Filmaking – Page 12 – Sophie Neville

Other Arthur Ransome books adapted for film and television by David Wood

Sophie Neville in Secret Harbour — Sophie Neville playing Titty Walker in 1973

David Wood, who wrote the screenplay for SWALLOWS & AMAZONS in 1973, has recently told me about his work adapting other Arthur Ransome books – GREAT NORTHERN?, PIGEON POST, WE DIDN’T MEAN TO GO TO SEA and WINTER HOLIDAY – all for Richard Pilbrow of Theatre Project Films.

Richard Pilbrow and Claude Whatham at The Secret Harbour on Peel Island, Coniston Water — Producer Richard Pilbrow with Director Claude Whatham in their wet weather gear at The Secret Harbour on Peel Island, Coniston Water

‘It was decided that GREAT NORTHERN? should be the follow-up to the SWALLOWS film, because it was ‘different’, being the only book set in Scotland. Also, the villainous birds’ egg collector was a strong adult role – Peter Sellers was mentioned….. We had great fun looking for locations, swooping around in a helicopter over Harris, Lewis etc.

Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton & Sten Grendon with David Wood and Claude Whatham in 1973

‘Word got out that I was working on GREAT NORTHERN? and I had a very firm letter from Mrs Ransome saying that no permission had been granted to work on this title, and that it would not be granted!! No reason was given. Years later, the Ransome autobiography suggested that Mrs R didn’t like GREAT NORTHERN? and criticised it to Ransome’s face. Also, he used sometimes to swan off to the Highlands with his friend, Quiller-Couch (I think) to fish, leaving Evgenia on her own back in the Lake District. The only communication from him would be the occasional delivery on a horse and cart from the railway station of a salmon, caught in Scotland the day before! Maybe she resented Scotland for luring him away! But she was determined that GREAT NORTHERN? the movie would never see the light of day!! But I still wrote a complete screenplay! I did a film treatment for WINTER HOLIDAY, that never got off the ground either.’

David Wood's screenplay of Swallows and Amazons — The script of the movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ that I never saw until 2011

PIGEON POST was to be a six-part serial, a BBC-Theatre Projects co-production. David remembers that they got as far as looking for locations in the Lake District. I started making preparations to cast the children for this drama which Joe Waters wanted to produce in 1983, directly after making COOT CLUB and THE BIG SIX under the generic title SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS FOREVER! that had been adapted for television by Michael Robson.

‘WE DIDN’T MEAN TO GO TO SEA was also to be a serial. I did a treatment, visited Pin Mill and other locations, and met the man who built one of Ransome’s boats, or maybe worked on it with his father. All the materials and scripts still exist, but they are probably a bit too ‘straight’ for contemporary taste.’

David Wood’s numerous other forthcoming events and theatrical releases are listed on his website.

Sophie Neville with Claude Whatham on Peel Island

Can you help us? Was Quiller-Couch the friend who whisked Arthur Ransome off to fish in the Hebrides? Does anyone know where they went?

You can read more about the adventures we had whilst making Swallows and Amazons is these books, available to order online here

'The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville' — Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’

News from David Wood, who adapted Swallows & Amazons for the big screen in 1973

Sophie Neville with David Wood and Claude Whatham

David Wood, who originally worked with Evgenia Ransome to adapt her husband’s book Swallows & Amazons for the big screen in 1973, has recently written to tell me:

‘Several attempts were made to follow up SWALLOWS. I did a screenplay of GREAT NORTHERN?, plus detailed treatments of WINTER HOLIDAY (for film) and WE DIDN’T MEAN TO GO TO SEA (for television), plus a six-part serial based on PIGEON POST. But all of them bit the dust!!!

Claude is the only director for whom I worked as an actor on film (SWEET WILLIAM), television (CHERI, DISRAELI) and stage (VOYAGE ROUND MY FATHER), as well as working with him as a writer (SWALLOWS and a film that never got made called THE HEYDAY).

