Sophie Neville, Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton with Ronald Fraser playing Captain Flint in the 1973 film of Arthur Ransome’s ‘Swallows and Amazons’
Ronald Fraser! veteran of World War II movies who had won an award for playing Basil Allenby-Johnson in The Misfits, had arrived on the shore of Coniston Water in two-tone shoes. Curiously so had two stand-ins. A short lady for me, who had dark hair, and a lady with blonde hair for Suzanna Hamilton. I have blonde hair and Suzanna is dark, but that is how it was.
The other four actors didn’t have stand-ins, which seemed odd. Kit Seymour, who played Nancy Blackett, and Lesley Bennett in the role of Peggy, rehearsed as usual. The two boys, Simon West and Sten Grendon, were younger than us but never had stand-ins, so that seemed odder. We didn’t think the ladies would be very comfortable on Peel Island. There wasn’t exactly a powder room there.
Director Claude Whatham and Bobby Sitwell with Suzanna Hamilton playing Susan Walker and Ronald Fraser as Jim Turner aka Captain Flint
And we were some way into the filming, used to handling props that the stand-ins found alien. However they were very excited about coming over to Peel Island. They sat in our positions and read our lines back to Ronald Fraser whilst the scene at the camp site was lit, and returned to stand-in for us later when his close-ups were shot. Somehow they managed to do this in scanty summer clothing despite a brewing storm.
My stand-in. I liked her very much and was most interested in her tapestry, since I was doing one myself. Lots of the men in the crew were interested in her tapestry too. They hadn’t noticed mine.
Our stand-ins got a lot of help from the crew as they went from ship to shore. We didn’t, but then we were agile and wore life-jackets. Mummy didn’t wear a life-jacket, but she has always been surprising good at getting in and out of boats. Her comment on the matter of my stand-in was, ‘Most unsuitable for a children’s film.’ Mum became increasingly concise: ‘I don’t think that woman was invited. She just turned up.’
Enthused by our Stand-in, Lesley Bennett and I went into Ambleside that evening to buy more wool for our own tapestries.
The recording of our scene with Captain Flint on Peel Island went smoothly, and Claude Whatham the Director was happy with the result, but my diary reports that a Force 8 gale blew in. This spun the poor production team into a quandary.
The call sheet for Thursday 20th June documents how truly unpredictable the weather could be. We had a ‘Fine Weather Call’, an ‘Alternative Dull Weather Call’, ‘Rain Cover’ in the Houseboat cabin, and a pencilled-in end-plan entitled ‘Peel Island’, which is where we’d ended up. Richard Pilbrow, the Producer, had a 1970s embroidered patch sewn to his jeans which read: THE DECISION IS MAYBE AND THAT’S FINAL.
The Call Sheet that never-was for 20th June 1973. We ended up on Peel Island.
In Arthur Ransome’s book Swallows and Amazons there is a dramatic storm with lashing rain. We were rather disappointed that it was not included in David Wood’s screenplay. It could have been shot that afternoon, but this was not to be. I can remember Mum saying, ‘You can’t have everything.’
What had been good about the 20th June was that we, the Swallows and the
Amazons, were all together, not sailing but on Wild Cat Island, with the novelty of working with Captain Flint for the first time. Kit and Lesley had been so patient, waiting day after day for their scenes to come up. They were stuck having lessons with our tutor Mrs Causey in the red double-decker bus most of the time. But the fact that they were on stand-by was helpful to the production manager who had to wrestle with the film schedule and call sheets.
As it was, the storm blew hard but cleared the dull-weather clouds and the next day was glorious, one to remember forever…
You can read more in the paperback or ebook here. There is also an audiobook narrated by me, Sophie Neville.
‘They were very savage savages’ ~ Dame Virginia McKenna with Sophie Neville ~ photo: Daphne Neville
I didn’t know that we would spend that Sunday cooking on the camp fire.
Bill Travers watching the scene featuring his wife Dame Virginia McKenna who is talking to Director Claude Whatham ~ photo: Daphne Neville
I didn’t know that Virginia had come up with her husband Bill Travers.
Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson in ‘Born Free’, Kenya 1964. Virginia later devoted her life to The Born Free Foundation.
Sophie Neville as Robinson Crusoe the shipwrecked sailor
I still don’t know how Lee Electric managed to get so many lights working out on Peel Island. I can’t remember having them for any other scene. They must have had the generator on the bank and run cables under the water. It looks as if it was a pretty dark day. It was wonderful having the flood lights – they kept us warm.
Dame Virginia McKenna as Man Friday in Swallows and Amazons 1974
There was a hushed reverence when Virginia McKenna was on set. Gone were the saucepan jokes. Funny really, as it was frying-pan scene. ‘I waited til no-one was looking and jumped out of the pot and escaped!’ The pemmican potato cakes she made me were delicious. And very hot.
