I opened my post to find not one but three reviews of my books, including this article published in The Outlaw and another in Signals, for which I am very grateful. I have pasted them here for fans of the film who do not yet subscribe to these literary magazines.
This review was followed by by a comment from Winifred Wilson, librarian of The Arthur Ransome Society:
The Library Supplement in The magazine of The Arthur Ransome Society gives a full description of all three books:
Mixed Moss arrived before Easter with Spurrier’s map on the cover:
I found another review inside, this time from New Zealand:
The News is that The Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons has been signed up by the publisher Classic TV Press who plan to bring out a new edition in paperback this July. It will include glossy photographs and additional points of interest. If you would like to order a signed copy please email: classictvpress@live.co.uk
If you are interested in joining the Arthur Ransome Society please click here.
Here is a shot from 1973, capturing some of the deb-archery:
Sophie Neville with Peter Robb-King (Make-Up) and Ronnie Cogan (Hair) watching Lesley Bennett and Kit Seymour trying out their bows and arrows with Terry Smith (Wardrobe) while on location near Peel Island on Coniston Water in the Lake District.
We now have a second edition of ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’ out as an ebook and two versions of the paperback, which is almost identical but includes film stills and can be ordered from libraries as well as the usual online outlets.
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
For some time now, I’ve had a Swallows and Amazons mug at home, which I use to keep my pens in. Featuring the design of the Jonathan Cape book jacket, it was given to me by Scruffie Buchanan who stocked the full set of Arthur Ransome mugs in her shop aptly called The Museum of Childhood. I treasure it as a part of mine. It is difficult to find these now. They have become collectors’ items.
Not long ago I was presented with this handsome mug from Hill Top Cottage at Ealinghearth, by Stephen and Janine Sykes when they showed me around the Ransome’s last home, which they have restored in the Lake District.
I’ve just discovered that it is possible to buy mugs depicting scenes from the film of Swallows & Amazons (1974). This one (above) is quite fun as it resembles the cover of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974)’ There are others:
There are various scenes, but if you want to drink to Captain Flint walking the plank, you can.
My favourite design shows the film poster of Swallows & Amazons, which comes in two ways.
There are a variety of other stills from the film to chose from. These mugs and other movie merchandise such as mouse-mats, jigsaw puzzles and framed prints can be purchased from StudioCanal, the film’s distributors, who have an online shop.
Meanwhile, Jago Silver has designed these Expresso mugs that are great for camping.
Just when I was wondering if there were any more ‘Swallows and Amazons’ inspired mugs, I was sent this beautiful depiction of Hill Top near Haverthwaite, showing the view Arthur and Genia would have enjoyed in their twilight years. Here are two views of the same mug:
Photos of this historic mug were taken by Craig Wadhurst.
These bone china mugs depicting Ransome’s yachts Peter Duck and the Nancy Blackett cost £10, or lessor a pair, and are available from The Nancy Blackett Trust here. They also sell a selection of books, audio books and videos for Arthur Ransome enthusiasts.
I have had decorative maps of Arthur Ransome locations around Windermere and Coniston applied to mugs available from Redbubble. Here is one featuring the cover of my book available here.
These come from Australia, so take a while to arrive but are good quality.
Mugs printed with maps used to illustrate Sophie’s books
The most popular is the mug with the map of Coniston Water, which you can find here
If you like using thermal cups with lids, the decorative map of Coniston Water can be found here
A full range of items in this range including t-shirts and bags can be seen on a previous post here.
Map showing ‘Swallows and Amazons’ film locations around Coniston Water
The most beautiful range of Swallows and Amazons china including these small coffee mugs featuring the map from the book (above) and this plate, were once available from The Nancy Blackett shop but you might find they have sold out.
They do stock larger, more practical mugs depicting ‘Swallow’, and the ‘Nancy Blackett’ for £8.50 each here.
Do let me know if you know of any other Swallows & Amazons mugs and where they can be found in the comments below.