Claude Whatham must have made the BBC adaptation of Colette’s novel Cheri just before Swallows & Amazons as it was broadcast in April 1973. Brenda Bruce, who I knew as Mrs Dixon, played Charlotte whilst David was Desmond, supporting Scott Anthony and Yvonne Mitchell as the lovers Cheri and Lea.

David Wood played Lord Derby in the 1978 BBC costume drama Disreali that Claude Whatham directed. Whilst Ian McShane had the title role, the part of Queen Victoria was given to Rosemary Leach, who later played Mrs Barrable in the BBC serial of Coot Club and The Big Six. Suzanna Hamilton appeared in it too as one of the princesses. She must have been about seventeen – a good age to be zooming about in a crinoline with scooped up hair. It would have been quite a contrast to playing Mate Susan on Peel Island in the Lake District.

Suzanna Hamilton with director Claude Whatham on Peel Island

When he was in his twenties David starred in the feature film if…. with Malcolm McDowell. You can get it on DVD or watch the Youtube pasted in the Comments below. I’d love to see the wartime drama Aces High, the movie directed by Jack Gold in which David played Lt Tommy Thompson opposite Simon Ward, Peter Firth and Christopher Plumber as well as Malcomb McDowell. John Gielgud played the Headmaster in scenes shot at Eton in this film, while Arthur Lowe played his house master in if… I am not sure which school they used. You will have to let me know. Arundel?

In 2004 David was awarded an OBE for services to literature and drama. I was not surprised. His output has been prolific. To find out more about his work as an author and playwright do watch this short BBC documentary Meet the Author presented by Nick Higham.

David Wood, who wrote the screenplay of ‘Swallows & Amazons’ on Radio 4

BW David Wood — David Wood on Peel Island in 1973 with Claude Whatham, Sten Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville who is wearing David’s velvet hat.

On 19th August 2013, David Wood, who wrote the screenplay of Swallows & Amazons in 1973, took part on the Radio 4 show Quote…Unquote presented by Nigel Rees, an old friend of his from Oxford University. His fellow panelists were Matt Barbet, Katherine Whitehorn and Jenni Murray of Woman’s Hour. The programme can be heard on BBC i-Player and will be repeated on Saturday 24th August.

The reference to Arthur Ransome is 17 minutes in. David does a wonderful impression of Evgenia Ransome with whom he met for a number of script meetings whilst working on the adaptation. Her husband had died in 1967 and her grasp on his literary estate was legendary.

Click here for Quote…unquote on BBC i-Player presented by Nigel Rees

Here is the exact page of the script they were referring to:

This was shot on location in the field below Bank Ground Farm in the Lake District. Richard Pilbrow, the producer, gave me a copy of this still, part of which was used on the front cover of both the Express and Daily Telegraph after the film was released in 1974.

If not Duffers... — Simon West as John Walker, Sophie Neville as Titty and Suzanna Hamilton playing Susan in Richard Pilbrow’s movie ‘Swallows & Amazons’ released by EMI in 1974

Suzanna Hamilton wrote in her diary that David Wood came to visit us on location in Cumbria on 29th May 1973, as you can see in the contact-sheet photo above. She had appeared in photo-captions illustrating a story called The Treasure Seekers that she thought he had narrated on the BBC Children’s programme Jackanory. David is not so sure, although he narrated three other series of Jackanony including The Hobbit, which is about to be released as a BBC CD.

Here is another page from the screenplay of Swallows & Amazons (1974) with more stage directions than dialogue.

At the beginning of Nigel Rees’ radio programme there is a reference to The Gingerbread Man, one of David’s original theatre plays written for children. This was premiered at the Swan Theatre, Worcester in 1976. My mother appeared as Miss Pepper in a subsequent production at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham.

A production of 'The Gingerbread Man' at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, 1976 — A production of ‘The Gingerbread Man’ at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, 1976

In April 2013 David Wood’s adaptation of Michelle Magorian’s classic book Goodnight Mr Tom won the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment and Family, which is really exciting.

