It’s illegal to throw anything off a ship but I’m told that men are ordered to chuck these off rigs, despite the fact they contain mercury.
How long will it be before we are unable to consume fish from the sea? I’m also finding blobs of sewer fat and palm oil, dangerous to dogs.
White blobs of palm oil and micro plastics found on one beach clean
The important thing is to keep going. Our wildness areas will turn into rubbish dumps if we don’t. If you would like to take action and join Keep Britain Tidy’s Million Mile Mission, please click here.
In November 2021, an anonymous donor bid £251 for a signed first edition of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’. The money raised went directly to BBC Children in Need.
Books listed in the category Auto Biography/Biography
Nearly eight hundred newly published books had been donated to the Children in Read charity auction organised by Paddy Heron, which raised a total of £24,888.
‘Funnily Enough’ an illustrated diary by Sophie Neville
Rare copies of my first edition paperback of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ are often priced highly on Amazon, but 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.
‘Ride the Wings of Morning’ by Sophie Neville
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.
Map showing the film locations around Windermere
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.
Christmas Day 2021 marked the 50th Anniversary of the first BBC adaptation of Laurie Lee’s evocative book ‘Cider With Rosie‘, a story that tells of growing up in rural Gloucestershire before the combustion engine destroyed rural life as it had been led for centuries.
Sophie Neville playing Eileen Brown
First published in 1969, the memoir sold six million copies. The 1971 BBC play was screened in the UK, France, West Germany and Japan, becoming regarded as an avant garde, ground-breaking drama that received four BAFTA nominations – Best Script: Hugh Whitemore Best Actress: Rosemary Leach, who played Mrs Lee Best Design: Eileen Diss Best Drama Production: Claude Whatham
And I was in it, as a girl, playing the part of an urchin who could play the piano called Miss Eileen Brown. We were able to use the original village school in Slad as the location for both the classrooms and parochial Christmas concert. I can almost smell the chalk and dusty books mixed with hairspray used by the crew to limit unwanted reflections or dirty-up anything that looked smart and new.
As we ran out into the school yard, which was tiny, the director, Claude Whatham asked if any of us knew any skipping chants. No one said anything. I had been to a village school nearby and knew loads but was too shy to chant them. What a regret.
We used Laurie Lee’s village school in Slad as a location
It was June 1971. We had glorious weather. Prolific wildflowers made the drama special. I remember a bunch of buttercups standing in a classroom window. My scenes were set in 1925, when Laurie Lee was aged about eleven. I was used to having my hair tied in bunches but not up in hair ribbons. It felt strange. I wasn’t very happy about my dress, which was itchy and didn’t fit well. The costume designer assured me that Eileen would have only possessed one dress in real life. I was well aware that it would have been a hand-me-down, as were the boots.
Sophie Neville with Claude Whatham in Slad, 1971
The classroom scenes demanded little of me, I simply sat next to ‘Laurie Lee’ and reacted to the violence exhibited by the teacher. My challenge was that I had to play the accompaniment to ‘Oh Danny Boy’ on the piano. Laurie Lee had to play the violin but the boy playing him was given a double. I had to practice six hours a day, for three days, to get it right. In the end the director said, “Do you think you could play a little faster?”
“These are crotchets,” I said. “They don’t go any faster.”
The result is agonizing but authentic and brought tears to Rosemary Leach’s eyes. The author, Laurie Lee, who still had a cottage in Slad at the time, told my mother that Eileen Brown was the first girl he fell in love with, which was daunting but all this entailed was having to smile.
Sophie Neville with Philip Hawkes as Laurie Lee
My mother appeared in dream sequence, aged 34, looking beautiful in a neatly starched uniform, playing a housemaid when Mrs Lee remembered working with lovely things in a great house. Laurie Lee appeared as himself wearing tweeds – right at the end.
Two years later, in 1973, Claude cast Sten Grendon, who played Little Laurie Lee, as Roger Walker in the Theatre Projects/EMI movie ‘Swallows & Amazons’. He chose me to play his elder sister, Titty.
