Sophie Neville, who played Titty in the original film ‘Swallows and Amazons’, will be giving a special talk on what is was like to take the lead part in a feature film when she was a girl.
This multi-media talk is to be held the Museum of Carpet at Stour Vale Mill in Kidderminster, Worcestershire DY10 1AZ on Saturday 21st February from 11.00am. All welcome!
Do come early to see around the amazing Museum of Carpet. It will be open to the public free of charge between 10am and 2pm. This talk is a ‘one off’ fund-raiser. Tickets cost £10 for adults (free for under-18s).
Please pay on the door or obtain tickets in advance from the Museum during its February Open Days: Saturday 14th, Tuesday 17th, Thursday 19th and Saturday 21st February 2026 (between 10am and 2pm).
Other ‘Swallows and Amazons’ enthusiasts are making firm plans to come. You can read more about the event in the local news.
Sophie Neville speaking about filming in Cumbria
Sophie was born in Worcestershire seven miles from the museum. Her great-grandfather, Canon Hastings Neville, was a curate in Kidderminster and one of his sons manufactured carpets in New Zealand, employing Richard Pugh Cook who was passionate about founding the Museum of Carpet, hence the connection.
Let us know in the comments below if you can join us!
Sophie will be signing copies of her books after the talk.
This week is the Big Give Christmas Challenge, when gifts made to carefully chosen charities can be doubled, thanks to matched funding.
The child literacy charity Schoolreaders has an ambitious £60,000 target this year, which will enable volunteers to reach another 1,500 children with weekly one-to-one reading support.
Should you wish to spread the word, the link for people to donate is here. The Challenge opened on 3rd December and we’ve already had an encouraging start! It runs until midday, Tuesday 10 December.
If you are thinking of volunteering to listen to children read at school and give them a love of books, Schoolreaders have information on their website here.
An original hardback copy of my book on how we made the 1974 film of Swallows and Amazons was sold in Paddy Heron’s online auction for £86 to raise funds for BBC Children in Need 2024.
It exceeded bids for the autobiographies of Theresa May, Michael Ball, Charles Spencer, Tim Peake, Lynda La Plante, Father Alex Frost and a number of amazing biographies.
An unframed print of a portrait of her playing Titty executed by C. Assheton was also sold in the online charity auction, which raised a total of £14,705 – which is fantastic.
Paperback and ebook editions of my same story are also available at Waterstones and online from all the usual stockists including Amazon
I’m walking along the coast on a sponsored beach-clean, using the alphabet as my theme.
The aim is to raise funds for the charity Schoolreaders who aim to ensure every child in the UK can read fluently by the age of eleven. Shockingly, 25% fall behind. It jeopardizes their future.
Could you take part in the Race for Reading too?
Day 7 – H is Hard work – Ihead out along hedgerows just above the high tide’s reach to harvest horrific litter that could wash into the sea. I cover 2.1km and only collect 35 pieces but haul three discarded containers of chemicals that were chucked into the river.
One of three chemical containers chucked into the nature reserve
Day 8 – I is for I have to do something. Imagine our coastlines covered in rubbish. It’s impossible to ignore wanton trash. I’ve found three intact fluorescent light bulbs washed up before now.
Ice cream left for the fairies
We go down to the foreshore to see what recent storms have brought in. When I first moved to the Solent eighteen years ago it was multi-coloured with bottle tops. Volunteers have slowly cleared it but the sea coughs up unwanted plastic on every tide. As we collect flotsam, a £20 note floats up to us!
Day 9 – J is for Just pick it up –
We need to keep picking up litter before it is blown into the sea and this nature reserve
I cross a causeway over a tidal river where drivers obviously chuck rubbish while waiting for the level-crossing to open on the far side. Having a litter-picker makes the job easier and safer. I collect a bagful and continue into town, putting litter straight into council bins. Despite plenty of these, I find a significant amount of cellophane on the quay about to be blown into the harbour. I cover 3.5km collecting litter over 90 minutes.
The Co-op carrier bag is compostable, the plastic pollution is not
Day 10 – K is for keep fit – and keep going. We arrive in Pembrokeshire for a family holiday. I’m tired after the journey but walk about two miles in 90 minutes, collecting a carrier bag full of coastal litter.
Day 11 – L is for Litter – loitering in the tide wrack of Wales, but I’m joined by friends from The Dog House which is fun. We walk 5 kms along a sandy beach where the smallest dog is rather good at finding litter.
Joined in my quest by The Dog House
Day 12 – M is for mission to rid the cost of plastic pollution. I walk up an estuary for only 2kms but collect a bucketful of PVC rope and plastic wrappers. I repeat the same distance at low tide when the landscape looks quite different.