When the movie Swallows & Amazons was released forty years ago the mere idea of Blu-ray or DVD recordings had not been dreamt of. When my father asked about acquiring a copy of the film he was quoted £450 for a set of 35mm reels designed to be projected on a cinema screen. The sum was more than I received for working on location, even though I had a lead part. I was, however, sent a copy of the LP brought out to accompany the film. It was narrated by David Wood who wrote the screenplay and included Wilfred Joseph’s full score. You can still buy these online today.
Although we were never informed, I now discover that at one time you could buy film clips on Supper 8, to project at home. You could probably still find this on eBay.
Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville and Sten Grendon as the Swallows sailing on Coniston Water
When home video recorders first came out in the late Seventies I was working for Virginia McKenna. I remember her husband Bill Travers telling me that they had decided to go for Beta rather than VHS. Almost inevitably Swallows & Amazons was released on VHS, in a big fat box, and came into its own as families snuggled down to watch it at home on rainy afternoons. There were a number of cover designs:
With Ronald Fraser on the cover of the VHS
This one distributed by Warner Bros. is featured on the international movie data base. Click on the image more information and other cover designs.
Readers have sent in an image of the reverse:
There have been different versions marketed all over the world. The movie became so popular in the Baltic and Czech Republic that it has been dubbed a number of times:
The Norwegian version
For years the DVD has been sold as a double bill with The Railway Children, which was also financed by EMI Films.
This is the double-bill released by StudioCanal:
In 2008 a DVD of very good quality was released by the Daily Mail, with a picture of me looking like a baby monkey on the wrapper. We were given absolutely no warning. The first I knew of it was a friend ringing up to ask me if I could spare a DVD for his kids, ‘Someone’s swiped the office copy.’
Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville on the cover of the DVD published by the Daily Mail in March 2008
It was featured on the front cover for seven days, as well as in the magazine. I am often asked if we get residuals for distribution rights or when our images are used to promote newspapers but I have never received anything. This version did at least have end credits. There are reviews on Amazon about a DVD that lacked these. I was amazed that anyone even noticed but viewers assured me it was an outrage.
I am glad the movie can be watched and enjoyed by successive generations of children. The most inspirational cover of all was on that very first boxed VHS, which featured us sailing up Derwentwater:
The original VHS version of ‘Swallows and Amazons’
In 2014 a remastered Blu-ray and DVD with an Extras package was launched by StudioCanal to celebrate the 40th Anniversary. If you are thinking of buying a copy, this is the one to get. It is available on Amazon by clicking here.
There was also an edition in French:
They later issued a DVD (without extras) adding striking new graphics to the old poster. A sticker advertising the 2016 film of Swallows and Amazons was added to promote the release:
Does anyone know of any other VHS or DVD covers? Do add your comments in the box below.
StudioCanal, who own the rights to the film, have a set of stills you can see by clicking here. To see more stills from the film please click here
You can read about how we made the original film of Swallows and Amazons in a number of different books available online here:
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
Premier ticket for the Gala of ‘Swallows and Amazons’
The premier of the feature film Swallows & Amazons was held at 2.30pm on Thursday 4th April 1974 in Shaftesbury Avenue, in London’s West End when I was aged 13. Those who watch it on television today, or have the DVD, are amazed to hear it was first released more than fifty years ago. Please forgive me if you have seen these photos before but it seems quite a date to celebrate.
I was aghast when the tickets arrived. They were so expensive. Normal cinema tickets cost 80p. However, unknown to me, two families we knew well came along and I still meet others who made the screening, one of whom became a good friend of mine at university.
The ABC in Shaftesbury Avenue in 1974. It is now the Odeon Cinema.
The Royal Gala Matinee was held in aid of the charity KIDS, which works with disabled children, young people and their families. The society is still going strong and has been celebrating its own milestone anniversary recently.
The Neville girls modelling fashions of 1974
I broke up from boarding school on 2nd April and arrived home to find Mummy had bought be a green pinafore dress for the occasion. I still have it. She put my hair in Carmen Rollers and found velvety outfits for my younger sisters Perry and Tamzin who had appeared as film extras in the Rio scenes. She persuaded us all to wear ballet shoes. I felt conscious and would have preferred my clonky school shoes but they were black and had a classic feel. Mum wore a new blue two-piece appropriate for the afternoon screening, with a broach her father had given her. Dad took these black and white photos and drove us to London. Busy at work, he went to Paris the next day, my mother’s 37th birthday.
