‘Natives again. Or cannibals. This marks the spot where they ate six missionaries’ has to be the best line that anyone in the history of film making has ever had to utter. It is not in the book, just that ‘…they might have been killed and eaten by other natives,’ as Titty, having digested huge helpings of Daniel Defoe, declares herself the most ardent imperialist of all time. And she has such fun doing so. I have always liked the talk of ‘the powerful native’ (Mr Jackson the Lakeland farmer) and the savages living around Rio. I always hope it shocks lots of people.
What I have found really does shock people – shocks them so much that they admit to being shocked – is that I was once a missionary. In Africa. And in Australia. I think they think I try to convert the natives but of course it is not like that. You go not knowing what will happen and find yourselves making life a bit more fun for people who belong to God but are battling a bit.
Sophie Neville about to board the high speed train for Shang’hai
It is like this: The Amazons, Nancy and Peggy Blackett, who are energetic tomboys living in the Lake District, had lost their father. It goes unsaid, but Peggy very touchingly lets it out in Swallowdale when they find a hidden tin on the peak of Kanchenjunga. Their mother’s brother, Jim Turner, took them sailing and did things with them with them the first summer but then decided to concentrate on writing his book. Nancy and Peggy feel so rejected they light a firework on the roof of his boat, which enrages him. The Swallows, who know what it was like without a father around, as theirs is in the Navy, travel from afar but somehow manage to come alongside the Amazons and give them a reason to live life to the full. Nancy and Peggy excel – they find life-long friends and do all the things they are meant to do. All sorts of things happen as a result. And the Swallows are challenged and have more fun than if they had ever travelled in a structured way, intent solely on their own enjoyment. They have great adventures and do more things than they ever imagined possible .
I still go on short term missions. We went to China with the Bible Society one year. It was amazing, a mission of encouragement that Titty would have loved. We met people who had not had European visitors for forty years. They were really excited to know that people in the wider world were interested in their welfare and had come to bring them the word of God. The only Europeans – only white people – they had seen before us were there to make money. It’s shocking, isn’t it?
I did not know it at the time but Titty’s chart had a profound influence on my life.
I loved drawing the map. I had prepared it earlier with Simon Holland, the Art Director, and always regret pressing too hard. If you look very carefully you can see that I had already written ‘Rio’ and rubbed it out, only to write Rio again when it came to the take. I also wish that I had been taught the song Away to Rio before this scene as I would had said that line differently. Never mind.
The map on the end papers of Arthur Ransome’s book of Swallows and Amazons, originally drawn by Steven Spurrier, is an inspiration to millions. I’ve gazed and gazed at it.
When I grew up and went to university, I took a course in cartography that was to stand me in good stead. In the spring of 1992, I migrated to Southern Africa with the swallows and soon started drawing decorative maps.
I added small pictures of settlements, trees, animals, and always a compass with a black and white border to give the scale. In the process I was able to explore the most wonderful country. Most of my commissions have been of game reserves or great swathes of Africa.
A map by Sophie Neville depicting the area around Macatoo Camp in the Okavango Delta in Botswana where you find wild parrots
Some have been for charities such as Save the Rhino Trust, others for books, others for marketing holidays.
They all gave me the excuse to go on living a Swallows and Amazons life, camping in wild places and exploring wilderness areas – uncharted territory.
As I expect Titty would have done, I have been writing about these maps and the adventures I had in making them, putting everything together in an illustrated travel book call Ride the Wings of Morning.
I have a couple of very early maps in my first book Funnily Enough. These were just sketched in my diary but one is of Windermere, where I went with my father and the Steam Boat Association, so should be of interest to Arthur Ransome enthusiasts.
A map of Windermere sketched in Sophie Neville’s Diary of 1991 published as the book ‘Funnily Enough’
I have since reproduced some of my own Swallows and Amazons maps on mugs, t-shirts and other items that make useful presents. You can find a selection here.