Sten Grendon with Claude Whatham
The actors John Franklyn-Robbins and Mike Pratt also appeared in both dramas. I didn’t remember this until I looked up the credits on IMDb years later. In 1983, I worked with Rosemary Leach in Norfolk on the BBC adaptation of ‘Coot Club’, when she played Mrs Barrable. I met up with the designer Michael Howells who had a small part as one of Laurie Lee’s elder half-brothers. Both have sadly died. All these amazing actors have sadly passed away, but were captured on film at their most vital.
The film score of Swallows and Amazons (1974) was composed by Wilfred Josephs who also wrote the haunting theme music for Cider with Rosie (1971). You can listen to it here:
This item presented by Paul Martin includes a clip of a black and white BBC documentary made with Lauri Lee in 1960 outside the school where we shot the drama. According to his biographer, he said of Rosie, ‘She was someone, she was no one, she was anyone.’
Are you looking for a special Birthday or Christmas present for someone who happens to love the original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons'(1974)?
Author Sophie Neville
Paddy Heron of Children in Read has a huge number of amazing books listed in a charity auction being held to raise funds for BBC Children in Need. Nearly £21,000 has already been pledged, which is amazing. We have 3 days left to bid, so you have time to chat to the family!
‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974)’ is listed as Lot 298, in the section ‘Film & Television’ above Nigella Lawson’s book ‘Coot, eat, repeat’.
and scroll down until you see the image of the book you would like to bid on, then click on the price button and you can enter a bid when the large image pops up. You don’t pay until you win on the final day. I will pay the postage within the UK and inscribe the copy to whom you wish.
What the bidding page looks like
We now have another bid for £101. Copies on Amazon.UK – where is it has 47 reviews, are now listed as costing about £76. I promised that if the bidding went higher than £78 I would personally inscribe this large paperback edition and include a signed first edition hardback copy of my autobiographical book ‘Funnily Enough’, worth £15, which includes a few pages about filming ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in the Lake District.
‘Funnily Enough’, Sophie Neville’s illustrated diary
I said that the bidding goes any higher than £101, I will include a copy of ‘Ride the Wings of Morning’, my memoir about leading a Swallows and Amazons style life camping in Africa:
Ride the Wings of Morning by Sophie Neville
To read about taking part in the same auction last year, please click here
If you need to know more about the auction, please contact Paddy Heron at Children in Read: childreninread@yahoo.com
I received an interesting series of emails recently from a stone mason called Philip Chatfield:
“Hi Sophie, I was watching ‘Swallows and Amazons’, the old classic, on Talking Pictures TV… great channel. Curiously, I have, hanging in my cottage ceiling timbers, the lantern you used for the Lighthouse on Wild Cat Island !!!!!!”
The lighthouse tree lantern today
‘Lanterns like this pattern are not common, so I presume it must be the one used in your 1974 film. I like to think so. There is a hole in the top of my lantern which has been plugged up and holes in the base too. If you use the lantern with candles, which is what I always do. then you cannot have a hole in the top of the lantern. Heat goes up and out of it and the rope or wooden handle may catch fire! It is stopped up with a small bolt with a flat rounded top.’
The holes would have been made to insert an electric light behind the candle so that it would show up on film.
Sten Grendon (Roger), Suzanna Hamilton (Susan) and Sophie Neville (Titty) at the lighthouse tree in the 1974 movie of Arthur Ransome’s book ‘Swallows and Amazons’
It certainly looks like the lantern we used, which I knew well at the time. A hurricane lamp is used in the book Swallows and Amazons. John, ‘tied the other end round the oil box at the bottom of the lantern’, although candle lanterns were used to mark Secret Harbour.
You can see the lantern lying near Swallow’s mast
The black lantern was packed into Swallow on the voyage to the island, visible when the Walker children narrowly miss the Tern. You can see it lying in the shallow basket.
Film stills taken by Albert Clarke in 1973
It was rather uncomfortable to lean over when handing Roger the telescope.