Arriving by taxi ~ Sister Allyne with Daphne Neville, Tamzin Neville and Sophie Neville
I don’t remember where we met up but we arrived in Shaftesbury Avenue by taxi with my house mistress, Sister Allyne, and head mistress Sister Ann-Julian, who had travelled up from Wantage in Oxfordshire.
Sophie Neville with Daphne Neville outside the ABC Shaftesbury Avenue in 1974
Of all films, they found The Exorcist was showing at the same cinema. I gazed up at the billing outside the entrance, more interested in seeing the names of Virginia McKenna and Ronald Fraser with the romantic design of the graphics spelling out Swallows & Amazons.
The first thing that happened was that I was whisked off for lunch with the five other children in the cast by Claude Whatham, the director. He chose a bistro where I chose hamburgers and chips. It was good to have a chance to catch up with the others and avoid the press. I’m not sure what the rest of my family did, but can only presume they found something to eat.
Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton in Laura Ashley and her mother
We arrived at the ABC cinema to find they had already taken their seats in the audience. We met up with Ronald Fraser and Richard Pilbrow, the film producer, who introduced us to Princess Helena Moutafian, Patron of KIDS, who the Earl and Countess of Compton had brought to celebrate the film’s release and help raise funds for the charity. Mummy had insisted I made a curtsey to each person I was introduced to. Did this include members of the Press?
Jane Grendon braving the crowds outside the cinema
We also met a number of Ladies: Lady Bridport, Lady Onslow, Lady Nelson of Stafford, Lady Harford and others listed below who must have arrived with their children. It was all quite something.
Please note that Simon West, (to the right in the top photo) was wearing a tie that matched exactly with the floral print of his shirt. This was the height of fashion in 1974, something I have yet to see revived or replicated. While Kit Seymour and Lesely Bennett who played the Amazons both wore jackets with trousers, Suzanna Hamilton wore a Laura Ashley pinafore dress, which would be considered a treasured vintage piece today. My mother was horrified that Ronald Fraser had his collar button undone, but I think that was a nod to trendy-ness. He also wore a badge in support of the charity pinned to his lapel. Badges were all the rage at the time and collected by all.
The premier of Arthur Ransome’s story ‘Swallows & Amazons’ – reported by Cinema TV Today in 1974
As you can see, we met Bobby Moore, the Hollywood actress Patricia Neal, the Norwegian Bond Girl Julie Ege and Spike Milligans’ family. Will Travers, now the CEO of the charity Born Free, came with his sister Louise Travers to represent his mother, Virginia McKenna who sadly couldn’t be with us.
A commemorative programme was being sold with a sepia version of the film poster on the cover:
Inside there were several pages about those who appeared in the film. I still have a copy:
Virginia McKenna, Lesley Bennett, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville, Sten Grendon and Ronald Fraser appearing in the centre pages of the film premier programme
The opposite page:
Simon West, Kit Seymour, Ronald Fraser, with Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Lesley Bennett also appearing in the action photo onboard the houseboat.
It wasn’t until years later that I was shown copies of the stills used to advertise the film inside cinemas.
Sophie Neville holding the original publicity photograph found on eBay ~ photo: Kitty Faulkner
The original film posters, which once hung in the London Underground, have become collector’s items, valued at about £240 each on eBay. Studiocanal, who now own the film rights, have a selection of posters available as framed prints if you click here.
This was the version used as an advertisement in the Sunday Times forty years ago.
Kit Seymour, Lesley Bennett, Simon West, Sophie Neville, Sten Grendon, Ronald Fraser and Virginia McKenna on the newspaper advertisement for ‘Swallows and Amazons’
‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons’ is available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle and for other e-readers via Smashwords. It has been described by one reviewer on Amazon as the equivalent of DVD Extras, as it explains how we made the movie in the Lake District, back in the summer of 1973, as well as how the film was promoted and received in the UK.
While the paperback includes a number of illustrations, but this ebook is unique in that it gives links to behind-the-scenes footage shot on location by my parents.