Would you like to join the challenge? It’s not too late.
The charity SchoolReaders are still looking for runners, swimmers, riders and walkers keen to take part in their Race for Reading.
Run, walk, cycle, swim, ride, wheel, litter-pick
Every pound raised in sponsorship makes a difference and provides more children with vital reading help. They send out T shirts to those who reach £100 in donations along with a R4R 2022 medal to everyone who has raised over £15 and a gold medal to those who have raised over £1,000.
My company will match any sponsorship I personally raise, so any money given via my Justgiving page will be doubled.
Thanks to my very kind supporters I’ve raised £355 so far, which will be doubled to make £710! This will be enough to ensure twenty volunteers are able to listen to children read and give them a love of books, improving their life chances.
Sophie Neville cleaning the mudflats of PVC rope and old fishing line.
And, I’ve stopped litter from threatening wildlife and polluting our seas. For a full list of things I’ve found washed up on the Solent over the years, please click here
Thanks go to Schoolreaders who change the life stories of so many children.
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.
One brief storm and a significant amount of rubbish is washed up on the south coast of England.
I joined two other Litter Pickers of the New Forest to clear litter on the gravel spit to Hurst Castle in Hampshire. Rubbish gets caught in the artificial sea wall.
You have to take care not to slip on the rocks, or lose your phone between the boulders as one of us did. I ventured too near the waves and got soaking wet.
Along with wrappers, ropes and tin cans, Jill found a plastic funnel that had been in the sea for sometime.
At first glance, the beach looked clean but we found part of a long fishing rod holder and numerous small items.
While Jill picked up a golf ball, I found used lighters, a small green monster and a child’s rake.
Some of the plastic and tins defeated us. They were too deeply buried or trapped between the rocks.
It is amazing how much there is on the footpath given that the Council provides huge waste bins where we deposited our findings.
I returned on another day to collect more,
And yet more. This is a typical cashe: a plastic bottle, a pen, old polystyrene and hard, blue plastic. I often find a shoe washed up on the shore. It’s important to keep going.
Another member of our group spent an hour collecting rubbish from Hurst Castle beach on Christmas Eve. “Quite depressing that there is so much litter: mainly plastic and polystyrene. A few interesting finds like a Santa hat, mask, Lego brick, toy soldier, tennis ball….but why so many plastic coffee cups?” he asked.
Richard Brook-Hart’s haul of plastic pollution
He returned on 14th January with another haul. “Lots of plastic bottles, coffee cups, the ubiquitous face masks, beer cans, sweet wrappers, poo bags, fishing line, a tube of toothpaste, and much more. I think that this can be partly attributed to littoral drift, particularly on the western shore, but on the eastern shore it is probably local littering.”
Unless we persevere, the rubbish will blow into the nature reserve where a multitude of native birds and migrant waders congregate. We counted 19 swans living there.
Next time you go for a walk, wear plastic gloves and take a litter bag with you. It is surprising what you can find. If you live in the New Forest, think of joining Litter Pickers of the New Forest who can provide High Vis vests and litter pickers. They are on Facebook here
Litter Pickers of the New Forest on an informal beach clean
Litter Pickers of the New Forest say:
‘Thanks to everyone’s efforts, we can now report some of the impact the local litter heroes, volunteers and staff, had in 2021. Our work with our partners including the National Park Authority, Forestry England, the police, and fire and rescue, saw:
10,000 hours of patrols,
a 40% drop in fires in the New Forest
Over 50 retailers stopped selling disposable BBQs
The New Forest Code was shared with over 2.7 million people
1,000 litter picking kits created
Over 700 New Forest Ambassadors signed up
230,000 bags given out to encourage people to take litter home.
An 8% drop in litter at coastal locations despite visitor numbers being up by 60%
New signs and information across all Forest car parks.
400 social media posts
1.6 million plus newsletters to subscribers
Digital signs at key roads.
‘Thank you to everyone who has done so much to support the New Forest this year, working together, right across the community.’
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.
I am honoured to have become a patron of COVID Reflections, a charitable project inviting writers and artists to contribute to an anthology celebrating the positive aspects of the pandemic. The hope is to make a difference by raising money for worthy causes affected by Lockdown and giving a voice to those that are heard the least.
COVID Reflections was founded by Ash Subramanian, a consultant breast surgeon from Sussex, who has gathered an impressive team of volunteers and trustees, profiled here.
Ash Subramanian on the South Bank
Their aim is to publish a coffee table book and multi-media ebook that can be sold to raise funds for charities that have taken a hammering in the last year. You are invited to submit a poem, diary entry or piece of prose.
