‘Where are they now – the cast of ‘Swallows and Amazons’?’
I can see from my admin page that this question is often typed into search engines – three times before 8am this morning. An awful lot of people seem to want to know what the children who played the Swallows and the Amazons back in 1974 are doing now they are all grown up. For this little Swallow it really has been ‘Swallows and Amazons Forever’. I’m still wading out to the island.
‘Titty the Isrealite’ photo of Sophie Neville taken by Hilary Weston
Now a writer, I am officially President of The Arthur Ransome Society, one of the largest literary societies in the United Kingdom with six branches and quite a number of overseas members. They even have association with the Arthur Ransome Club in Japan.
This year we held our International AGM weekend in Dumfries in the lowlands of Scotland, when we much enjoyed walking along the Solway and across the wade to Rough Island, just as Titty walked out across the mud in Arthur Ransome’s book ‘Secret Water’. There seems little difference except that I have a dog called Flint rather than a kitten called Simbad.
Sophie Neville who in 1973 played Titty Walker in the EMI movie of ‘Swallows & Amazons’ dressed up to face the Scottish weather
The great excitement at our IAGM this year was that Nick Barton, the CEO of Harbour Pictures came up to Dumfries with his screenwriter Angela Gibb to tell us about their new adaption of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ released in cinemas on 19th August 2016. I helped him to carry a huge plasma screen up to the hotel where the conference was taking place so that members could watch the thrilling new promo. We were sworn to secrecy, but you can read all Nick told us in a feature article in the Saturday Telegraph. This online version has more photos than the print version and mentions The Arthur Ransome Society. There is additional comment in the Sunday Telegraph.
You can read more about how we made the original 1974 film of Swallows and Amazons here
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
‘I’ve just read this delightful ebook – thank you so much for writing it! …I hope you will deservedly enjoy hearing that I absolutely adored the film of Swallows & Amazons and learned your name, along with all of the other actors and actresses off by heart from the LP record, which I played and played.
‘I also had the jigsaw of the campsite scene, which I thought was an incredible piece of merchandising (and it was, for its day).
‘I read my first Swallows & Amazons book (Swallowdale, but never mind) in the summer holidays when I was 7, and rapidly recruited my best friend Linda to being a fan. One of our mums spotted that the film was on at our local cinema in Dundee that Christmas, but the next day was the last date it was showing – so we were collected early from our school Christmas party, so that we could make it in time. We were in heaven. The next Easter, our families took us to the Lake District (staying in Coniston) for the first of many holidays there. We remember “finding” Gondola submerged in the reeds, and sailing with our dads over to Bank Ground and seeing the two dinghies named Swallow and Amazon. We soon found a favourite picnic on the shore close to Peel Island, and in later years, my dad and I rowed over to the Island in a rubber dinghy, which was tremendously exciting. Fascinating to hear about the artificial shingle beach!
I was interested to read that one of your qualifications for getting the job was that you could row, and that you’d practised at home in a Thames Skiff. Many thanks again for giving me such a delightful film to immerse myself in as a child. ‘Helena Smalman-Smith
‘We love your book and tales of filming.’ Love Ambleside – on Twitter
‘…the girls adore your film of Swallows and Amazons. In fact, I fear it is thanks to your film rather than the book that my Swallows and Amazons camping weekend was full to bursting. I also have friends in Suffolk who would happily hot foot it across the country with their three children to hear you!’ Grainne Dennison (teacher and Ransome fan).
‘My daughter is 11 today & this is her favourite present! Titty was always Moira’s favourite character from the books AND the film, she is thrilled!’
‘My daughter LOVED your book! She couldn’t help sharing gems & finished it in a few days on hols. Magic! My turn now!’
‘I have been hesitating to write, but I do want to tell you how much I enjoyed reading ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’. It made watching the film so much more enjoyable. I came to Arthur Ransome late in life, but I’ve read all of them, and have a complete collection of the ‘Swallows and Amazons’ adventures.’ Mark Cheng, Bedford
‘I really love the Swallows and Amazons movie. I actually went to see it at the pictures in London, with my family when it first came out, but I was only about 4 or 5 years old, so I don’t remember much about that day. But of course I have watched it many times over the years and since I have the DVD I make a point to watch it at least once every year. You are my favourite as you are so charming!!’ Robert Newland, Dorset
If you have a memory of the film, do leave a comment in the box below.