Mugs printed with maps used to illustrate Sophie’s books
I used this map of the Swallows and Amazons locations on the front of the ebook on how we made the film, which has more within. It sells for about £2.99:
Sten Grendon as Roger Walker being taught to swim by Suzanna Hamilton playing his elder sister Susan Walker on location at Peel Island on Coniston Water in 1973
“…it was really horrible,” I told Tim Devlin, of The Times. “We had to run into the water and enjoy it. It was icy. I had to try to be a cormorant with my feet in the air. Then I had to step water as Susan taught Roger to swim. We were in for about three minutes and they had to do two takes of the scene. It was horrible.” This was the day when we shot the swimming scenes ~
The first scene of the day was actually was the one when Titty emerged from her tent in her pyjamas, wiped the dew off the top of a large biscuit tin and started writing her diary. I always regret writing Titania Walker on the cover but I had been contracted to play the part of TITANIA WALKER. My mother, Daphne Neville, who is quite theatrical, loved Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and encouraged me to write out the full name, but I do wish I had simply labelled by notebook ‘Ship’s Log’.
Suzanna Hamilton playing Susan with Sophie Neville as Titty busy writing the ship’s log
I am told that the real little girl who inspired my character, Titty Altounyan, was given the nickname after reading a horrible story of mousey death entitled ‘Titty mouse and Tatty mouse’ from English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. Her family called her Titty mouse, then Titty for short. People were concerned that I would be teased for being associated with a name like Titty, but I never was. It’s a sweet name. However, it seems Arthur Ransome did not object when the BBC altered it to Kitty in 1962, when Susan George played the part. When the 2016 version of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ was made Titty became Tatty and the press had a field day.
Our knitted swimming costumes, with their little legs were a real novelty to us. I do wish mine hadn’t been red. It was such a cold, grey day I went blue. I remember the entire crew were clad in overcoats – even parkers with fur lined hoods. Looking back it was silly to have gone ahead with the scene in May. Child cruelty.
35m Panasonic, Eddie Collins the Camera Operator in (wet suit), Dennis Lewiston the DOP (in cap) Claude Whatham the Director (in waders) on Peel Island, Coniston Water ~ photo: Richard Pilbrow
The director, Claude Whatham shot the scene using two cameras. The continuity would have been impossible otherwise. Eddie Collins the camera operator had a 16mm camera in the water with us. He was being steadied by another chap in a full wet-suit. Fitted neoprene was quite an unusual sight back then when divers were known as frogmen.
Eddie Collins operating the 16mm camera to capture the pearl diving scene ~photo: Richard Pilbrow
Suzanna Hamilton, who played Susan, did well but it simply wasn’t possible to pretend we were enjoying ourselves. My rictus smile was not convincing. Later on in the summer the Lake District became so hot that we begged to be taken swimming in rivers on our day off. I wish we had re-shot the scene in July with an underwater camera capturing my pearl diving antics. I was a good swimmer. I still love snorkelling – but only in warm seas. As it was, I had to be extracted from Coniston Water by Eddie’s frogman. I’d almost passed out.
Sophie Neville in 1973 attempting to strangle Terry Smith the Wardrobe Master on ‘Swallows and Amazons’
Quite a few people almost learnt how cold we had been for themselves later that day in May. The boats used to ferry us back and forward to the island were blue Dorys with outboard motors. You don’t want to have too much weight in the bows of those boats. Water can come in very quickly.
Sten Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville and Simon West appearing in the original movie ‘Swallows & Amazons’
If you drive south down the narrow East of Lake road along by Coniston Water, passing Bank Ground Farm, Brantwood and a cottage where Arthur Ransome once lived, you will eventually see Peel Island. It is not that far from the shore.
