I thought I’d lost it! But, on clearing out our mother’s house, my sister found the cuttings book I kept whilst making the original movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in 1973.
It includes a plan of the London double-decker bus where we received rudimentary lessons on location. Three bunkbeds on the top floor were meant to be used so we could rest after lunch. Mum said she forced me to lie down everyday but I can only remember a couple of occasion, once when I was reluctant, once when I was freezing cold after a swimming scene.
We changed into our costumes at the top of that bus, enjoying warmth from a gas stove that leaked rather alarmingly on one day necessitating an evacuation.
The exterior looked liked a conventional Routemaster with added curtains.
Lesley Bennett’s photo of the double decker buses at Bank Ground Farm in 1973
Once sitting at my desk, I found my italic fountain pen and began keeping a diary. One version of the first seven days spent in Cumbria is pasted into the scrap book. I later re-wrote a slightly more detailed and interesting version in a couple of notebooks and wrote about how I got the part of Titty, and the filming from different perspectives.
These pages describe the day spent travelling to Ambleside and a couple of days spent getting to know each other along with Dame Virginia McKenna, who played the Swallows’ mother, the producer Richard Pilbrow, David Blagden who was in charge of the sailing and the film director Cluade Whatham.
Encouraged by my mother, we began pasting in newspaper cuttings.
The Times and the Guardian were at Havethwaite Railway Station to take photographs on the first day of filming. The BBC Radio 4 newsreader, Alan Smith, who grew up in Cumbria, was a film extra that day and can be spotted standing in train doorway with his brother. He wrote to me with his memories of the day.
I began adding photos from contact sheets that Albert Clarke, the film’s stills photographer, took of the cast and crew. I wrote about the opening locations here.
There are pages of dictation and a few sketches of the film props. I drew the yellow Austin ‘taxi’ we drove in at the station.
There were some cuttings that I hadn’t seen for years until until I opened the pages of this mislaid cuttings book. Others can be found on earlier posts.
I took pages of dictation, learning about the plants and geology of the Lake District, about Beatrix Potter and the National Trust, but it’s a wonder any schoolwork was accomplished at all. We spent so much time on set. I fell behind in French and Maths but gained respectable exam grades that summer, gaining 80% in Geography. Perhaps I wrote about glacial lakes.
You can read more about the adventures we had whilst filming ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in books detailed on this website.
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
There is now an audiobook on ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ published by The Lutterworth Press and available on all online platforms including Audible.
A book signed by the author always makes a good Christmas present. Each year, I take part in an annual online charity auction organised by Children in Read to raise funds for BBC Children in Need.
You can scroll through the site on Jumblebee. co.uk. and choose from an amazing selection of biographies and other books donated by contemporary authors.
Taking part is always great fun and offers authors a bit of publicity whilst presenting readers a choice of signed and dedicated books and illustrations.
In 2023, items in the Authors and Illustrators’ auction, raised a total of £24,061 for BBC Children in Need.
This year, authors and illustrators raised £9,766.
Over the eleven years that the annual event has been running a stunning total of £141,766 has been raised. I joined in 2020 and have raised a total of £616 for this cause.
Bidding has now closed but put the event in your diary for next year.
Like Arthur Ransome, I have ‘lived many lives in one.’ He also wrote, ‘Memory picks and choses’. Here are a few unusual ones:
A photograph of Sophie Neville photoshopped to look like Charlotte Rampling for ‘Broadchurch’
This gave me a fright: I was watching the ITV police series Broadchurch when I saw a photograph of me, aged seventeen, featured on screen. Only it wasn’t me. My face had been photo-shopped to look like a young Charlotte Rampling. Above is a screenshot. Here is the original:
Sophie Neville aged seventeen
No one had asked my permission, but what can I do but take it as a compliment?
Around this time I was briefly involved in the HTV seriesKidnapped. I played a boy. But opposite David McCallum (The Man From U.N.C.L.E), so who was I to argue. And I was paid.
I got the part in an odd way. They had forgotten to cast anybody for the role, but the producer had previously cast my sister in Arthur of the Britons and knew we lived only a few miles from the location. I agreed on the morning the scene was shot.
Appearing as a messenger boy in ‘Kidnapped’ produced by Patrick Dromgoole for HTV. What did they do to my hair?