If you would like to know how the movie of Swallows & Amazons (1974) was made and know where the real locations can be found, ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons(1974)’ is currently available as an ebook on Amazon and Smashwords for £2.99. The paperback was launched to mark the 40th anniversary of the film’s release and is available online here.
Do you know where the Peak of Darien can be found?
The paperback, which is suitable for any age group, is based on the diary that I kept when I played the part of Titty Walker in 1973. It is illustrated with behind-the-scenes photographs and memorabilia such as one of the tickets to the Royal Gala premier in Shaftesbury Avenue held on 4th April 1974. You will also find out what the actors who played the Walker family ~ the Swallows ~ are doing now.
The joy of the ebook is that it includes a number of home-movie clips that my parents took of life behind the scenes that you can play wherever you have internet access.
A review of the ebook in Classic Boat magazine ~ Feburary 2014
If you have any questions about making the film, please add them to the comments below, and I will get back to you.
A review of ‘the Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons’ in Richard Kay’s column in the Daily Mail ~
There were rather over-excited headlines in the Times and Telegraph when the ebook was launched but they only spoke of the legendary drinking of Ronald Fraser. Please don’t worry – there is nothing X-rated about the book – it is just the price one pays for half a page in a daily newspaper, especially since it came out on a Saturday.
The ebook has been doing well in the Amazon charts and hit Number 1 in the category ‘Stage and Theatre’.
A preview of what the book holds in store can be watched here:
Very many thanks to all those who have left customer reviews on Amazon. It is always exciting to find out how the book has impacted others, especially those who love the Arthur Ransome books.
The composer Julian Slade with Daphne Neville – who was playing Lady Kroseig – & Sophie Neville on location at Swinbrook Church, filming of ‘Love in a Cold Climate’ for LWT in 1978.
One way or another, much of my childhood and teenage years were spent hanging around on film sets. When I was fifteen I had the opportunity to work as a film editor’s assistant for Tony Woollard when he was editing Abide With Me, an adaptation of Winifred Foley’s childhood memoir, which was directed for BBC Television by Moira Armstrong.
At the age of nineteen I found myself working for a prop buyer on a Saturday Night Thriller calledDark Secretthat LWT, London Weekend Television, were making at my parents’ house. I was struck by how nice the technicians were.
Sophie Neville in Make-Up prior to appearing in the Sunday Night Thriller ‘Dark Secret’
Our house was often used as a film location. You can’t hear the noise of traffic there. For some reason this always involved hose pipes (to provide water for the location caterers) and parking a huge number of vehicles. Our house was turned into a restaurant for Dark Secret, and then became known as a love nest, for the BBC costume drama House of Elliot which amused my father.
‘House of Elliot’ being shot on location at my parent’s house in Gloucestershire. They brought in Edwardian furniture and dressing props.
My mother thought the best way to occupy us children during school holidays was to send us filming. I was forever driving my little sisters to one location or another. Call times could be hideously early.
On the set of the BBC drama serial ‘Tenko’ based on the true stories of civilian internees during WWII
My sisters weren’t always so sure about this but they were well paid, which was one thing. Appearing as supporting artists in Tenko, the BBC serial about female internees in the Far East during WWII, gave us an appreciation of what was like to be held captive. Apart from the fact that the location catering was good, it made one feel exactly like a prisoner of war, or rather a female civilian internee.
A continuity photograph taken on the set of ‘Tenko’ in about 1981 near Bournemouth in Dorset. Stephanie Beauchamp is in the striped dress.
Dressed in rags with our hair filled with grease, we were unable to move far or even sit down anywhere except in the filthy sand of the prison camp. The only good thing was that we were allowed to sunbathe, albeit in costume. What I did gain was the opportunity to watch a film crew in action day after day. It was all good experience for a girl who was soon to become a film runner herself.
When I was a little girl, I was an avid viewer of Blue Peter, BBC Television’s flagship series for children. My favorite items would be profiles that were run from time to time about life behind the scenes at Television Centre. It was only later, whilst working for the BBC as a researcher, that I was told the terrible truth. The set designer Bruce Macadie said that such items were produced when the editor of Blue Peter was unexpectedly let down by a guest or couldn’t think of anything more newsworthy. I didn’t care a hoot. I was interested in how films were made from the age of about nine.