Working with Virginia and Arthur Ransome’s dialogue was altogether an exercise in charm, or managing charm. I hope I didn’t over-cook it. I was rather pre-occupied by my loose tooth but loved being involved in a proper scene around the camp fire.
Sophie Neville being made up for the part of Titty by Peter Robb-King in 1973
Then Virginia was gone and I was a saucepan once more. A saucepan now with a very wiggly tooth indeed. Saucepan-lid, kid. No more lights. I was sitting up a tree above Coniston Water in my navy blue knickers, and descended feeling a bit like Pooh Bear.
‘Up a tree for fear of ravenous beasts’ with David Bracknell the First Assistant Director ~ photo: Daphne Neville
It is still there, the mossy tree. You can climb it.
Sophie Neville as Titty and Stephen Grendon as Roger rowing to Cormorant Island
‘Pull harder, Roger!’ ~ hardly a line from Shakespeare, but one that has lodged deep in my memory. Titty was even bossier in Arthur Ransome’s books ~
“You keep time with me, Boy,” said the able-seaman.
“All right.”
Sten Grendon as Roger and Sophie Neville as Titty rowing Swallow (c)StudioCanal
Titty lifted her oar from the water. Roger gave one pull.”Boy,” said the able-seaman, “you mustn’t say ‘All right’.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the boy.**
When we auditioned for Swallows and Amazons the emphasis was on sailing. Could we sail? In fact I needed to be good at rowing. Titty and Roger row back form the Charcoal Burners, I rowed the Amazon from Wild Cat Island and here we were rowing across Derwentwater to Cormorant Island. This was more difficult than normal as Swallow was wired to the camera pontoon.
When I look at the 16mm footage my father took of me rowing at home before we left to film in the Lake District, I cringe. My blades were high above the water, hitting the surface with terrible splashes but I seemed to achieve my objective. I managed to fit an improvised mast to our Thames skiff and even made my own sail. It doesn’t look great, but I think Arthur Ransome would have approved.
Swallow finding Amazon anchored near Cormorant Island on Derwent Water with the camera pontoon and safety boat: photo~ Daphne Neville
Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton joined us for the scene when the Swallows lower the Jolly Roger and start to sail the captured the Amazon back to Wild Cat Island. I can only imagine that I changed my costume in one of the support boats. The scene may have been shot with two cameras on different boats.
Sophie Neville playing Titty Walker in the captured Amazon, with David Cadwallader, Bobby Sitwell, Dennis Lewiston, Claude Whatham and two electricians holding reflector boards on the camera punt: Photo ~ Daphne Neville
This shot shows Claude Whatham using the grey punt,* which somehow managed to accommodate Dennis Lewiston, the 35mm Panavision and quite a few crew members, while Richard Pilbrow remained on the camera pontoon with Eddie Collins operating the 16mm camera.
Richard Pilbrow and his film crew on the camera pontoon with Eddie Collins operating the 16mm camera. Simon West and Stephen Grendon sail Swallow. Suzanna Hamilton is climbing aboard the Amazon with Sophie Neville
I remember the scene itself as being difficult to achieve in terms of sailing. Swallow has a keel, and Amazon with her centre board is much the faster dinghy. It is not like racing two boats of the same class. After hauling up the anchor Suzanna and I battled to turn the Amazon, not wanting to wiggle the rudder and jeopardise her pins. I remember Simon calling advise over the water. He stalled and we caught up, trying to get close together for the shot. The result was a photograph used on the front cover of the next Puffin edition of the book.
Stephen Grendon, Simon West, Sophie Neville and Suzanna Hamilton on the cover of the 1974 Puffin edition of ‘Swallows and Amazons’
* I may be wrong about these photographs. The still surface of the water in the shot of Titty alone in Amazon suggests that it was taken later on, when we filmed the burglars landing on Cormorant Island with Captain Flint’s trunk, but we probably had a very similar set up on this more sparking day ~ 15th June 1973.
We went on to film various shots of us sailing on to Wild Cat Island, when I think the camera was in Swallow capturing close-ups of a triumphant Captain John. He did indeed do well.
**Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, 1970 Jonathan Cape edition
Claude Whatham had no Peak of Darien at Bank Ground Farm, Arthur Ransome’s location for Holly Howe. But he did have buttercups and daisies, the flowers so evocative of childhood summers spent in the English countryside. The field that runs down to Coniston Water looked glorious that sunny day in June 1973. It was glowing.
Claude had used wild flowers to good effect when he made Laurie Lee’s memoir Cider with Rosie for the BBC in May 1971. It had been one of those months of endless sunny days in Gloucestershire but we were in Westmorland now, where buttercups bloomed later in the year and sunny days were cherished. This was Claude’s afternoon for low angle shots.