I later stood in for the little boy who played Gerald Durrell in the first BBC drama series of My Family and Other Animals. Brian Blessed thought it hilarious. I was working behind the camera by that time but was skinny enough to squeeze into the costume.
Sophie Neville standing in for the boy playing Gerald Durrell getting a kiss from Brian Blessed who played Spiro
I was once on a train when the director of Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners asked if I could get to Gloucestershire to clear out my mother’s attic. I ended up filming with him for the next three or four days. It was exhausting – and unpaid – but a lot of de-cluttering got done. Check the apron from Seville. I’d bought it on honeymoon.
Sophie Neville filming in Gloucestershire with Betty TV
Piratøen – is the title for Swallows and Amazons in Danish – seen here on a flier that I only came across recently. I’d just had my DNA analyzed to discover I am 3% Danish due to admixture a few generations back. Do I look Danish?
Although I’ve worked on over 100 films and tv programmes, I have mostly been behind the camera, so don’t expect anyone to know who I am. They don’t. The marketing executive at StudioCanal had not, at first, wanted me to help promote the remastered DVD of ‘Swallows and Amazons’, which is understandable as Dame Virginia McKenna has the star billing. Then she must have watched the ‘filmen for hele familien’. I ended up giving Q&As at twelve cinemas. Some had audiences of 250 and the screenings were so popular that customers were being turned away.
Sophie Neville giving a Q&A in Kendal
And yet when a friend of mine told a lady that I was in ‘Swallows and Amazons’ she smiled apologetically and said she’d keep ‘an eye out for me.’
‘Why are you here?’ I was asked at Windermere Jetty in Cumbria. We had gathered to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the release of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in cinemas. How should I have answered that question? I replied saying, ‘I’ve been asked to give talk.’
Sophie Neville appearing on BBC TV at Windermere Jetty in Cumbria
You can now listen to the story of how the original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ was made on Audible.
The HTV series ‘Kidnapped’ (1978) is available on YouTube. Blink and you miss me, but the music is wonderful.
Having won a Top Three Scripts award at the New Media Film Festival in Los Angeles, Sophie was asked about her screenwriting.
Can you tell us a little about how you got started?
I began writing for BBC Television at the age of twenty-two. It was a disaster. Instead of presenting a polished script, I produced a rough draft that I thought we could develop in the rehearsal room. Developed it was – by Nicholas Parsons, one of the stars. He rewrote his own soliloquy, taking all the credit and a substantial fee. I’ve welcomed harsh feedback from beta readers ever since.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in your journey to becoming a writer? How did you overcome it? Can you share a story about that that other aspiring writers can learn from?
Instant success with my first book was challenging. My illustrated memoir FUNNILY ENOUGH was at number 1 in Humor on Amazon Kindle in the UK (after free copies had been downloading at the rate of 250 a minute) but I had self-published, and had no team support. Instead pressing the go-button with a PR firm and marketing team, I was weigh-laid by the small stuff. Writers need skilled networks in place, especially in the age of New Media.
Funnily Enough – the paperback has black & white illustrations
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I began my career in television by working with children. I could see the potential and it gave me a niche, but the hazards were numerous.
A teacher opened one scene for me by saying, ‘Some people believe the world is flat.’ A five-year-old called out, ‘No, but it’s not! It’s bumpy.’ The mistake was that we had too much camera judder – my cameraman had dissolved in hysterics. A lesson learned: I used a tripod when capturing the opinions of eleven-year-olds. The results were so amusing that they were repeatedly endlessly when Daytime TV was launched in the UK.
Sophie Neville directing a sequence with BBC cameraman Lorraine Smith
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
I felt compelled to write A BOY CALLED FREDDIE when I discovered Freddie Mercury, escaped from the violent 1964 Zanzibar revolution at the age of seventeen. If a year older, the man who became an international rock idol would have been forced into slave labour on coconut plantations. As it was, his family fled to London where his talent flourished and found stardom. Born Farrokh Bulsara, he became known as Freddie at school. The story of how he chose the name Mercury involves NASA but is only revealed in my screenplay – right at the end. Freddie’s father, Bomi, was a Parsee who worked as a cashier at the law courts where my Great-uncle Ronnie served as Chief Justice. I’ve been able to draw on my cousin’s stories of life in the heady days before a convicted rapist from Uganda brought mayhem to the archipelago of tropical islands, forcing the Sultan to escape by sea, along with my aunts and a plucky English women who had set up free and fair elections a month before mass murder broke out akin the movie HOTEL RWANDA (2004).