Swallow nearly collides with MV Tern
The basket was taken out of Swallow at the landing place and Titty moves it up the beach ‘for fear of tidal waves.’ See if you can take some screen shots of it hanging from the lighthouse tree.
The same lantern was used in the movie ‘Far From the Madding Crowd'(1967) starring Alan Bates, Peter Finch, Terence Stamp and Julie Christie.
Terrence Stamp with the lantern
You can also see it hanging from a farm cart.
The same lantern
Philip says, ‘Clearly all the props went back to the Turk Phoenix shed near Teddington after shooting.’
Mike Turk’s warehouse full of film props
‘I never thought about it before but I used to work on a sailing ship called Grand Turk, which was owned by Mile Turk of Turk Phoenix who did a lot of film work.’
SV Grand Turk with Philip Chatfield firing a live shot on the Solent. “That would have given Captain Flint’s houseboat a shaking up!”
‘The Grand Turk played the HMS Indefatigable in ‘Hornblower’ with Ioan Griffiths and co. While I was on board (as Third Mate and Gun Captain) I needed more props for the gunnery dept. The lantern was one of the props we had on board. It came from Turk Phoenix who still had one of the boats used in your wonderful film.’
Swallow at Mike Turk’s warehouse in 2010
‘Mike Turk’s business provided nautical props.’ When Mike reached the end of his life and fell ill, many of these were sold at auction in 2010, including the dinghy that played Swallow in ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974), which was purchased by group of film fans now known as SailRansome.
Swallow prepared for auction in 2010
‘Before my time on Grand Turk I spent five years working on a lovely old square rig ship called MARIA ASUMPTA. Back in 1991 we sailed from London’s St Katherine’s Dock to Ipswich. We anchored off Shotley on the Orwell pretty much where the GOBLIN in Ransome’s book ‘We Didn’t Mean To Go to Sea’ book was set. As we hauled up our anchor we brought up a small kedge anchor. I still have it. At the time I was convinced it may have been from the story or even the sailing trip the story was originally based on. Who knows, but it is a lovely anecdote. We had sailed the autumn before to Flushing in Holland and did a tour of the inland waters of Holland.’
Philip Chatfield with a kedge anchor
‘Sadly, Maria Asumpta was lost off Padstow in May 1995 with the loss of three crew. Thankfully I was one of the survivors.’
Maria Asumpta wrecked on a desolate shore
‘You can just see me standing staggering, second from the left, in a state of shock. Three were lost but I was amazed more weren’t, frankly. My friend the bosun Graham is sitting on the stern about to leap off. He survived, just. The ship had been built in Barcelona and launched in 1858.’ By the 1990’s it was the oldest square rigger still sailing.’ A true ship wrecked sailor! What would Titty say?
Philip Chatfield in HMS Victory working on a carving of Lord Nelson in 2008
‘As a stone carver and sculptor I make memorials. A few years ago I was asked to do the memorial for one of my old school teachers and eventually his wife, who now shares his grave in Monmouth. She was Helen Bucknall but her mother was Mrs Henry Clay. The Ransome book ‘We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea’ is dedicated to Mrs Henry Clay no less. Henry Clay was a friend and colleague of Ransome’s on the Manchester Guardian, also a keen sailor. I think Helen and her family were the inspiration for the story in the book. So Helen has a carving of the yacht they sailed as children on the large Welsh slate memorial in Monmouth cemetery.’
‘The galling thing for my friends, whose mother was Helen, is that they can’t find the original first edition of ‘We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea’ that Ransome signed. Hope it turns up. At least that charming card exists. Love his little sketch of the dinghy.’
‘Anyway, hope this is of interest… well done for all you do. I have a hard copy of the book on order! Can’t wait. Very best wishes, Philip Chatfield’
The lighthouse tree lantern today
To read more about some of the Swallows and Amazons movie memorabilia, including Swallow’s flag and the fishing rods, please click here
To read more about ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974)’ – click here
This lovely documentary shows Philip’s recent work on railways:
Sophie Neville 