The view from Bank Ground Farm over Lake Coniston as it was in 1973
We arrived to find that a huge hole had been dug in the meadow for the camera, with a picnic for us spread out the other side of it. We thought this was very exciting. I’m not sure whether Mrs Batty felt quite the same joy about the excavations in her field. I was sad that we didn’t have a fire with a kettle, as they do in the book of Swallows and Amazons, but that was kept as a feature of island life and camping yet to come.
Sophie Neville, Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton, Gay Lawley Waklin, Bobby Sitwell, Dennis Lewiston, Albert Clark: photo~ Daphne Neville
Roger came sailing down clutching the telegram from our father, reaching out to deliver it over the hole. I understand that this was based on the cryptic telegrams that Ernest Altounyan sent his children Taqui, Susie, Titty and Roger, the children who acted as models for the Swallows. It has become the iconic response to Health and Safety ever since.
Claude Watham having just spoken to Stephen Grendon playing Roger at Bank Ground Farm. Who is in the foregound? : photo~ Daphne Neville
What we ended up saying altered slightly from David Wood’s original screenplay. ‘Dispatches?’ – Ransome spells the word ‘Despatches’ but apparently both spellings are correct.
John referred to Daddy as ‘Father’. I’m not sure why. He did so in his letter. It is daddy in the book, but perhaps Claude considered ‘Father’ as having a more period feel. I stuck more to Ransome’s dialogue, as you can see if you compare the film script with my diary entry above. This was because I knew his book so well, and never saw the script. The acting credit must go to Simon West who sat holding the telegram, graciously absorbing my bossiness, whilst I grappled with the words.
David Wood’s original screenplay of ‘Swallows and Amazons’Sue Merry typing up continuity notes on location at Bank Ground Farm: photo ~ Daphne Neville
Back in 1973 it was the job of the ‘Continuity Girl’ to take notes on any changes made to the script. Sue Merry, ever present in her dark coat, took on this role. Today she would probably be known as a ‘Script Supervisor’ but her Aviator sunglasses and black polo-necked jersey would be the height of fashion. Sue also took notes technical notes for the film editor and director, indicating which Takes were favoured and which had been spoilt, giving the reason. In those days we had no monitors. The camera lens would be unscrewed after each take and checked carefully. If any fluff was found, Bobby Sitwell the camera assistant would call out, ‘Hair in the gate!’ Sue would quietly note this down and David Bracknell, the first assistant, would call out, ‘Set up to go again’. And we’d go again.
Sue was also responsible for the continuity, and would take numerous Polaroid photographs as an aide-memoir. This scene followed the one of Mother giving Roger the telegram, which had not yet been shot. Virginia McKenna hadn’t arrived back in Cumbria. Looking back, this seems a huge gamble. Would they ever get another sunny day while the buttercups were still blooming, a day to match – exactly – the weather of 14th June?
Sue would sit and type up her notes on location, using a portable typewriter that sometimes was set up for her on a spindly picnic table. This method of working was different from the BBC, when a ‘production assistant’ would type up her notes at the end of each day. Would it have been so that one copy of her notes, typed on triplicate paper, could be sent to the laboratory with the exposed film? It meant that her evenings were free.
We were allowed to help fill in the hole at the end of the day.
Sue Merry had worked for Neville C. Thompson before on The Boyfriend, Ken Russell’s movie that starred Twiggy with Tommy Tune, Barbara Windsor and Glenda Jackson. She later worked on The Wicker Man, Anthony Shaffer’s harrowing film directed by Robin Hardy that featured Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee and Diane Cliento, Britt Ekland and Ingrid Pitt. She went on to work with Dennis Lewiston and other members of our crew on The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the movie that starred Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and such unexpected artists such as Meatloaf, Christopher Biggins and Prince Andrew’s old flame Koo Stark, who played a bridesmaid. Sue also did the continuity for Nicolas Roeg on The Man Who Fell to Earth, starring David Bowie, before moving into television to work on The Professionals and The Comic Strip Presents… All quite fun!
But on that day in June 1973, she was the girl with the daisies in her hair, wearing a coat thick enough to indicate that although sunny it was still quite chilly in the Lake District.
You can read more in ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons (1974)’
‘Here we are, intrepid explorers making our way into uncharted waters. What mysteries will they hold for us? What dark secrets shall be revealed?’
The dark secret was that the inky black night scenes had to be shot in Mrs Batty’s barn. At Bank Ground Farm. During the day. A rainy day.
The design team strung up thick light-proof drapes and made the dusty out-building into a studio. The director, Claude Whatham had no choice. We had quickly run out of interior scenes and the weather was so bad that we could do little else.