‘What a peculiar girl!’ I hear my friend Nac saying.
The reason was that I had rather a peculiar upbringing. I once described myself in an application for a job as a television director as a ‘Child of the studio floor’. The reason was that in 1969, when I was about eight years old, my mother became an in-vision announcer, reading the regional News and appearing on our crackly black and white set to brightly declare what would be shown that evening. She worked at the Harlech Television Studios in Cardiff, alongside Martyn Lewis and Liz Carse. She would also descend in an oval wicker basket chair from which she would present a one-woman Children’s programme on called It’s Time For Me. This looked liked magic, and I wanted to know how it was achieved.
‘I was paid the same amount as a short-hand typist.’ The men were paid more than the women and her schedule was gruelling. On top of this she would drive 72 miles to the Cardiff studios in a rusty Mini van. Even though this was replaced she went part-time. Having become an expert on how long script bites took to read in different accents she would ‘whizz down to Bristol’ to read the letters on Any Answersfor the producer Carol Stone.
‘But how did the basket come down?’
‘Oh, the rope was attached to a pulley on the studio lighting rig and lowered by three prop men.’
My mother working in a radio studio in the 1970’s. Please not the producer’s cigarette and plastic cups.
I would often travel down with my mother to be shown around various studios. I remember sitting behind the Dalek-like cameras watching a live afternoon programme called Women Only being recorded at HTV Bristol. Mum presented it with Jan Leeming and a rotund TV cook called Tony. He had to wear a bright yellow chef’s hat and top so that they would come across as ‘chef’s whites’ rather than weirdo glowing garments on everyone’s black and white television sets. Mum spent ages looking for clothes to wear in vision as she was not allowed to wear either spots or stripes since they were liable to strobe. Dresses made from crimplene were all the rage but (luckily) she was banned from wearing this as TV screens would pick up on any static that it might exude. Sparkling garments were a no-no.
You wouldn’t think that Gloucestershire would be a hot spot for the film industry in the UK but in 1971 I was able to watch a film crew making a drama on location in Slad near Stroud, when I was chosen to play Eileen Brown in the BBC adaption of Laurie Lee’s memoir, Cider with Rosie directed by Claude Whatham. It had nothing to do with luck. I was the only little girl they could find with long hair who could play the piano.
Narrowly avoiding a collision with the BBC wardrobe mistress outside Slad village school where BBC TV were filming ‘Cider with Rosie’ in 1971. A tripod, camera cases and scenic props are stacked up by the blackout curtain.
In 1972 I was given a tiny non-speaking part of a ‘Woodchild’ in Arthur of the Britons that was made near Woodchester by HTV. I had forgotten all about this until I saw a Youtube clip. I gather the serial has become cult viewing in the States.
‘Arthur of the Britons’ being shot on two 16mm cameras at my parents’ farm in 1972
Around this time the BBC made an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, shot on location in Bath. We went down to be film extras in this and in a BBC drama called Song of Songs.
Sophie Neville in 1973 with a 35mm Panavision camera
By the time I was cast as Titty in Swallows & Amazons I was relatively experienced. Later that summer I was in a Weetabix commercial and the next year I was invited to appear on a number of magazine programmes to publicise the movie. I remember being interviewed on Nationwide and profiled at home on Animal Magic.
Watching a television commercial being made in 1973
Inevitably one thing leads to another and I was soon asked to audition for a number of subsequent films. Inflation was roaring at 17% in the mid-1970s and I don’t think any of these were ever made but it was good interview experience. I ended up at Shepperton Studios doing a screen test for a musical version of The Old Curiosity Shop. This was serious stuff, shot on a film stage in Victorian costume. My music teacher spent ages teaching me to sing All I Want is a Room Somewhere but despite endless discussions nothing more came of it. However looking around Shepperton had been amazing. At some stage I had also auditioned at Pinewood Studios. I had been shown around the set of the latest James Bond and even had a go on the swing featured in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Mum wouldn’t let me tell anyone at school about it, as I might had come across as swanky. But as film studios were not open to the public then it did add to my education.