Lesley Bennett, Suzanna Hamilton, Stephen Grendon, Sophie Neville, Virginia McKenna, Simon West and Kit Seymour gathered at Bank Ground Farm above Coniston Water
You can read the first section of the memoir free of charge on Amazon here.
There are now three different editions available to purchase online:
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
Titty was the name of an imaginative and ‘highly original’ little girl who Arthur Ransome first got to know in the Lake District when she was aged eight. When I met her niece Barbara Altounyan, she was most amused to hear that I had once played her Auntie Titty.
~Sophie Neville playing Titty Altounyan in the 1974 film ‘Swallows & Amazons’. Official photograph taken a Bank Ground Farm above Coniston Water copyright: StudioCanal~
I’d brought Barbara some long lost family photographs that included some of Titty’s wedding in Aleppo. They are beautiful.
Titty on the arm of her father, Dr Ernest Altounyan in Aleppo, 1954
Titty on her wedding day with her husband Melkon Guzelian, her sister-in-law, her father Ernest Altounyan, her mother Dora and brother Roger, far right. You can also see Roger, Ernest and Dora below, with Roger’s wife standing far right.
There is also a more informal shot.
‘Don’t you want to know about Titty?’ Barbara asked me. ‘She was a very detailed person and quite a perfectionist.’ I knew she was a wonderful artist who had studied under Henry Moore at the Chealsea School of Art. Although she produced a lot of colourful art, she was unwilling to ever attempt to sell her work. I was also told she also had long legs. I only hope that I have represented her well.
Titty and her siblings had dark hair, but I was told that Mrs Ransome wanted the children playing the Swallows to have have blonde hair. She insisted that Titty was played by ‘an English Rose.’
Titty Altounyan at her sister Brigit’s wedding to John Sanders in 1953
(NB: Ransome did not write ‘Swallows and Amazons’ while on holiday on Coniston Water as was stated in the programme. To see a photograph of Low Ludderburn, the house above Windermere where Arthur Ransome lived and wrote ‘Swallows and Amazons’ please click here and scroll down.)
You can read about what it was like to play the part of Able Seaman Titty in the original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in this illustrated paperback, available online or to order from libraries worldwide:
“It’s Jean!” It was Jean McGill ringing from Bowness in Cumbria. She had been our driver and the unit nurse on the film of ‘Swallows & Amazons’ made in the Lake District from May to July 1973, released a year later in 1974.
Jean McGill our unit driver and location nurse with Sophie Neville ~ photo:Martin Neville
“I’ve never seen the film,” Jean declared, “but I loved your book about making it. It brought back such memories.” I urged her to tell me more. “I remember when Suzanna Hamilton cut her hand whittling wood. It was bleeding like anything. I bandaged it up nicely but the director was horrified and made me take the dressing off again.” I think this was when we were in the middle of filming on Peel Island. The accident put an end to our wood carving hobby, which was a shame. We’d been using a Swiss Army knife to make our own bows and arrows with Bob Hedges the prop man.
Ronnie Fraser outside the dining bus on location with a paper cup of champagne
” You children persuaded me to go out to dinner with Ronnie Fraser! Why I went, I haven’t the foggiest. He was a rough character – very coarse.” Ronald Fraser was the movie actor playing Captain Flint. “I used to have to drive him to the local hotel in the mornings and order champagne to sober him up.”
“How would champagne have helped to sober him?”
“I don’t know. He told me it would.”
“I think he’d been divorced for a while at the time.”
“I wouldn’t have married him in the first place,” Jean assured me.
Terry Smith wearing the safety officer’s wetsuit with unit nurse and driver Jean McGill
Jean had been taken on as the unit nurse after the first nurse proved rather out of her depth. I thought she was a State Registered Nurse but she corrected me. She had 26 years experience in nursing becoming a hospital sister but was never an SRN. “I was a driver for Browns (of Ambleside)” and as such was paid to work on the film. “I wasn’t paid to be the unit nurse. It didn’t matter, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
I only found out recently that my mother hadn’t been paid to be a chaperone either, despite the responsibility as well as her legal obligations. It was hardly a big budget movie. Like Jean, she was simply thanked with a bouquet of flowers at the end of the filming.