Producer Richard Pilbrow with director Claude Whatham in their wet weather gear on Peel Island, Coniston Water
‘While the rest of England melted in a heat wave, the Lakes seemed wrapped in mist and rain,’ Richard Pilbrow the producer remembers. I have a press cutting from The Guardian dated 7th July 1973, which opens with the words:
‘THE WEATHER report follows in half a minute. Richard Pilbrow is obsessed with the weather. Every morning he wakes around 4 o’clock and crosses his room at the Kirkstone Foot Hotel to cock a weather eye at the sky above Wansfell Pike. Most mornings it is the same story… Pilbrow looks out of the window. Raining. ‘
What a worry and concern that rain was. Swallows and Amazons is firmly set in an idyllic childhood summer, August of 1929, when the water was warm enough to swim daily and the only disappointment was a total lack of wind. When we arrived to start filming at Derwentwater on 12th June 1973 it was too windy to even go out on the lake.
I loved filming in the barn. The Third Assistant, Gareth Tandy, lead me through the high wooden doors and into a magical version of our camp on Peel Island, beautifully recreated by Ian Whittaker the set dresser. A real camp fire was burning. Blankets (goatskins in Titty’s imagination) and pillows from our tents had been laid out so that I could be ‘shrouded in my cloak’ whilst waiting up for the Swallows to return from the Amazon River. The scene was beautifully lit with branches held in stands in front of the lights with a gentle wind produced by the prop men wafting a board to lift my hair at the right moment. I don’t think there was an owl hoot for me to hear. I had to imagine that so they could add a real owl call later. Someone has written in to ask if I learnt how to make an answering hoot. I’m afraid not. I tried and tried. I still can’t. John could do it but Claude asked us both to just pretend so that he could lay the sound on afterwards.
Director Claude Whatham with his cast of Swallows in 1973
What we gained, despite or perhaps because of the weather, was a camaraderie that formed a foundational basis to the film. We had to be stoic and get on with filming despite getting cold and wet. Rain doesn’t show up on screen unless it is really pelting down. You can see the effects – wet hair and soggy costumes, but you actually have to use rain machines if you want to show rain in a drama. We could film our trek up the hill to visit the charcoal burners without a problem but going out on the lake was impossible. You’d have seen the rain drops falling on the water. And it was too windy. As it was, we had a brilliant director of photography who used what light he had to capture that limpid quality you find in the Lakes, so quintessentially English it draws you in, reeling back to childhood days when we had time to make camps and rush about in the woods.
Suzanna Hamilton, Sten Grendon, Sophie Neville and Simon West in a scene cut from the film
I’m pretty sure that the big scene I referred to was one that was cut from the final film. It was about leaving paterrans in the woods, as detailed in the books but not essential to the story. It must have been covered by the journalist from the Guardian as I found this cutting:
The rain did deter my mother from taking photographs. She didn’t have a flash to use in the barn but she took lots – masses – the following day…
Dressed for the Cumbrian weather: Daphne Neville with Liz Lomas, Richard’s assistant at Theatre Projects in London ~ photo: Richard Pilbrow
Other scenes that hit the cutting room floor are detailed here
If you would like to read more, ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’ is available as on Amazon Kindle and other ebook platforms.
Sophie Neville by Elterwater in 1973 ~ photo: DJ Neville
My mother was very excited about meeting the actress Brenda Bruce who Claude had engaged to play Mrs Dixon. She had arrived on 10th June whilst we were filming the fishing scene at Elterwater where she found Claude keeping up our moral by wearing my mother’s Donny Osmond hat. I think he needed it for warmth. It was unexpectedly cold.
I can remember being worried that Brenda Bruce would be chilly as she was only wearing a blouse and flip-flops. Now I understand that she ‘was of a certain age’ and didn’t feel the cold quite so much as skinny twelve-year-olds with opinions.
Brenda Bruce had been born in Prestwich in Lancashire. I’d had no idea that she was so well-known, that BAFTA ~ the British Academy for Television Awards had named her Best Actress in 1963. “Yes, you do!” Mum said. “She was the White Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass.” She’d actually worked for Claude quite a bit and he trusted her to play a small part well. brought her son with her.
I shouldn’t have been worried about Mrs Dixon. She looked wonderful in the film – was wonderful – and very comfortable in her nice clean dairy.
When I look back on Swallows and Amazons, I can see that Claude made sure it didn’t become chocolate-boxy. You can tell by glancing at Mike Pratt’s costume.
Mike Pratt who played Mr Dixon the provider of worms for our fishing bait, the lovely Lakeland colours of his garments contrasting with the harsh blues and reds of the 1970’s clothes worn by the crew.
Brenda Bruce as Mrs Dixon with Claude Whatham
I can’t remember exactly where Dixon’s Farm was filmed. The scenes set at Jackson’s Farm, Arthur Ransome’s ‘Holly Howe’ were shot at Bank Ground Farm by Coniston Water, but all I know about the location for Dixon’s Farm is that our tutor got terribly lost trying to find it…
Geraint Lewis of the Arthur Ransome Trust wrote to confirm Kevin Burn’s theory about the location we used for Mrs Dixon’s dairy. ‘I had a long conversation once with Lucy Batty about her recollections of filming at Bank Ground in the house, barn, etc. She confirmed that they used the buildings shown as Tent Lodge Cottages on Google Maps – as Dixon’s Farm. That certainly seems to fit from the view of the lake and shoreline trees in the background.’