I’m also developing THE MEETING HOUSE, an exceptional true story from WWII about an East African serviceman I met who was airlifted out of a POW camp in Japan by his boyhood friend just before America bombed Tokyo. They landed in Silesia in the snow, which he’d only seen previously on the peak of Kilimanjaro, where he was born.
Can you share the most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your career?
Film fans love to hear about disasters that befell us while making the EMI movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ before the advent of CGI. I was persuaded to write THE MAKING of SWALLOWS and AMAZONS, now published by The Lutterworth Press.
Editions of ‘The Making of Swallows & Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
Although it’s been screened on television more times than any other British movie, it remains a classic that some have never heard of. ‘Why are you here?’ I was asked at the 50th Anniversary screening.
‘I’m giving a couple of talks on how the film was made,’ I muttered.
‘How would you know how it was made?’
‘I was there.’ In almost every scene. ‘I worked on it.’
‘You couldn’t have been,’ the man insisted.
I could only take this as a compliment, but he looked aggrieved.
Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Kit Seymour in Cumbria
StudioCanal also thought I was an imposter as Dame Virginia McKenna had the star billing. Then the marketing executives watched the movie. When the DVD was launched they had me hosting Q&As at twelve cinemas and provided footage for all manner of TV programmes from CINEMANICS with David Wood the screenwriter to BBC BREAKFAST with my co-star Suzanna Hamilton.
Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Kit Seymour on BBC Breakfast
I’m currently working on an inspiring comic tale: BANANA MAN, THE TRUE STORY about Phil-the-Geek, a shy but good looking physicist, who increased the national consumption of bananas by 20% after exploiting a supermarket deal and making 8 pence on every bunch he bought – and gave away. His story hit international News headlines and won him the heart of a beautiful girl. I was her bridesmaid. Last week, their daughters have just graduated from Yale and Harvard, respectively. I intend to present the family with a fruit bowl.
Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experience, what are the “5 Things You Need To Be A Successful Author or Writer”? Please share a story or example for each.
Focus, forbearance and a five am start to the writing day are key, but I often come up with vital twists while soaking in the bath tub. I guess this is because my brain works best at periods of least resistance. The problem is that I end up groping for a notebook with wet hands.
Please share a story or example for each.
Personality, productivity, perseverance, patience, and a broken heart. We need to touch the audience with humor, in small ways that are easily identifiable. I have a scene in one novel about a man on the cusp of falling in love who loses his car keys in the heat of the day and is left feeling a fool in front of the girl he wants to impress. It’s based on the time I found my ignition keys with my feet. They had fallen into sand beneath the door of my car when I was driving through Botswana. The relief following this small miracle is etched deep in my soul.
In your opinion, were you a “natural born writer” or did you develop that aptitude later on? Can you explain what you mean?
I would describe myself as a ‘natural born story-teller’. Having a visual brain, I became a television director, attracted to Mike Leigh’s emerging art of improvisation on film. When on the converted BBC Drama Director’s Studio Course, I gave my actors the task of flirting whilst erecting a tent. It worked exceptionally well, except that they enjoyed the exercise so much it went on a little long. I should have provided them with earpieces to bring the story to a timely end.
We all need to hone the craft of writing. I had the amazing opportunity of assisting on drama serials such as ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Eastenders’. Looking back, I could have become a BBC script editor. Instead, I’ve spent the last twenty years attending Curtis Brown Creative novel writing courses and acquiring the art of writing about love under the Romantic Novelists Association’s New Writers’ Scheme. Entering writing competitions has proved an incentive and the wins help build my CV. The competition is such that we need to build a pedigree and provide consumer confidence.
Which literature do you draw inspiration from? Why?
I write true-life stories set in the 20th century, so draw on any memoirs or biographies I can find. I love amusing autobiographical novels, such as Fran Hill’s trilogy on life as a teenager in foster care. She is a master craftsman and a truly inspirational writer. I feed off her infectious humour poured out to the world on Substack.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Forced marriage needs to be recognized as conjugal slavery and made illegal worldwide. Female circumcision (FGM) needs to stop before more lives are lost to infection. I have no personal experience, but feel we must all speak out to support those unable to do so.