Jean was one of the few local people who worked on the film throughout the seven weeks we were on location. Her local knowledge made all the difference as she knew the roads well, took short cuts to avoid the traffic and knew the best swimming spots when the weather warmed up.
Suzanna Hamliton, Simon West, Claude Whatham Sophie Neville, Kit Seymour, Jean McGill with Daphne Neville (kneeling) Blackpool, 1973
I reminded Jean about the early 1970s – what we ate and how we dressed. ” I bought a pair of jeans for the first time in my life. It was so hot that I changed into shorts while we were on set. You children took the jeans and stitched a big red heart on the backside.” There was a craze for adding embroidered patches to denim clothing. These were expensive to buy but we persuaded to Sten Grendon’s mother to make red hearts for everyone’s jeans. “It made walking through Ambleside very embarrassing.” Jean sounded as if she was still recovering from the indignity 43 years later. “It mucked me up!”
Jean went on to drive for Mountain Goat Tours in Cumbria and worked in a doctor’s surgery before becoming a registrar for ‘hatches, matches and dispatches’. “I’m a coffin-kicker now,” Jean told me cheerfully. She never worked on another film but kept a copy of the original screenplay and other memorabilia.
Not long after I spoke to her a brown paper package arrived in the post. It contained an envelope with the writing,
FOR THE ATTENTION OF TITTY
‘Still looking for the photographs. Will send to you when I find them. 43 years old? It was this tatty when I got same! Jean.’
And this is what the envelope contained:
Here is Jean in her red top talking to my mother in her Donny Osmond hat:
Since Classic TV Press published ‘The Making of Swallows & Amazons’ in 2014, a number of facts have floated to the surface. The most amazing recollection was one that occurred to my mother.
‘The letter inviting you to come for an interview for a part in the film was addressed to your father. He was working abroad when it arrived. I never, ever opened his mail but something urged me to open that one envelope. It was a good thing I did as he was away for three weeks and we would have missed the opportunity altogether.’ She was amazed by the contents and replied at once, sending a photograph to Theatre Projects. I think it was this rather miserable one of me wearing a Laura Ashley dress.
Sophie Neville in 1972
A date was made to meet the director. I now remember that I was taken up to Long Acre in the West End to meet Claude Whatham very soon after Dad arrived back from his business trip. We walked through Soho and visited a Chinese grocery store on the way home.
Daphne Neville on HTV in 1973
‘I was never paid to work on the set as chaperone,’ Mum told me. ‘Neither was Jane. We were just happy that our expenses were covered but it ended up costing me quite a bit as I had to travel back to Bristol to work now and again.’ She was working for HTV as a television presenter alongside Jan Leeming, who is currently appearing on ‘The Real Marigold Hotel’. For the photo of them both on an HTV West show, please click here
Jean McGill said she didn’t get paid for acting as the Unit Nurse, as far as she could remember, ‘But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
Kerry Darbishire playing Nurse
The most exciting thing was meeting Kerry Darbyshire, who played Vicky’s nurse, at Zeffirelli’s cinema in Ambleside for the 40th Anniversary screening of the film. I learnt to my horror that I had mis-spelt her name in the credits I gave the actors. All I had to go on was her signature in the back of my copy of the hardback book of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ where I’d collected autographs.
Kerry Darbishire’s signature
Kerry laughed, telling me, ‘I should have had more legible handwriting.’ She appeared in the film quite a bit. ‘It was a pity I wasn’t able to bring my own child. She was the exact same age and colouring as the little girl they found to play baby Vicky.’ Kerry was with us in the compartment of the train on day one of the shoot. ‘I found it very difficult to laugh with you when the train went into the tunnel.’ I couldn’t think what she meant at first but it was the laughter that followed Virginia McKenna’s line: ‘He’d say, “Just look at that scenery”.’ at the moment the train goes into a dark tunnel. ‘You children found it no problem at all, but I couldn’t laugh. I was too shy.’ Zeffirelli’s are next screening ‘Swallows & Amazons’ (1974) at 7.30pm on 2nd March.