What Richard Pilbrow and Claude Whatham did want to make the most of was the Westmorland scenery. In many ways they were making a landscape movie. I think what they most enjoyed was finding all the locations to put together Arthur Ransome’s imaginary lake as depicted in the end pages of Swallows and Amazons and I am often asked where the waterfall is.
“It must be Niagara!” No, Sophie. It’s somewhere near Elterwater.
‘It’s Niagra!’ Titty declared. Stephen Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton, Simon West and Sophie Neville as the Swallows on their way to visit the charcoal burners
Kevin Burn sent me some suggestions with photos which made me feel pretty sure the actual waterfall is Skelwith Force. But Roger Wardale, who is an expert on Arthur Ransome’s locations, thinks not. “I don’t think it’s Skelwith Force which is more a series of rocky rapids in fairly level ground. I watched the film again yesterday and was reminded of the waterfall at Glen Mary (otherwise known as Tom Gill) the outlet for Tarn Hows dropping down to the Coniston-Ambleside road 4 miles from Skelwith Bridge.” So – any ideas most welcome!
You can read more about the film locations and our antics in ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’ available on Amazon Kindle and from all ebook providers:
Ronnie Cogan having a cigarette with one of the Supporting Artistes. Terry Smith the Wardrobe Master is going below in the background. photo: Martin Neville.
It was a glorious summer day to film on Windermere. Conditions were perfect. My father had been asked to appear as a film extra in the scene in Swallows and Amazons when the the crew of Swallow narrowly miss colliding with a Lakeland steamer, that transporting tourists up and down the lake.
Martin Neville wearing 1929 costume aboard MV Tern on Windermere in 1973
He was the tall dark native in a blazer and white flannels aboard the elegant MV Tern. A lovely way to spend a sunny morning in the Lake District. Until your daughter nearly drowns.
MV Tern on Windermere was built in 1890 with a steam engine, converted to diesel in the 1950s, and is still operating today.
Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton, Sten Grendon and I were sailing the Swallow, on our voyage to the island. The twelve-foot dinghy was laden with camping gear and had no buoyancy. We did not wear life jackets.
At the start of the day, Swallow was attached to the camera pontoon so that Claude Whatham, the film director, could capture our dialogue on film. The camera crew then went aboard the Tern and we sailed free, with the safety boat some distance away, behind the camera. Other boats were keeping modern boats clear of the shot.
In the script Roger is down to say, ‘Steamship on the port bow’. I think what came out was, ‘Look John! Over there – steamer ahead!’
The Tern had a young, inexperienced skipper who was coping with a notch throttle, as you can see if you watch the movie.
The screenplay of David Wood’s adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s classic book ‘Swallows and Amazons’ set in the Lake District in 1929
My mother, who normally looked after us, had been obliged to drive to Bristol as she presented a weekly programme for HTV with Jan Leeming called Women Only and had been summons to promote the channel at the Bath and West Show. Dad must have been acting as our chaperone, responsible for our safety. A sailor with years of experience racing on the Solent, he took a keen interest in all the boating scenes, but I’m sure he didn’t have a chaperone’s licence. As we sailed towards him, on an intentional collision course, he foresaw that the larger vessel would take our wind.
Three men of Cumbria who were happy to have short-back-and-sides haircuts on the deck of the MV Tern on Windermere in 1973 ~ photo: Martin Neville
My father watched from above as we only just turned in time, missing the steamer by a mere nine inches as her bow wave bounced us away and we sailed on. Ronnie Cogan had to buy him a whisky. They knew Sten could hardly swim, that any of us could have been entangled in the ropes and camping gear if Swallow had gone over. Clinker-built dinghies can sink quickly. It was a sunny day but the water was icy and very deep.
We did not know it at the time, but Dad nearly took me off the film. He had a meeting with the producer when he tested the BOAC life jackets we rehearsed in. Mine did not inflate.
Phil Brown, who belongs to the Arthur Ransome Group, said: “Tern was re-engined in 1957 with two diesel engines. Interestingly she was to have been named SWALLOW, but after a last-minute change, she was launched in June 1891 as TERN.”
It is said that children bounce. The next day, I sat school exams: geography, science and maths.
…‘Carry on Matron’. I wonder what near disasters they had on that film.
You can read more in the ebook ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons (1974)’ available from Amazon Kindle, Kobo, iTunes and all other online retailers:
The Amazon’s time had come. In the script, the short scene where Nancy and Peggy careen their dinghy is set in the Amazon boathouse, but Claude Whatham shot them scrubbing its underside by the lake with Beckfoot beyond, showing their background. Nancy threw a bucket of water over him for his pains. It was a complete accident. She actually chucked the water onto the bottom of the boat but it splashed back. He was squatting below the camera to the right and got soaked by what must have been cold lake water. Kit Seymour flung back her head and roared with laughter. He took in it good spirit, but only up to a point. I don’t think he had anything else to wear.