Having been released in cinemas in April 1974, the original movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ was not accompanied by computer games but by puzzels, jigsaws and competitions. Here are a couple found recently whilst clearing out my mother’s house.
Few films are set in 1929, and yet it was that period, nearly a hundred years ago that gave the first film adaptation a certain style.
Graham Potter wrote saying: “I have just finished a DVD of S & A and found how much easier it is to see the details on the TV than in a cinema having to look from side to side. I was surprised to see how little sailing was shown and how the Amazons were not seen much. I think you were 12 or 13 at the time but looked younger. I have to to admit to enjoying the glimpses of the navy blue knickers in the opening scenes.”
One of the set of four jigsaw puzzles made when ‘Swallows & Amazons’ was released in cinemas in 1974, along with a Puffin paperback
Graham goes on to say, “I was surprised to see how you carried all the exciting scenes: left alone on the island, finding the secret harbour , dealing with leading lights , capturing and hiding Amazon, dealing with Mother’s visit during the night sailing, giving Captain Flint a good telling off for blaming John for firework and not listening to his warning about potential theft at his houseboat. Then the great finale when you are able to present him with his stolen life’s work in the trunk. Perhaps it was planned that you didn’t have too many lines to remember, as it enabled a very young girl to contribute such a lot to the film.”
This is very kind but I believe the film was made by the fact that Simon West who played John and Kit Seymour who played Nancy were good sailors. You can tell when they are sitting in a moored boat. While Claude Whatham was an exceptional director, ahead of his time stylistically, the director of photography uplifted the film by insisting we waited for clouds to pass. What else? – a hardworking and talented crew put together by Nevill Thompson. Simple costumes that never dated. Natural, well cut hair and a lack of make up – all the facets of filmmaking that you are not meant to notice.
Maybe our spiritedness as children carries the original film on. We are all in our sixties now, but the characters we played have become imaginary friends to many. As Shakespeare wrote, ‘Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air.’ The Tempest Would Ransome have agreed? I only know he discussed Shakespeare with Karl Radek.
I came across an essay in one of my school exercise books that I must have written aged twelve whilst on location. I was trying to explain that only about three minutes of what will be the finished film are captured during a long day’s filming on location. The piece is not well written.
A school essay written in 1973.
We went on to learn about the Spanish Main, which may have been requested by Claude Whatham, the director of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ so that I would know what Titty was talking about. On 1st June 1973, I was on location in the Lake District filming in the capture of the Amazon in Secret Harbour on Peel Island.
Perhaps I should add these remenants to a future edition of ‘The Making of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974)’. You can order the illustrated paperback from libraries, find it for sale online, or listen to the audiobook:
Chloe Williams has just written from Ontario in Canada, to say, “Some books entertain. Some enlighten. And some, like The Making of Swallows and Amazons and The Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons, manage to bottle something impossibly rare: the feeling of looking back through a child’s eyes and realizing it was all real; the lake, the sails, the laughter and somehow, you were part of it.”
“These aren’t just behind-the-scenes diaries. They’re sun-dappled time machines. Your voice, both in memory and in your original childhood notes, is a miracle of tone: witty, observant, buoyant, and deeply human.”
Of the original movie, she wrote: “What A Christmas Story is to snowglobes and childhood winters, Swallows and Amazons (1974) is to summers on the water and you’ve preserved that magic with charm, heart, and astonishing detail.
“What makes these books unforgettable isn’t just nostalgia. It’s how alive they are. We feel the smell of old sails and camera tape, the blur of location shoots, the uncertainty and excitement of being a child caught in a grown-up world of filmmaking yet utterly at home in it. We meet legends like Virginia McKenna not as distant stars, but as fellow travelers in the adventure. And it’s a joy.”
The Making of Swallows and Amazons seems to resonate with:
Readers of nostalgic memoirs that celebrate childhood, nature, and storytelling
Adults who are captivated by the lake-country magic of Arthur Ransome
Film lovers who cherish insider views of filmmaking
Educators and parents seeking real-life adventure stories for young readers
Fans of Call the Midwife, The Durrells, and 84, Charing Cross Road
“The joy and authenticity in your books mirror exactly why Swallows & Amazons (1974) still has such a hold on people’s hearts. The memoirs don’t just tell the story of making the film, they recreate it, letting readers smell the lake air and see the magic unfold through a child’s eyes.”