Sophie Neville finding Peel Island on Coniston Water a few years ago
Richard Pilbrow had permission from the Lake District National Park for his film crew to gain access and use the fields and woodland opposite Peel Island as a base. One proviso was that our two red double-decker buses had to be swathed with camouflage netting in an attempt to make them less conspicuous. As a result they looked comic – like huge monsters from Doctor Who. In addition to these we had a caravan for Make-up and Hair, the caterers’ mobile kitchen or chuck-wagon, a prop lorry, a lorry belonging to Lee Electric who provided the lighting and huge reflector boards, the Lee Electric generator and the regrettable and very basic mobile loos. I cannot remember what kind of vehicle David Cadwallader the Grip used but I half remember a Land Rover. In addition to all this would be parked our mini-bus, the unit mini-bus, everyone’s cars and the boat trailers. Mum thinks that Terry Smith’s Range Rover could have been orange. ‘He was a very orange man.’ It was white.
It must have been a bit of an effort to avoid getting the whole entourage in shot when John and I launched Swallow and rowed around to the harbour. You can tell that it was a greyer day than the one before.
Sophie Neville as Titty and Simon West as John rowing Swallow towards Peel Island on Coniston Water in the Lake District National Park in 1973
A temporary jetty made from scaffold and planks had been built out into the water so that we could climb into any boat going to the island without getting wet. It must have been quite something lugging the 35mm Panavision camera over. It travelled in a big black wooden box lined with foam rubber, with handles at either end, transported by two men like the Arc of the Covenant , holy and revered. Once on the island it would be set on the complex mounting, which enabled it to pan and tilt. This in turn usually sat on sections of track so that moving shots could be achieved.
Denis Lewiston, the Director of Photography, had a Camera Operator but insisted on doing most of the camera work himself. If you watch the scenes of the Swallows making up camp you can see that he must have just followed what Susan and Roger were doing. It has a wonderful, busy natural quality with the result that all one wants to do is to leave real life behind and go camping. I imagine that the scenes when the kettle is being filled were shot in the morning, while I was at my lessons, but I joined them after lunch.
Simon West and Sophie Neville on Coniston Water
We loved shooting any scene at our camp on the island, especially when we were eating. As I think I have said before, when Suzanna swung her frying pan of buttered eggs she really did burn Roger on the knee. He was very brave about it. It was a heavy pan.
David Cadwallader continued working as a grip, operating the crane on the 2011 movie of Jane Eyre, which stared Mia Wasikowska as Jane, Michael Fassbender as Mr Rochester and Judi Dench as Mrs Fairfax. I’d been reading Jane Eyre on that day in May 1973. It was my set book. My set book for school and the book I read on set. I should have been reading Robinson Crusoe.
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Richard Pilbrow has just written from Connecticut to say, ‘You can read my side of the story, if you care to, in ‘A THEATRE PROJECT’, that you can get from Amazon.uk.’
Simon West and Sophie Neville on Peel Island in 1973 Costumes designed by Emma Porteous
We had another rather wet day in the Lake District, but what they did shoot was excellent. In the story, it was the day John and I discovered the Secret Harbour and rowed Swallow around from the Landing Place. It must have been worth waiting for the weather to clear in oder to capture those limpid, watery scenes.
The Secret Harbour looks very different over the course of a year. It is at its most dramatic when the water levels are low and more rocks are exposed, but one thing is certain, it is always a safe haven for a dinghy. I was sad that the sequence in the book where Titty watches a dipper from her rock was never included in the film, but then I have never seen a dipper there. I rather think they prefer shallow, fast flowing streams were caddis fly lavae can be found but if Arthur Ransome wrote about a dipper there must have been one there in 1929.