For more information about David Wood’s plays, books and magic shows – please click here

Fifty years ago ~ life in 1973 ~ Part Two

Sophie Neville with the cast of Swallows — Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton, Sten Grendon, Lesley Bennett, Kit Seymour, Simon West with Daphne Neville at a Puffin Club event for the new edition of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ organised by Kaye Webb in London photo: Woman Magazine

When I look back on our lives as they were fifty years ago, I can’t help smiling. Whilst one is impacted by fashions that were too unfortunate to be revived – those collars we thought so groovy – other things haven’t changed at all. I don’t think sailing shoes or jean jackets have ever been out of circulation.

Claude Whatham on the shore of Coniston Water ~ photo: Daphne Neville — Every day clothes in 1973

In July 1973 Claude Whatham, pictured above in his Levis, had my sisters and I in a series of three Weetabix commercials that depicted life in 1933, forty years before, when the Great British breakfast cereal was first launched on the market.

Meanwhile, my mother was presenting her afternoon television programme for HTV West called ‘Women Only’ – dressed in her Donny Osmond hat.

Daphne Neville in 1973

I would happily wear her suede coat today and can often be seen in the hat. The lace-up boots looked good recently with a Wonder Woman fancy dress outfit but were terribly uncomfortable. My sister still hasn’t forgiven me for giving them away.

Daphne Neville in her Donny Osmond hat — Daphne Neville on location in Jersey while presenting ‘Women Only’ in 1973

As always, well made things of quality have endured, and those faithful goods from Land Rovers to Levi jeans, Puffin Books and Weetabix are, thankfully, still being produced.

for more photographs of making the Weetabix commercial click here

We collected Greenshield stamps, saving up zilions to buy a Super 8 movie camera. The results were wobbly but they give a glimpse into the way we were:

30th Anniversary talk on filming ‘Coot Club’ and ‘The Big Six’

Unbelievably, thirty years have passed since we started filming the BBC adaptations of Coot Club and The Big Six on location in Norfolk. We drove up to Norwich on 17th June 1983 and by 3rd July would have been in full swing. It had been my job to cast the children who I was now looking after on location.

Amazingly, we were to able enjoy three months of almost solid sunshine and had the most wonderful time. The eight-part serial, produced by Joe Waters, was first broadcast in 1984 under the generic title of Swallows and Amazons Forever! This was because Joe was hoping to dramatise other Arthur Ransome books, but sadly they proved too expensive.

I gave an illustrated talk about how the series was made at the Royal Harwich Yacht Club on the River Orwell for the Nancy Blackett Trust Annual Meeting, explaining how Rosemary Leach and I had both appeared in the BBC drama Cider with Rosie back in 1971. Having starred as Laurie Lee’s mother, she had the lead part of Mrs Barrable, the Admiral in Coot Club.

Henry Dimbleby and Rosemary Leach in 'Coot Club' and 'The Big Six' — BBC TV’s adapation of ‘Coot Club’ and ‘The Big Six’

Swallows and Amazons Forever! (1984) DVD

The drama, set in the early 1930’s, was nominated for a BAFTA. It had an exceptionally talented cast including Rosemary Leach, John Woodvine, Sam Kelly and Henry Dimbleby. I’m not sure if you can spot him that easily on the cover of the DVD, but one of the characters in the story soon became a household name. It was William, Mrs Barrable’s fawn pug dog. He was soon known nationally – if not internationally – as Little Willie, Ethel’s pet dog in the soap opera Eastenders.

Coot Club - — The puppy we chose to play Williams who later starred as Little Willie in ‘Eastenders’

While Jack Watson was at the helm of the Sir Garnet, Julian Fellowes played Jerry, self-appointed skipper of the Margoletta and the leader of the Hullabaloos. Whilst with us on the Norfolk Broads he forged a creative partnership with our director Andrew Morgan that launched his career as a writer. They were soon working together on adaptations of classic books such as The Prince and the Pauper and Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Julian Fellowes as Jerry in Coot Club — Julian Fellowes as Jerry in ‘Coot Club’

Looking back, I can see a number of connections between Coot Club and Doctor Who. You will see we had not one but two Time Lords with us in the guise of The Eel Man, who was played by Patrick Troughton, and Dr Dudgeon, played by Colin Baker, who went on to become a later incarnation of the Doctor.