David Blagden the sailing director, David Cadwallader the grip, and David Bracknell the first assistant looking at the Amazon’s bottom with DPO Denis Lewiston with the 35mm Panavision
Kit Seymour wrote in her diary:
‘This is the day I had been waiting for. The Amazons had at last begun filming. We got changed and had to be made up sunburnt. We then rehearsed what to do. We did the second scene. I quite accidently threw a bucket of water at Claude. After lunch we had to film the interior of the boat house. Peggy had to say, ‘Not a breath of wind.’ This was quite funny becasue our hair was flying about everywhere. They had to film this scene quite a lot of times.’ She was quote in The Times newspaper, spelling mistakes and all.
I was a conscientious child and keen not to fall behind with my school work. Children under the age of sixteen have to be issued with a licence by their local education authority before they can act in films. Mum, who was our legal chaperone on location, decided it would be quite fine if we did fifteen schooling hours a week rather than a minimum of three hours a day, as stipulated in the rule book. I spent my time catching up in our school bus as I had done little the day before as I had been acting with Virginia McKenna.
Mum was equally fluid about the time we spent on set – or indeed on location. Sten Grendon, who played Roger, was aged nine. I now know he was meant to go home every day at 4.30pm but we all returned together whenever it was deemed practical. However, Sten’s mother Jane was with him and if ever there was a child who needed to expend energy it was he. Sending him back to the Oaklands Guest House early could have endangered the people of Ambleside. It did us a lot of good to work hard, and cope with real, if channelled, responsibility. We were all busting with energy, so much that I grazed my leg badly climbing a tree at lunch time that day. Claude put a stop to any more dangerous activities as a result. He couldn’t risk any of us getting injured.
My sister Tamzin Neville broke her ankle when she was in the middle of playing Anthea, the leading role in a BBC serialisation of E.Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet. It could have been a disaster but she wore long Edwardian dresses with petticoats that covered up her splint. My legs were fully on display in Swallows and Amazons. If I hadn’t have been wearing dungarees when I climbed that tree the world would have seen the scratch.
I can remember admiring the large house featured as Beckfoot, the Blackett’s house on the lakeside, and wandering past towering the rhododendrons in the garden, but I have no idea where is is. Christina Hardyment felt that Arthur Ransome must have modelled Beckfoot on Lanehead, the Collingwoods’ house on the East of Lake road above Coniston, but the film required a big house with lawns going down to a lake. John Ward has written in to say that we used Brown Howe House on the western Shore of Coniston Water south of Peel Island. The boathouse is also there on the edge of the lake.
Here we are at lunchtime, captured on Dad’s cine camera:
If you take the East of the Lake road along Coniston Water you will find Bank Ground Farm. It lies between Brantwood, John Ruskin’s former home, and Lanehead where Arthur Ransome’s friends the Collingwoods lived. Ransome was particularly good friends of Dora Collingwood, who married an Irish-Armenian doctor keen on sailing called Ernest Altounyan. They went to live in Syria but every five years or so would bring their children to visit their Grandparents for the holidays, once staying at Bank Ground Farm next door. Ernest bought two 14 foot sailing dinghies called Swallow and Mavis in which his family learnt to sail.
It was for the five Altounyan children, Taqui, Susie, Titty , Roger – and Bridget, the ships’s baby, that Arthur Ransome wrote Swallows and Amazons after they gave him a pair of bright scarlet Turkish slippers as a birthday present. I don’t think I knew that Titty was a real girl when I played her in the film, but I did know her character in the books and felt rather bad that I didn’t have her thick dark hair evident in Ransome’s illustrations.
Claude Whatham with Virginia McKenna ~ photo: Daphne Neville
Bank Ground Farm is much smarter now. Lucy Batty, who let us take over her home in 1973, has passed on but the farm is run by her grandson Jonathan. You can stay in the main house, where there is a lovely corner bedroom with views down Langdale, or take a self-catering flat, since they have been able to convert the barn and stables into further accommodation.
I’ve just received post from Peter Willis of The Nancy Blackett Trust who said, “I stayed at Bank Ground in the summer – it was utterly lovely, exactly as it ought to be – Jonathan Batty and his wife are really hospitable, and one of the great pleasures was the friendliness and interstingness of the other guests, who included a Japanese Ransome fan. Do have dinner if they’re doing it. Food’s great, but so’s the sociable atmosphere.”