Jonathan Scott-Taylor, Sophie Neville, Sophie Ward, Vic Armstrong and Michael Balfour in ‘The Copter Kids’ – a movie for CFF shot on location in 1975
Although lanky, and focused on GCSEs, I managed to gain a leading role in an adventure film when I was fifteen. This proved interesting it involved working with stunt men including Vic Armstrong, who later became Harrison Ford’s double. We got to shoot from helicopters. At times the camera literally showed me shooting from a helicopter with a bow and arrow.
Playing Kevin’s sister, Glenda Brownlow’s bridesmaid, in a couple of episodes of ‘Crossroads’, the ATV soap opera that ran for 24 years
And then there was an opportunity to be in Crossroads. What an experience! I was various wedding scenes and the crowds who turned out to watch were unexpected. I was eighteen by then and did it purely for the money. I’ll see if I can find the article I wrote about it for my university magazine. Please let me know the name of the actor playing Kevin. I was meant to be his sister.
When people see the Steam Yacht Gondola on Coniston today, in all her re-built glory, she seems rather plush to have been cast by Arthur Ransome as Captain Flint’s houseboat in Swallows and Amazons. The main reason for assuming that she was used as the model for the illustrations is because Arthur Ransome grabbed a post card of the Gondola and drew on it to give the first illustrators of Swallows and Amazons some idea of his vision. However Ransome’s biographer Roger Wardale told me that it was a former steamer on Windermere that he had in mind: the S.Y. Esperance. Ransome was known to have been spotted looking through her cabin windows and much admired her distinctive bow, designed to cut through cat ice on her way to Lakeside Railway station.
Esperance in Rayrigg Bay, Windemere ~ photographed by Martin Neville in about 1963
When I was first taken up to the Lake District in 1963, my father found what he thought was houseboat bay on Windermere and took this shot of SL Esperance moored in Rayrigg Bay. She does look very like the first professional drawing submitted to illustrate Swallows and Amazons.
Stephen Spurrier’s unused illustration of Swallow sailing past Captain Flint’s houseboat
Arthur Ransome’s terse note reads: ‘The ass has forgotten the mast’. I went to see the Esperance when she was lying at the Steamboat Museum on Windermere with the film producer Nick Barton in 2011. Built at Rutherglen in 1869 she is nearly 65 foot long with a 10 foot beam.
SL Esperance at the Windermere Steamboat Museum in 2011
She did not always have such a traditional appearance. Roger Wardale kindly sent me this photograph showing what she looked like in the 1930s.
‘Esperance’ in the 1930s when she was owned by Sir Oliver Scott.
The cabin has since been removed from her rear end.
SY Esperance at the Windermere Steamboat Museum in 2011
SY Esperance now looks more like this illustration – or could do. Although she has a setting for a mast the reality is that she has seven windows, whereas Clifford Webb’s illustration shows her with only six.
Clifford Webb’s illustration of Captain Flint’s houseboat
I have no idea if anyone could film aboard her today when marine safety regulations are so strict. We couldn’t in 1973.
Claude Whatham took advantage of the larger cabin windows in the Lady Derwentwater whilst filming ‘Swallows & Amazons’ in 1973 ~ photo: Daphne Neville
When we made the original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’, the producer Richard Pilbrow was obliged to use the Lady Derwentwater, owned by the Keswick Launch Co. She has quite a different stern from the illustrations but was licensed to carry 90 passengers, which must have allowed him to take a seventy-strong film crew on board. At least she was given a mast. You can envisage Ronald Fraser, as Captain Flint, angrily stamping out the firework on the roof.
One advantage of the Lady Derwentwater was that the windows of her cabin enabled the director to get a good view of the lake, which he made use of when Captain John rowed over from Peel Island to visit Captain Flint and pass on the charcoal burners’ warning. She couldn’t be moved to another lake, but Derwentwater is surrounded by such dramatic fells that the director, Claude Whatham used this to his advantage during the final scenes of the classic film. The Lady Derwentwater has been given a transome but is still in commission and you can take a trip on her today.