Patrick Troughton as the eel man — Patrick Troughton as The Eel Man in ‘The Big Six’

A number of the crew worked behind the scenes on Doctor Who including our Visual Effects Designer, Andy Lazell and the writer Mervyn Haismen. I found myself working on Vengeance on Varos a year later when Colin Baker swapped his Norfolk tweeds for the multi-coloured coat he wore in the TARDIS.

Colin Baker as Dr Dudgeon in 'Coot Club' and 'The Big Six' — Colin Baker as Dr Dudgeon in ‘Coot Club’ and ‘The Big Six’

However, I expect the members of the Nancy Blackett Trust will want to know most about the beautiful period boats that appeared in the series, some of which members of the Arthur Ransome Society have been tracking down. Sadly some, such as the Catchalot seem to have deteriorated but the Janca, who played the Margoletta has been restored, and the Death & Glory is still on the Broads.

Lullaby undersail, playing the Teasel with her stage name painted on a false transome — Lullaby under sail, playing the Teasel with her stage name painted on a false transom

The wonderful thing is that you can still hire the yacht we used to play the Teasel and take the same route through the Broads as Arthur Ransome took with his wife in the 1930’s when he was absorbing experience from which to write. What I did not know until recently was that Titty Altounyan ~ the real Titty portrayed in Swallows and Amazons ~ accompanied them one year, but I will leave that story for a future post.

Coot Club - book cover — I remember setting up this photograph for Puffin at Gay’s Staithe on the Broads

For more information on Saturday’s talk please click here

40 years today ~ The Log of the Boy Roger comes to light

BW Sten as Roger in Secret Harbour — The Boy Roger in Secret Harbour on Wild Cat Island played by Sten Grendon in 1973

Sten Grendon grew up in the Whiteway Colony near Stroud in Gloucestershire. Partly thinks to the kindness of his teacher, he was spotted by Claude Whatham in 1970 and asked to play young Laurie Lee in the BBC adaptation of ‘Cider with Rosie’, when I was given the part of Eileen Brown.

Sten with Claude Whatham in 1970 — Sten Grendon in 1970, after playing Laurie Lee in ‘Cider with Rosie’ for BBC TV with Director Claude Whatham

Sten was eight-and-a-half when he found himself in the Lake District playing Roger in Arthur Ransome’s well-loved story, Swallows & Amazons. His drawing of learning to swim from Peel Island somehow seems to reflect the weather conditions on Coniston Water rather well.

Whilst on location in Cumbria we usually received tuition from Margaret Causey, but on 29th June 1973 Sten spent the morning with his mother, Jane, writing:

It was raining very hard on Friday. We had our location at Skelwith Fold caravan park. I don’t do lessons with the teacher. I do lessons with Jane. We started our lesson at 9 o’clock when we are doing our lessons it stopped raining so Claude could call the children to come and have a word rehearsal in the caravan. But it started raining again so we had dinner and it stopped so we went to the lily pond which we use as Octopus Lagoon. We started fiming. It was covered with lilies. We filmed on the pond.

And that was it. A highly accurate account of the day spent recording the scene when the Swallows go up river to look for the Amazon but find themselves thwarted by waterlilies in Octopus Lagoon.

‘Perhaps they are octopuses. Titty read out of a book how they can grab people out of boats.’

‘Shut-up Roger, they’re only flowers.’

Sten went on to draw a very detailed picture showing what it was like to make a movie in the Lake District, when the weather was so important to our work.

When I rang Sten yesterday he grabbed his phone and said,

‘Just a moment, I’ll go into the greenhouse – it’s just started to rain.’

Sten still lives in the hills above Stroud in the Cotswolds. After playing Roger in Swallows & Amazons he appeared in a Weetabix commercial for Claude and an industrial film for Rank as a school boy in a story a-kin to the Seven Ages of Man. A countryman by nature, he left acting behind him and literally moved on. After years spent travelling around France, Spain and Morocco, often fruit-picking or working in vineyards, he used his training at Pershore College of Horticulture to work locally as a gardener. Forty years on he still has the same thick dark hair and sudden smile.