Int: Holly Howe ~ Bank Ground Farm near Coniston
It was grey and raining in the Lake District on 15th May 1973. Instead of filming the scene when Roger tacks up the field, Denis Lewiston, the Director of Photography, lit Mrs Batty’s living room at Bank Ground Farm for an evening scene. Simon Holland, the art director, had dressed the room in the style of a Cumbrian farmhouse in the 192os with working oil lamps. Bob Hedges, the prop master, brought in all the camping gear we were to be packing while Virginia McKenna was having her hair done up and we had lessons in our red double-decker bus. Then we recorded a scene, the dialogue of which was never used in the finished film.
The Screenplay: David Wood’s adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s book ‘Swallows and Amazons’
You do see Susan packing bars of soap and me making heavy weather of sewing our flag, my hair pinned back in a hideous way, with rather a modern reel of white cotton lying on the desk. John packed the telescope in a biscuit tin, which now seems a mistake as we used it on the voyage, very much not in a tin, but then one always re-packs many times before an important trip.
Virginia McKenna, as Mary Walker with Sophie Neville playing her daughter Titty Walker busy stiching Swallow’s new flag in preparation for the voyage to the island
After lunch, we shot the scene when Mother is teaching us how to erect a tent on rocky ground, as she did with Father when they were young. Titty asks if she is really old.
‘Not really. But I was younger then,’ Virginia McKenna replied looking dubious.
This is rather how I feel now, all these years later, especially when I walk into a room when people are expecting me as Titty. I’m not really old, but I do look different from when I was only twelve. This always happens when I return to Bank Ground Farm. Everyone is a bit taken back by my height but say I sound just the same. And I am married now with a family of my own. It is a bit like when Peter Pan flew back to see Wendy and found she looked just like her mother – not least because in the play the adult Wendy is always played by the actress who formerly takes the role of Mrs Darling.
Simon West, Sophie Neville and Suzanna Hamilton in the 1974 film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’
I was standing outside the front door of Bank Ground once, talking to Lucy Batty, when two Japanese girls arrived to stay at the farm. Fans of the film, they looked up at me and declared, ‘Ooo Titty!’ clasping their hands together in greeting. They had come from the other side of the world and yet recognised me immediately. Perhaps I haven’t changed that much after all.
The weather must have cleared up a bit by teatime on 15th May as we recorded the scenes in the boat house when John discovers Swallow, brings her out to the stone jetty and steps the mast. They must have had to take the generator down to the lakeside as I’m pretty sure that the sunlight comes from an arc-lamp. Suzanna got her shorts wet as she pushed out the clinker-built dinghy but we loved being by the water.
You can read more in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ available online and to order from bookshops and libraries. It is now available as an audiobook.
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
14th May 1973 – and it was the first day of making the original movie ‘Swallows & Amazons’ on location in the Lake District. A huge effort had been made to ‘dress’ Haverthwaite Railway Station, at the southern end of Windermere. The aim was to bring across the feel of a bustling holiday destination in the summer of 1929. Local people had been fitted with costumes in the Ambleside Church Hall, there was a horse and cart, porters’ trolleys laden with trunks and a number of old bikes, which were all of great interest to us.
Having stepped down from the steam locomotive, where the Times photographer must have taken this shot (below) before we children were piled into an open-topped period vehicle, for further photographs.
A photograph taken for The Times of us all aboard the steam train at Haverthwaite
I thought the publicity photographs taken that day were silly, especially since Kit Seymour and Lesley Bennett, who played the Amazons, were wearing ordinary clothes rather than period costumes, but the results were later published far-afield from The Guardian to Woman’s Realm.
Viewers ask how old we were at the time. Sten Grendon, who played Roger was aged 8, Simon West (John) was aged 11. Although Titty is described as being aged 9 in the books, I was 12, as were Suzanna Hamilton (Susan) and Kit Seymour (Nancy). Lesley Bennett (Peggy) was 13, but looked younger. Virginia McKenna, who played my mother, has just been awarded a DBE – not before time!
A publicity shot featuring Virginia McKenna, with Kit Seymour, Steven Grendon, Sophie Neville, Lesley Bennett, Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton, taken on the first day of filming and published in the Guardian and other newspapers
The yellow motor used in the film for our taxi was superb. Would a real Lakeland taxi have been so grand? I recorded in my diary that Sten, playing Roger, hung out of the window as the director, Claude Whatham, ‘filmed us driving out of the station, along the platform at top speed.’
Once this shot was ‘in the can’ Virginia McKenna was interviewed by journalists while we were hurried away to get on with our lessons. Our tutor taught us Art. I drew the a picture of the motor car.
Director Claude Whatham talking to Virginia McKenna
Journalists from the Times, Guardian and Daily Mirror were looked after by our publicist, Brian Doyle, whose diary was a little more functional than mine. I’m now struck by the telephone number for the unit hotel: Ambleside 2232
Dairy kept by Brian Doyle, the publicist on ‘Swallows and Amazons’
Arriving at Holly Howe in the taxi was truly exciting. It was not filmed the next day, as I think rain had set in. Claude waited for good evening light. But I remember the thrill of drawing up outside the farmhouse in the old car and pulling on my hat as we spilled out and ran past the big farm horses Mr Jackson was leading into the yard. Our OOV (out of vision) dialogue was added later.