Sophie Neville at the Windermere Steamboat Museum
Was the Gondola so very different? Ransome had known the steam launch since spending his own childhood holidays on Coniston, when she was in service. While staying at Nibthwaite he became a good friend of the Captain, or so the story goes. Back in 1973 the Gondola looked like this – her roof too curved to run along, her bow rising up a little too dramatically to accommodate the foredeck of a retired pirate busy writing up his devilish crimes while his a cannon lies glinting in the sunlight, ready to fire.
Photograph of the Gondola on Coniston Water taken by Martin Neville in 1973
For more about the Steamboat Museum with a photograph of SY Esperance, please click here
For a lovely photo of SY Esperance and to read more, from another perspective please click here
The full story of the making of the classic film Swallows and Amazons (1974)’ can be read in this ebook costing £2.99. You can read the first section for free here:
When the BBC announced plans to recreate the classic outdoor children’s sailing adventure Swallows and Amazons it was hailed as a blockbusting antidote to the health and safety culture of the mollycoddled video-game generation…
However, previously unread diaries of its creator, Arthur Ransome, reveal that the author considered the corporation’s last attempt to bring his much-loved story to life to be a “ghastly mess” marred by “dreadful ham” acting. The diaries reveal how Ransome clashed repeatedly with BBC executives in the early 1960s when the BBC commissioned a six-part dramatisation for television, starring Susan George, then aged 12, as Kitty (changed from the original Titty) Walker.
Ransome, then in declining health, was living in virtual retirement in his remote Cumbrian cottage Hill Top overlooking the spectacular Rusland valley with his wife Evgenia – the former secretary to Leon Trotsky, whom he met while working as a foreign correspondent and spying for Britain in revolutionary Russia. It was a spartan existence, often with no electricity or running water.
In a series of brusque entries at odds with his generally affable demeanour, he describes how he repeatedly fought with BBC executives over attempts to introduce two new characters – Ernie and Sam – to the story. Both he and his wife attempted to rewrite the script after concluding that one episode was “bad beyond belief”.
At his home Hill Top with his publisher Rupert Hart-Davies
“I have agreed to Genia’s proposal that we shall wash our hands of the film leaving it to Mr Walls [of the BBC] to play the farceur as much as he likes. They may be right in thinking that vulgar ham acting is what the T.V. gapers want,” he wrote in July 1962.
Ransome was particularly unimpressed with the performance of popular British actor John Paul as Captain Flint – the character… said to be based on Ransome himself – describing it as “dreadful HAM”.
On attending a screening at the Hammer Theatre in Wardour Street, central London in October 1962, he concluded: “Saw the ghastly mess they have made of poor old Swallows and Amazons … MacCullogh [his friend Derek MacCullogh, former head of children’s broadcasting at the BBC who was also known as the presenter Uncle Mac] did not come possibly to avoid trouble with his employers.” It was eventually broadcast the following year.
Stephen Sykes now owns Hill Top and has restored the Ransomes’ former home. He is also helping transcribe the author’s sparsely detailed diaries from his years at Hill Top, which are kept at Leeds University’s Brotherton Library. Sykes said the writer received £3,500 for agreeing to the BBC broadcast – a considerable amount of money. “He was clearly making a very good living out of the rights to Swallows and Amazons. This was his baby and he had obviously pored over it. It is a very leanly written story and it was pretty clear it was written by a journalist because of its clarity, because there is nothing extraneous,” he said.
Hill Top in the Lake District today
“He is extremely protective of his own work. He felt he didn’t want a word changing, and that he had honed the story down and it was what it was,” he added.
Swallows and Amazons was first published in 1930. It recounts the adventures of the children from two families who while away an idyllic summer getting into scrapes sailing their dinghies across Coniston Water and Lake Windermere. As well as the television series, many theatrical and musical adaptations have been staged, and the story was made into a film in 1974 staring Ronald Fraser and Sophie Neville.
When the latest project was announced in 2011, head of BBC Films Christine Langan said it would seek to encapsulate a forgotten era of childhood adventure “from the pre-health and safety generation”.