This year, while Swallows & Amazons (1974) was shown on the big screen in London, Cider with Rosie was shown to a local audience at the Whiteway Village Hall – double helpings of nostalgia for those who were able to re-live their own childhood as well as Laurie Lee’s.

Summer in February

My mother, Daphne Neville, who worked on the crew of Swallows & Amazons (1974) is appearing in Summer in February, which is now out on DVD. Although she’s a hustler, invitations to take part in both films arrived out of the blue. Here she is 40 years on with Dan Stevens and Dominic Cooper ~

40 years on… I discover a scene about patterans cut from the 1974 movie ‘Swallows & Amazons’

The Swallows make Patterans — Suzanna Hamilton, Sten Grendon, Sophie Neville and Simon West as the Swallows

I have been sent a newspaper clipping dated 15th June 1973, which appears to have been published in The Mirror, a national daily newspaper here in the UK. It describes a scene shot for Swallows & Amazons (1974) that was never used in the finished film and proved something of a discovery for me.

Whilst on their way to visit the charcoal-burners, Captain John shows the crew of the Swallow how to lay a patteran, a secret gypsy sign, usually made from twigs or vegetation, to point the way. I remember the scene from Arthur Ransome’s book with affection but I have no recollection of filming this in the Lake District.

~ click on the image to enlarge ~

I do recall that our director, Claude Whatham would take us on a quick run just before shooting a scene so that we would be both energised and genuinely breathless as we delivered our lines. I expect it was his secret way of obtaining natural performances out of us children. Here we can be seen in rehearsal wearing our Harry Potter-like nylon track-suit tops for warmth, while the big old 35mm Panavision camera was tilted down on us. Claude can be seen holding the script we never read. We were much more interested in the patterans.

Claude loved running. When he retired from film making he would regularly run around Anglesey in North Wales, where he lived, covering miles each day even in his early eighties. I have always been more excited about galumphing, the art of running down hill, taking leaps as you go to cover more ground. Arthur Ransome must have tried this as a boy on holiday in the Lake District as he has the Swallows galumphing like anything at this stage in the story, on their way back from visiting the charcoal-burners. They get so carried away that some of them miss the patterans that had been so carefully laid on their way up the hill. There must simply have not been enough time to include this detail in the finished movie. I wonder if the original footage still exists.

You can read more in the paperback ‘The making of Swallows and Amazons’ and in this mutli-media ebook:

Speaking on BBC Radio Cumbria

A number of people who love the Lake District have expressed an interest in the filming of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ back in 1973.

Sophie Neville was interviewed by Mike Zeller on BBC Radio Cumbria’s Breakfast Programme

Hillary Warwick from Bolton-le-Sands near Carnforth rang in to say that her grandma owned the green parrot, telling us that he was called ‘Beauty’. They used the £25 appearance fee to buy him a new cage. Hilary’s gran, Elizabeth Proctor, had been quite a character. She’d walk around Kendal with Beauty on her shoulder. He was known to be a one-woman bird and Hilary was quite impressed that I managed to stroke him and keep him on my shoulder as he was liable to nip. She was quite wary of him!

Do you live in the Lake District?

Did you take part in the film in anyway?

If so do write in using the comments box below!

~ click on the image to enlarge ~

Here is another newspaper article from 1973 that mentions Lakeland people involved in the filming, including a photograph of Mrs Lucy Batty and her grandson Peter and Margaret Causey who taught the children in the movie, pictured below with Lesley Bennett, Kit Seymour, Sten Grendon, Sophie Neville and Mark Hedges – who didn’t appear in the film but came up over half-term as his Dad, Bob Hedges was working as the property master.

Virginia McKenna is photographed above talking to Ian Whittaker, the set dresser who went on to win a number of Oscars.