Think of sending in 200 words on what Lockdown meant for you. I wrote:
There were no tests available when I contracted COVID-19 early March 2020. I stayed at home, puzzled about being unable to smell. Although the virus wiped days from my life, Lockdown proved a golden time. My step-son brought his tiny twin boys to live with us for nine months. The two-year-olds thrived while we dug up the lawn to plant vegetables, enjoying the birdsong and wonderful weather. I let my hair grow, turned the spare bedroom into an office and devoted my daily exercise to collecting litter – which became horrendous – and coastal plastic – which diminished slightly. I donated clothes to women in need, was interviewed on Zoom and enjoyed church on WhatsApp. We raised funds for those seriously hit by the pandemic and prayed for friends admitted to hospital. Released from the tyranny of my usual diary, I learnt how to say ‘rainbow’ in Portuguese, regained my sense of smell and wrote a novel. We spent Christmas alone and had no holidays, but for me, the ‘Time of Corona’ felt like a year off, enabling me to remain at home with my family, where I was needed and needed to be.
PPE I collected from the coast
You could submit a painting, drawing, photograph or audiovisual contribution be it music or film. Here is Piers Harrison-Reid with his brilliant poetry. He works as a nurse in A&E at Norwich Hospital and has been supporting COVID Reflections by appearing in virtual concerts.
The aims of COVID Reflection’s projects are :
• To give those effected by this pandemic a lasting voice and platform to express themselves.
• To bring communities together, encourage collaborations and to spread positivity.
• To raise significant charitable funds to support organisations on a national and local level .
Dr Kate Grant’s painting or Jenny Liston, Nurse Practitioner, making a car-side consultation in a pop up tent, Suffolk
I sent in a shot of a home-schooling project that took on a life of its own.
Carrots from our Lockdown garden
The project has the blessing of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and will have a Foreword by Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter. They are collaborating with The Sussex Constabulary, The Sussex Ambulance & Fire service, a growing representative of MPs, every major religious group, The Royal Society and The Royal College of Surgeons.
National Covid Memorial Wall in London – photo by Roff Smith
Anything submitted will be published either in a printed book or in electronic format.
You can find submission details on COVID Reflection’s website here
‘Hope’ by Kieran Gandhe aged 12, taken at the beginning of the pandemic
COVID Reflections hopes to make a real difference by raising money for worthy causes and providing support to individuals and businesses who have been adversely affected by the pandemic. They will do this by making grants to local, small national and large national charities, to enable them to help those who need it the most, allowing them to continue to do the amazing work that we know is being carried out every day. We hope that, together, we are able to make a difference. If you would like to be involved, please email C19voices@gmail.com or visit their website www.CovidReflections.org
Bidding mounted steadily for a hardback first edition copy of ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons (1974)’, signed by the author.
After 64 bids and it sold for £201
– I am quite blown away. Very many thanks to all our supporters –
100% of the money will be donated to BBC Children in Need – under the auspices of ‘Children in Read’ via the Jumblebee auction site where this illustrated book was listed under the categories of both ‘Autobiography’ and ‘Film & Television’.
To read a free sample of the first section of the 2nd edition – available as an ebook – click here – then click on ‘Look inside’.
To see more on the second edition of the ebook – click here
‘highly amusing and thoroughly enjoyable’ David Butters
Since the bidding ran so high, I will include a signed copy of the 2nd edition, entitled ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974)’, published by The Lutterworth Press. This contains colour plates with more photos and additional stories that flowed down from the Lake District after the first edition came out.
I’m also including a hardback First Edition of my memoir ‘Funnily Enough’, which has a few pages on ‘Swallows and Amazons’ and a signed copy of ‘Ride the Wings of Morning’, which has noting about the making of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ but is all about living out the adventurous outdoor lifestyle advocated by Arthur Ransome, so there are four books in the bundle.
Although surpassed by Phillip Pullman and JK Rowling, I gained far more than authors such as Bernard Cornwall, Jeffery Archer, Sophie Kinsella and Maggie O’Farrell.
Being a filmography, ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons’ sat alongside the bestsellers, ‘Killing Eve’ by Luke Jennings and ‘Kay’s Anatomy’ by Adam Kay, which you can see by clicking here.
This auction of books has already raised £21,841 for BBC Children in Need, which is fantastic. It closed on Friday 13th November at 11.00pm.
If you need to know more about the auction, please contact Paddy Heron at Children in Read: childreninread@yahoo.com
This is the 7th Authors’ & Illustrators’ Auction in support of the 2021 BBC Children in Need Appeal. Charity Ref: 802052
Sophie Neville 