The new audiobook
I’m hoping the audiobook will also amuse readers. It’s now available on all the online platforms including Audible, where isis being offered for free on their membership trial.
Simon West as John Walker studying the chart before the voyage.
1. It’s good to begin a film with establishing shots that explain what is happening. This could be a chart, a poster, a yacht club, a moored boat or the landscape. Then tell the story, introducing the characters and different boats.
2. Once you begin filming boats the most important thing is to keep the horizon horizontal.
Simon West and Sophie Neville bring Swallow into the Secret Harbour on Wildcat Island
Alternatively, tilt your camera at a dramatically acute angle – but don’t use compromised shots like the one above.
Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies – can you spot the safety officer?
3. When you pan – side to side – first plan and rehearse the shot with good opening and ending frames. Hold for a beat on these – it gives you a transition to the next shot in the same way as a comma or full stop.
Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville and Sten Grendon in ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974)
Pans look better if the shot moves from left to right, as that is how westeners read.
A pan works best if it’s ‘motivated’ ie follows action. Only pan from right to left if you are following a subject, then let it pass out of shot.
Avoid panning from left to right and back again. Don’t wave the camera around.
Simon West as Captain John sailing Swallow . Sten Grendon plays the Boy Roger
4. Avoid using the zoom unless it is motivated. Tilting the camera works better eg: open on a shot of a boat’s name and tilt up to find the skipper.
5. A general rule is: If the subject is stationary you can move the shot. If the subject is moving, keep the shot still.
6. Low angle shots are atmospheric – try filming at chair height, especially if you are tall.
Suzanna Hamilton as Susan with Sophie Neville as Titty busy writing the ship’s log
7. Close ups and detail are good, especially if there is some movement. eg: burgee flying in the wind.
A montage of close-ups works well to explain what is happening and explain a passage of time.
8. People do well in front of the camera if you give them something intricate to do or look at. Show what they are doing, possibly from a different angle.
9. You will need to film one boat from another. We were lashed to a camera boat to achieve these shots.
Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Simon West sailing Swallow in 1973
10. Make sure your lens is kept clean – or use water droplets for effect. Don’t let your camera get wet but capture the excitement.
Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton at the helm of Swallow with Stephen Grendon
I continue to hear amazing stories about how the 1974 film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ has influenced people’s lives. Someone wrote to say, ‘This was my favourite movie growing up in Australia and the main reason I ended up moving to the UK!’
Rob Boden talking to Rupert Maas on BBC Antiques Roadshow.
There has been quite a bit in the popular press about what Rupert Maas, the expert on paintings, said of the movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974) which he saw aged 14. “It’s fair to say it got me into sailing. Just watching the romantic lives of these children in this wonderful summer. It never seemed to rain, the sun was always out…” He ended up crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Simon West as Captain John in Swallows and Amazons 1974
Marc Grimston writes, “I was read the books as bedtime stories when I was too young to read them myself… but when I was taken to see the film, the stories became alive to me. I had not seen the Lake District at that point and the film changed everything. I could visualise the landscape every time I read one of the books, that was due to the film. The characters in the stories now had faces I could recognise in my head from that point on. When I read the books now, the characters are still the same 51 years on. The books, the film and the TV series of Coot Club and The Bix Six gave me a love of boats, camping, the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads.
Krista French “Those books were my part of my childhood escape toolkit.”
Simon Leach saw a poster of the 1974 film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ and said that when it came out, “my family was living in South Australia. After watching this, my parents were so homesick, that we returned to the UK.”
Others comment on how it has given them solace during difficult times. One man wrote to say that he watches ‘Swallows and Amazons'(1974) every week.
Fiona Ring said, “It literally shaped my childhood, that was me, I was Titty, the adventures the love for the outdoors. I read and watched it over and over and now it’s even better that I’m reliving it all again with my girls. Travelling up to the lakes each year to find all your secret spots. It’s amazing. Kayaking to wild cat island with our girls in April was a dream come true.”