An extract from this article of Brenda Colton’s reads:

‘When Mrs Lucy Batty was asked if her house could be used for the setting of the film Swallows and Amazons, with guest star Virginia McKenna, she was delighted. After all, her home, Bank Ground Farm on the east side of Coniston Water, near Brantwood, was the setting chosen by Arthur Ransome for his children’s book Swallows and Amazons.

Mrs Batty thought it a good idea that the story should be filmed in an authentic location, and she felt she should be able to put up with a few cameras and film men for a while. But she just did not realise the scale of a “medium budget” film like this one, or what the production staff could do to her house. It was not the two double-decker buses coming down the path and parking on the farm that she minded, nor the numerous vans, lorries, cars and caravans. It was not even the difficulty of having 80 men and women wandering round the farmhouse carrying equipment here, there and everywhere. But when art director Simon Holland started tearing up her lino and carpet in the kitchen to get to the bare stone floor, she did get a little annoyed. Especially when he removed all the electric sockets, lights and switches, pushed all the kitchen furniture into the larder and whitewashed the newly papered walls.

“Have you seen the kitchen?” Mrs Batty said to me. “The larder is piled high with my furniture; and you would not believe the tip my lounge is in. But they are a funny lot. I asked if I could wash the beams in the kitchen for them, and they said ‘Oh no, we want them to look old.’ I have even had to hunt out a lot of old pottery from the cellar for them.

“But I have given up now. I have just left them to it.”

~ From The News, Friday 25^th May, 1973 ~

Bank Ground Farm is very much smarter today ~ Click here for their website.

Filming the classic movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ at Bowness-on-Windermere on 7th June 1973

BW Rowing to Rio — Suzanna Hamilton, Simon West, Sten Grendon and Sophie Neville rowing ‘Swallow’ into Rio Bay, or Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District

Swallows and Amazons [DVD]

On 7th June 1973 the seventy-strong crew busy making the movie ‘Swallows & Amazons’ arrived at Bowness-on-Windermere in Cumbria to film the scenes when the Swallows decide to explore Rio, the ‘native settlement’ due north east of Wildcat Island. The weather was glorious.

The Art Director, Simon Holland and Set Dresser Ian Whittaker gathered a number of vintage boats to give the old grteen boatsheds and jettys a 1929 feel.

I was sent a scrap-book that contains a clipping from the Evening News, when reporter Terry Bromley joined the film crew for a day. He lists many of the forty or so local people who either appeared as supporting artists in the scenes or provided action props such as vintage cars and traditional boats. Everyone, including the drivers and boatmen, were dressed in costumes from 1929, only forty-four years before 1973.

The caption reads: “Susan and Titty rush past some of the local extras in a scene filmed on Bowness jetty.”

“Below, Mrs Jill Jackson, of Kendal, takes her family, Fiona, 9, Lindsay, 13, Nicola, 9 and Shane,11, for a donkey ride.”

“Four jovial extras from Ambleside with other members of the cast. They are Stanley Wright who plays a motorboat mechanic, Herbert Barton (casual holiday maker), James Stelfox (boat mechanic) and L.Lucas Dews (a man just returned from abroad).” James Stelfox had appeared as a station master in an earlier scene set at the Haverthwaite Steam Railway Station.

They were dressed by Wardrobe Master Terry Smith, while other period details were organised by the Art Director Simon Holland, his Set Dresser Ian Whittacker and crew of prop men lead by Bob Hedges.

“Sarah Boom of Bowness with a period cycle, a member of the Kendal Borough Band and a member of the Ambleside Players, Mrs Peggy Drake, with her 13-year-old son William.” I know that the Kendal Band wore their own, original 1020’s uniforms as they played in the bandstand.

The caption reads: ‘Janet Hadwin and her father, Jack Hadwin, stand by an Austin car and BSA motor cycle of the period.’ The photograph below it shows Sophie Neville, Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton and Sten Grendon in a pony trap during a break in the filming.

For a full list of actors and supporting artists who were involved in the filming please see the second edition of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974)’, published by The Lutterworth Press, which can be purchased on-line or ordered from your local bookshop or library.

the-making-of-swallows-and-amazons-audiobook-cover