I never knew the name of the snake wrangler – who brought the charcoal burners’ adder along, but Ken Foster wrote in recently to say it was his father, John Foster whose family farmed near Satterthwaite. He was once employed as an assistant at the fresh-water biology research establishment at Windermere and became a biological specimen supplier. You can read more about his unusual occupation here
To read more about the day the adder arrived on location, please click here.
John Foster & the charcoal burners’ adder
Simon West, who played Captain John, remembered that Claude Whatham often used to take us for a quick run before going for a take. It freshened us up and was appropriate when we had to run into shot, slightly out of breath.
One little girl wrote to tell me how she pulls her dress over her knees just as I did when I played Titty, as I got rather cold in a scene when were were first sailing Swallow to the island.
Sophie Neville with Terry Needham
George Marshall, the veteran film accountant, assured me we had a very talented film crew. Mark Birmingham, a film producer currently working on the bio-pic of Noel Coward, knew quite a few of the individuals working on ‘Swallows & Amazons’ and told me of the amazing careers they went on to lead. ‘Your Best Boy, Denis Carrigan, went on to run Sherperton Studios.’ Denis worked closely with Ridley Scott who made many great films there. ‘Sadly one of the other electricians died when he grabbed a live cable.’
Other people have written with interesting stories relating to the film locations.
‘The shop in Woodland Road was my grandfather Tom Kirkbride’s cobblers shop from 1930s to 1956,’ Brian Salisbury wrote. ‘After he retired, the wooden building became Stan Cropper’s sweet shop doing a roaring trade with the boys at St Mary’s Boys School just along the road and the newly built Droomer Estate.’ This was the shop where we bought rope for the Light House Tree that is now a barber’s in Windermere. To read more about this location and others in Windermere, please click here
Is there anything you would like to add?
Daphne Neville, Stephen Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville, Jane Grendon and Simon West.
In 1978, my parents decided to take a holiday looking at castles in Northumberland and came across this scene:
They ended up appearing in a Walt Disney movie called Unidentified Flying Oddball. Here is the evidence:
The film’s original title had been The Spaceship and King Arthur, billed as a family adventure. It was an adaptation of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and was shot at Alnwick Castle, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland where the Harry Potter films were later made.
It was released on an unsuspecting public in 1979, but was shot in the summer of 1978. I’m not sure how advanced Visual Effects were at the time but there were no Computer Generated Images. It looks to me as if this little airborne stunt was for real.
Life before the advent of CGI
Absolutely terrifying. While Kenneth Moore played King Arthur, Dad’s distant cousin John le Mesurier was Sir Gawain. Ron Moody played Merlin and Jim Dale starred as Sir Mordred with Dennis Dugan who played Tom Trimble. Rodney Bewes, who we knew as one of the Likely Lads had the role of Clarence. My father was hired for five days as a weapon bearer. This was simply so Mum had license to watch the filming.
Dennis Dugan on location in Northumberland
Pat Roach, 6’5″ tall British actor, later in all three Indiana Jones films, was Oaf. Mum hadn’t seen Jim Dale with permed hair before. She was used the lovable innocent he tended to play in Carry On films, but there he was looking fashionable on location in Northumberland, in the Duchess’s garden at that.
Jim Dale at Alnwick Castle
Jim Dale is known for the Harry Potter audiobooks in the USA, winning several high-profile awards for them, and for narrating the Harry Potter video games such as the Hogwart’s Challenge and Wizarding World. I wonder if they transported him back to Alnwick Castle?
If you know anyone who loves the original film of Swallows and Amazons, and is now learning French, why not buy a copy of the DVD that has been dubbed into the French language:
If you live in France you can order a Kindle copy of ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons’ – which is full of behind-the-scenes photos and links to home-movie footage taken on location, although the text is in English. The paperback makes a good present for students of Media Studies, Drama or Film:
The website All Things Ransome have links for of the Arthur Ransome’s book in French here with a useful list providing translations of names here.
The translation of the telegram BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN is Préfère les savoir noyés que stupides. Si pas stupides pas noyés.