Sophie Neville with Suzanna Hamilton
Andy Stuart loved Arthur Ransome’s simple book illustrations. “And equally perfect were the the actors in the 1974 film. If I think of the Swallows and Amazons, those are the faces I see when I read the novels in which their characters feature, and my mind’s eye visions of the Norfolk children and the D’s are conjured from who I imagine would have fitted in alongside the original cast. You were all wonderful, Sophie Neville!”
Simon West, Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Sten Grendon in Secret Harbour
The author Duncan Hall says, “I can’t remember if I read the books or saw the film first. I don’t remember picturing the Swallows and Amazons differently so I maybe saw the film first? But would have been at a similar time. It sparked a lifetime obsession with the Lakes, boats and stories.”
Lesley Bennett and Kit Seymour as the Amazon pirates dancing on Peel Island
Rob Twycross said, “I saw myself in the children in the film. We lived our childhood like that, going off exploring, discovering and learning. Halcyon days that I fear are gone now. It’s lovely to watch it again now and feel young again, if only in my head and heart for a little while!”
Sophie Neville as Able seaman Titty in Swallow
You can now listen to the story of how the 1974 film was made on location in the Lake District on any of the audio-book platforms, including Audible.
Whilst clearing out my mother’s house recently we found a few letters written by my parents to my great aunt in June 1973. They report on the progress of making the original EMI movie of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in the Lake District.
Stephen Grendon as the Boy Roger, Sophie Neville as Able-seaman Titty and Simon West playing Captain John Walker beside Derwentwater in 1973 ~ photo: Daphne Neville
My mother had been given headed writing paper designed for members of the production to use on location by Brian Doyle, who managed the film publicity.
It looks as if my father used his children’s felt pens.
It is interesting to learn how much my sisters earned as film extras when they appeared in the scenes shot at Rio (Bowness on Windermere).
Kit Seymour and Jane Grendon watch the filming on the jetty whilst Tamzin and Perry Neville eat ice creams with the one man in Cumbria willing to have a short-back-and-sides. You can just see the period cars parked in the background
They made £5 a day, which was the same amount as the green parrot. I calculated that those of us with leading parts, who he describes as ‘the 6 children’ earned £7.50 a day. This was probably because we were only meant to be on set for a couple of hours. As Dad mentions, I effectively worked twelve-hour days but seemed to be thriving.
Until reading this letter, I didn’t know that the movie (or ‘picture’ as Mum called it) was originally due to be released in time for the Christmas holidays. It was launched in ABC Cinemas but not until April. You can read about the film’s release and premiere at what was then the ABC in Shaftesbury Avenue on my website here.
If you go down to Riverside Studios in London you might be in for a surprise. It is on the slipway below Hammersmith Bridge that the first daleks emerged from the River Thames in 1964, intent on invading Earth.
I’d been invited to a screening of the two-part ‘Doctor Who’ serial ‘Vengeance on Varos’, first broadcast in 1985 when it was watched by 7 million viewers.
After enjoying a very good lunch, I was taken down to the cinema foyer.
There I met up with the lovely actors I’d worked with in 1984 when I was their AFM – Assistant Floor Manager. As a production team we had office 513 in Threshold House above the Post Office on Shepherds Bush Green. The producer, John Nathan Turner and his secretary Sarah Lee shared a double office – 204 Union House, which was part of the same block. The technicians and designers such as Annie Hardinge, our costume designer, and Dorka Nieradzik, our Make Up designer, were based at Television Centre but came over for production meetings. Tony Snowden, our designer, worked out of Room 400 in the scenic block near the vast prop store where he found a questionable chair for the T.A.R.D.I.S. The Visual Effects Department had their own redbrick building on the West Way at North Acton.
I’d been responsible for setting up the read through with our glamorous Production Assistant, Jane Whittacker. It had then been my job to run and organise the rehearsals on the second floor of the BBC Rehearsal Rooms in North Acton where a star-studded canteen could be found on the top floor. Colin Baker remembered it as a tower of creativity that has sadly been torn down. Geraldine Alexander reminded me of the poles I used to mark out the sets, which were pretty abstract in Philip Martin’s script. I’d used coloured tape (rather than chalk) to given an idea of the dimensions on the rehearsal room floor. We had a T.A.R.D.I.S. consul but Colin had to tell me about sonic screwdrivers and blind us with fictional technology.