Producer Nick Barton of Harbour Pictures, who is collaborating on the film with the BBC, the Arthur Ransome Society and the author’s literary estate, said it had not been decided yet whether the children would be shown sailing without their life jackets.
But he said viewers could expect to experience the full majesty of the book’s setting. “The lakes and the mountains are very big and we are keen to recreate that grandeur of the scenery in the film,” he said. A spokeswoman for BBC Films said: “The film is still in development.”
Although I knew Claude Whatham well, I had no idea how prolific he was until I read his obituary.
Brenda Bruce as Mrs Dixon with Claude Whatham
DoP Denis Lewiston and Director Claude Whatham
As an art student, in 1940, he was commissioned to paint murals by the young Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret in their rooms at Windsor Castle after their paintings had been removed for safe-keeping during the Blitz. They couldn’t bear the idea of bare walls and asked if he could paint something cheerful.
-The pantomime pictures at Windsor Castle (The Royal Collection Trust)-
As Claude was born in 1927, I thought he must have been too young but he was an evacuee in his first year at art college. You can see more images of the murals and read his own version of how this came to pass if you click here.
Claude Whatham in 1973 (photo Daphne Neville)
All I can tell you is that Claude Whatham simply had the self-confidence to succeed. We all adored him.
Sophie Neville saying goodbye to director Claude Whatham
After working for a short time as a production designer he became a television director at the age of about thirty – evolving his craft in the early years of Granada Television.
Being both a craftsman and artist he loved innovation and being avant guard.
Claude Whatham showing the 16mm camera to Simon West and Sophie Neville. Sue Merry and Denis Lewiston can be seen behind us.
Single-minded and determined, yet usually coming across as relaxed, he moved into directing movies in 1972 with That’ll Be The Day starring David Essex, Ringo Starr and Robert Lindsay, followed by Swallows & Amazons when he was forty-six.
I’d met him in 1971 when he directed the first BBC adaptation of Laurie Lee’s memoir, Cider with Rosie, for which he received a BAFTA nomination. It was made where the book is set at the village of Slad in the Cotswolds, about seven miles from where I grew up.
Sophie Neville with Claude Whatham on location at Slad in 1971
Claude lived at 37 Belgrave Gardens, London NW8 but had a Cotswold stone cottage in the hamlet of Camp, also near Stroud in Gloucestershire. After casting me as Eileen Brown, Laurie Lee’s first love, he invited me to play Titty in Swallows and Amazons (1974) and appear as a girl in a Wheatbix advertisement.
Claude Whatham directing the title sequence of ‘Swallows & Amazons’ on location in Surrey with Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton, Simon West and his camera crew
Claude loved taking his clothes off. It was almost indicative of his style. He wasn’t shy. If you look at what he was wearing you will see that his clothes were both on trend at the time and would still be fashionable today. He would wear Levi jeans, deck shoes or sailing boots and a Parka coat with a fur-lined hood in wet weather. As for headgear, I only ever saw him wearing other people’s hats.
Claude Whatham directing a TV advert (photo: Daphne Neville)
Claude was always happy working outside. Problems did not seem to phase him. I worked with him on location in Gloucestershire, Surrey and Cumbria, visiting him on set in the Yorkshire Dales when he was filming the movie All Creatures Great and Small based on the life of the vet James Herriot, starring Anthony Hopkins and Simon Ward. I was sorry when I heard that he gained a reputation at the BBC for being too detailed and pernickety in the studio. I expect it frustrated him.
Claude’s period films are marked by their enduring quality, they have not dated.
Claude Whatham profiled by Tom E Parkinson in the Oldham Evening Chronicle 18th April 1974
For a full list of Claude’s film and television credits please click here
Sophie Neville with director Claude Whatham, Ronald Fraser and DOP Denis Lewiston outside the catering bus parked at Derwentwater in the Lake District ~ photo: Daphne Neville
He was a major contributor to a new book about ‘Play for Today: The First Year’ by Simon Farquhar, which is dedicated to Claude. You can find it here.
Director Claude Whatham talking to Virginia McKenna at Haverthwaite Railway Station
The Swallows and Amazons map of Windermere on a thermal cup 
Sophie Neville 