You too can find the locations and sail Swallow:
If you would like to stay at Holly Howe ~ contact Jonathan Batty at Bank Ground Farm
Swallows & Amazons tours of the Lake District ~ including a trip on the steam train, led by Peter Walker of Mountain Goat in Windermere can be booked for groups by request. A must for overseas visitors. To read about this do go to: ‘In Search of our old Film Locations’. For booking details please click here.
Swallow, the dinghy used in the film, is currently in East Anglia. For opportunities to sail her yourself please click here
The Nancy Blackett Trust presented another screening of the classic film ‘Swallows & Amazons’ (1974) at the Riverside in Woodbridge. The cinema was celebrating 100 years of film and were thrilled to welcome a large and enthusiastic audience of 250, made up of children and Arthur Ransome enthusiasts one of whom told us he saw the film in Shaftesbury Avenue when it first came out.
Swallow, the original dinghy used in the film was on display outside the cinema and I went along to answer questions about how the movie was made. Here are some of those asked by children in the audience:
Had you ever been on a boat before you started filming? Yes, my father was a great sailor and I’d crewed for him. As Titty, I had to row quite a bit – back from the charcoal burners, later when I captured Amazon and alongside Roger when we went to find the treasure on Cormorant Island.
How did you do the night time? We used Mrs Batty’s barn at Bank Ground Farm as a studio.
Which lake did you film on? Arthur Ransome wrote about an imaginary lake based on real places that we found on Windermere, Coniston Water, Derwentwater, Elterwater and a smelly lilly pond. the great thing is that you can go and find them too.
Did you enjoy filming? Yes, very much, but it could be chilly.
How long did it take to film? Forty-five days in all. It’s a 90 minute film so you can work out just how much we managed to film per day. It was well under the 4 minutes-a-day scheduled.
Did Titty actually keep the parrot? Titty did in the story but the parrot in the film was rather savage and had to be returned to Mrs Proctor of Kendal. However my parents bought a very tame green parrot called Chico who would sit on my shoulder, even when I went rowing.
Were you cold when you we filming the swimming scenes? Yes! We nearly passed out.
Why didn’t you wear life jackets? The film was set eighty-six years ago in 1929 when children didn’t wear life-jackets. We wore BOAC life-vests during rehearsals and when being taken out to the location.
What are the children doing now? Working! Suzanna Hamilton is the only one of us to kept acting. She’s appeared in two feature films this year including ‘My Feral Heart’. Simon West has an engineering company that invents machines, Sten Grendon is a gardener, Kit Seymour is spending this year in Australia and I believe Lesley Bennett lives in the Netherlands, but I’m not sure. I’d love to make contact with her. Virginia McKenna is still acting as well as figure-heading her charity Born Free that does so much to relieve the suffering of animals.
In reality, how old were you all when you acted? Roger was 8, I was aged 12 pretending to be aged 9, Susan was 12 and John 11. Nancy was about the right age as she celebrated her 13th birthday towards the end of the filming. The secret was that Peggy was the eldest at 13.
Do you have a cameo role in the new film? You might just see me on the platform of the railway station but I am wearing a wig!
Why is Swallow’s flag brown? Because it a little elderly.
The camping kit – was it all packed in Swallow? We children didn’t know it at the time but it didn’t all fit in, although they did keep taking the tents down. Why we had a rolling pin on board, I do not know.
What happened to Amazon? The Amazon Arthur Ransome knew, which was originally called Mavis, can be seen at the Coniston Museum. The dinghy we used in the film was also used in the black and white BBC TV serial made in 1962. She is now in Kent – and still sailing. You can see her on ‘Country Tracks’ by clicking here.
After the film screening, I was told that students on the Open University Children’s Literature course with study Arthur Ransome’s classic book ‘Swallows and Amazons’, which is good news, especially since the BBC News headline rang out the question: Do children still need to read the classics of English Literature? Declaring, ‘Gone from bedroom bookshelves are the Famous Five, The Chronicles of Narnia,and the adventures of the Swallows and Amazons.’
Is this true? Do leave your comments below – or contact the BBC!
adorn the shelves of the award-wining Aldeburgh Bookshop
The sun shone and holiday makers enjoyed the beach
Sophie Neville who in 1973 played Titty Walker in the EMI movie of ‘Swallows & Amazons’ dressed up to face the Scottish weather
Sophie Neville 