We had a small office off the rehearsal room where I’d work out call times for the read through, each rehearsal and set everything up for the studio – TC6 at BBC Television Centre where parking was near impossible. The little note book I kept has all the details. Programme ID: 50/LDL/G338P. We recorded one episode on 18th, 19th and 20th July, the other on 31st July, 1st and 2nd August 1984. It was high octane stuff.
It had been my responsibility to provide and look after the action props, prompt the actors and read parts if someone was missing. I’d also time each scene, reporting back to the script editor at the end of each day. You can read more in The Doctor Who Big Blue Podcast.
Sophie Neville with Geraldine Alexander, Nicola Bryant, Stephen Yardley, Colin Baker – the 6th Doctor – and Forbes Collins
Geraldine, Nicola and I were all born in 1960. Geraldine rushed over from the set of ‘Bridgerton’ where she is playing Mrs Wilson in her/their forth season. It is unusual for those working behind the scenes to be photographed with the cast but Who fans appreciate our involvement and know we hold secrets kept for years.
After watching the first episode of ‘Vengeance on Varos’ on the big screen, Stephen Yardley, Forbes Collins and I were invited to speak on stage and answer questions from the audience. Stephen told us that he’d been working as a hod carrier, building the Victoria Line, when he saw auditions being advertised in a copy of The Stage at his library and won his first part as an actor.
I spoke about the Varian knitting I’d invented for his fictional wife played by Shiela Reid and the secret of how the T.A.R.D.I.S. judder was achieved. Philip Martin’s original script had called for rock tunnels but our director Ron Jones had decided that passages lined in iron plating would look more convincing and unusual. We had a ventilation shaft, but no crawling. Ron thought it too corny.
Stephen Yardley, Sophie Neville and Forbes Collins talking about ‘Doctor Who’
After the Q&A official photographs taken under the auspices of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society who printed them out on the spot.
It was great to meet some of the serious ‘Doctor Who’ fans as we had made the series thinking of what would interest them. I had mentioned that I’d worked with Colin Baker and Patrick Troughton (photos and full disclosure on my last post here) but forgot to tell them that I’d met Tom Baker, the third Doctor, when I’d appeared in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ and had invited Peter Davidson on ‘Russell Harty’s Christmas Party’, which I’d set up in 1982 when I was first a graduate trainee at the BBC.
Rob with Sophie Neville, Geraldine Alexander, Nicola Bryant, Stephen Yardley, Colin Baker and Forbes Collins
After a screening of the second episode, Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Geraldine Alexander spoke at a second Q & A. Colin remembered that Nicola’s underwear and red shoes had been stolen from her dressing room halfway through the recording. The memory came storming back to me. It had created quite a panic. I think she had to transmogrify into a bird in a pair that was rather rapidly dyed.
Sadly the actor Nabil Shaban, who had played our monster Sil, was too unwell to come. He’d been a delightful actor to work with, driving in from Aldershot in Hampshire, although he also had a base in Tooting. Nabil had used his wheel chair in the rehearsals, but Ron Jones needed him to ride on something that would have him at head height with the other actors, so he could achieve ‘two-shots’. The Visual Effects Department built an aquarium podium on wheels. I insisted there was a gap at the top of this to show that it was not merely a disguise.
Colin Baker speaking about ‘Doctor Who’ with Nicola Bryant and Geraldine Alexander
I was then invited to sign copies of my books and some beautiful new ‘Doctor Who’ posters, which will be sold to raise money for charity. I already had a fan interested in one, which will benefit The Waterberg Trust. I was joined by our production associate Sue Anstruther who had arrived from BBC Radio to work on the series and look after John Nathan Turner who spent rather too much time in the BBC bar.
Sue Anstruther, Alex Moore and Sophie Neville
The day had taken me back forty years and was most enjoyable. Many thanks go to Alex Moore and all those who organised it so beautifully. You can find more photos on my previous blog post.
The end credits to ‘Vengeance on Varos’
I put one, brief story about a sand monster in ‘Doctor Who’ and a few more about working in television in my memoir ‘Funnily Enough’, which is available online as a paperback, ebook or audio book. You can read a sample for free here:
Funnily Enough – the paperback with black and white illustrations
Sophie Neville 