The screenplay of the 1973 film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ adapted from Arthur Ransome’s book by David Wood
If you ever go to Bank Ground Farm near Coniston, named Holly Howe by Arthur Ransome in his books, you must run down the field to the lake as we did. As soon as you arrive. And at top speed. And you will be filled by the same feeling of elation as we were when we played the Walker children.
Steven Grendon, Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Simon West at Bankground Farm above Coniston Water in the Lake District
The slope, formed by glacial scouring and subsequent deposits long ago, is steeper than you might think. We became adept at the art of glaumphing, advocated by Ransome in the book.
What struck me when I returned to Bank Ground Farm one Spring, was that sadly the great trees have gone from around the old farm gate and the boatsheds down by the lake. They must simply have reached the end of their lives, but their glory was captured on celluloid to be remembered forever.
Sten Grendon, Sophie Neville and Simon West with Mr Jackson at Holly Howe~ photo: Daphne Neville
Most Arthur Ransome devotees will know that the Peak at Darien, where once stood stout Cortez, is familiar to readers as it appears in two of the illustrations in the book. Sadly it can not be found below the farm in real life. Mrs Ransome said that you could find the headland on Windermere. In April 2011, when I was on an early recce with Nick Barton, CEO of Harbour Picture Productions, we did pass one promising spot. However Richard Pilbrow and Claude Whatham chose Friar’s Crag on Derwent Water for the location. I didn’t know it but Christina Hardyment writes in her excellent book, Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint’s Trunk, that they had found the very place Ransome had in mind, “without the slightest idea that they were quite right to be doing so.” She found that Ransome had marked up postcard of Friar’s Peak for his illustrator Clifford Webb to work from in 1930. It feels completely right when you are there, with the iconic view of an island under the towering mountains. It was over a shot of this that the opening titles were added.
Sout Cortez was not around. Neither were we children. By the time we had been transported from Coniston to Derwent Water for this scheduled scene the sun was going down. We’d been delayed by the make-up artist who was determined to tone down the tans we had developed. This took ages as he used a very small sponge. My mother was frustrated, as she thought that this would never have shown up, but he put his foot down with the result that we were ‘late on set’ for the evening shots. Mum grabbed this photo but it was a disaster. Claude Whatham was very annoyed.
Sophie Neville as Titty arriving too late in the day to film at Friar’s Crag on Derwent Water. The island portrayed as Wildcat Island can be seen in the distance ~ photo: Daphne Neville
One of the big secrets of the film is that the sequence when we run up to the Peak at Darien and first set eyes on the island in the lake was shot under an oak tree in Runnymede, near the River Thames. We were not an island at all. It must have been an expensive ‘pick-up shot’ but Claude had made an effort to gather together the same crew members and I was back in my lovely silk dress once more. We knew how to act by then and the joy of being together again shows on our faces. The result was a scene to set the film off on the right foot. We were jubilant and so excited, that, like swallows, we could have taken flight.
Sophie Neville, Claude Whatham and Simon West with Richard Pilbrow, right ~photo:Daphne Neville
I would have to check with Richard Pilbrow to be certain, but I think that Simon Holland, the Art Director, penned the SWALLOWS and AMAZONS graphics for the opening titles. I remember a discussion about the font type. A very fashionable script used on the poster of the film was favoured. I said that they ought to use the handwritten capitals that Clifford Webb had penned on the map in the opening cover of the book, which were copied by Simon Holland (and me) on our chart. This was chosen.
A snazzy Seventies’ font, had been used for the titles of Lionel Jefferey’s movie The Railway Children and the poster of Swallows & Amazons. For sometime a DVD has been available which gives you both movies released by EMI Films.
Click on this image to see the poster of the film
As a viewer I felt that this soon dated it, whilst Swallows and Amazons sailed onto our television screens in the 1980’s and 1990’s, without being spoilt by what became most unfashionable graphics. Of course that particular retro font is now all the rage.
You can read more about the trials of producing the classic film in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ published by the Lutterworth Press, available online, at all good bookshops and to order from libraries.
The remastered DVD with subtitles and an Extras package is available online.
The recording of our scene with Captain Flint on Peel Island went smoothly, and Claude Whatham the Director was happy with the result, but my diary reports that a Force 8 gale blew in. This spun the poor production team into a quandary.
Amazons, were all together, not sailing but on Wild Cat Island, with the novelty of working with Captain Flint for the first time. Kit and Lesley had been so patient, waiting day after day for their scenes to come up. They were stuck having lessons with our tutor Mrs Causey in the red double-decker bus most of the time. But the fact that they were on stand-by was helpful to the production manager who had to wrestle with the film schedule and call sheets.
Sophie Neville 