Simon West as John and Sophie Neville as Titty bring Swallow into Secret Harbour. Photography by Albert Clarke for Theatre Projects and Anglo EMI’s film ‘Swallows and Amazons’
Albert Clarke did not achieve horizontality with this particular photograph but it somehow gives one an idea of Titty’s tippy task. Albert was a sweet man. His task was to take stills of the film and for the film. This must have been tricky as his large format camera clicked. He had to grab shots while not intruding on the sound track. He was later the Stills Photographer on The Hound of the Baskervilles when Ian Richardson played Sherlock Holmes, Return of the Jedi, and Porridge. Porridge, which starred my all-time hero Ronnie Barker who inspired me to go into television production. When I was a nineteen-year-old student I appeared in Charlie Farley and Piggy Malone, a sort of serial within The Two Ronnies, which he directed and appeared in as both anti-hero and baddie. To my great delight, and his surprise, I put on round glasses, a yash-mak, a Southern American accent borrowed from Molly Friedel and learnt that anything was possible if you really wanted it to happen.
But then some things happen anyway. I never knew that bringing small boat neatly into shore would result in being on the cover of an LP. You can still buy it all these years later from Amazon. The only question is – Do you have a gramophone or turn-table to play it on?
The mfp Vinyl LP of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ with Sophie Neville and Simon West bringing Swallow into her harbour
I can’t believe Terry let me travel in the front on his white Range Rover, let alone change the gears. I can only think that Simon and I were taken back after the other children had gone home, and can just imagine us swinging around the lanes on that beautiful road back to Ambleside.
Terry Smith was our Wardrobe Master who must have had an annoying day if gas had been leaking into his bus. He was the distinctive man with curly red hair and strong, freckled arms in charge of our costumes. Goodness knows where he laundered them. Terry went on to work on some amazing costume dramas, movies that included Chariots of Fire, Lady Jane, Willow and Restoration. Mum’s tame otter Bee was auditioned to be in Willow. I’ve written about it in my book Funnily Enough. Mum was most indignant becasue they wanted her otter to wear a tutu. She didn’t know that Terry Smith was to be the Wardrobe Assistant. It might have made a difference. Instead they featured Val Kilmer in dialogue with a possum.
Sophie Neville, Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton and Sten Grendon on Wildcat Island in the scene where the Swallows find a place to camp
Arthur Ransome’s description of Wild Cat Island is based on at least two real islands. The landing place and open grassy camp site illustrated in the books can be found at Blake Holme on Windermere but when Richard Pilbrow went there in 1972 he was so disappointed by the sight of caravans, and the fact it was near the shore, that he decided to make the film almost entirely on Peel Island where you find Ransome’s Secret Harbour. We never went to Blake Holme.
Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton with Sten Grendon in the bows, while Sophie Neville looks on from the shore of Peel Island
It was at Peel Island on Coniston Water that Ransome met the Collingwood family when he was a boy. The Collingwood grandchildren, Taqui, Susie, Titty, Roger and Brigit Altounyan, later camped there getting slugs in their hair. Roger Altounyan told my old friend Bill Frankland that he secretly spent the first three nights of his honeymoon there. It must have been magical.
We loved crossing to the island – it was hugely exciting, even in the rain. There is something about the sheer rock faces, which makes it like a fortress, the ancient Viking settlement WD Collingwood believed it to be. Getting us back for lessons and lunch can’t have been easy and there was no loo.
The Swallows on Wild Cat Island
Had I been producing Swallows and Amazons I might have used Peel island for the unique Secret Harbour but tried to use ‘Near Peel Far’ on the mainland for the landing place. There is a nice open beach there and one wouldn’t have had to lug all the heavy paraphernalia of filming over the water – you can imagine time and effort involved in taking a 35mm Panavision camera across with its mountings and track. I don’t know how they powered the arc lamps we needed to light the campsite, which was quite dark beneath the trees. They must have run the cables under water.
Suzanna Hamilton as Susan, cooking buttered eggs on the camp fire on Wild Cat Island. Director Claude Whatham, Sue Merry, Bobby Sitwell and DoP Denis Lewiston look on, clad in wet weather gear.
But – the wonderful thing is that now, when children reach the island, most of the places featured in the film are there. The Landing Place has nearly washed away. We never knew it at the time, but one great secret is that the beach was created especially for the film. They must have dumped a huge amount of shingle there. The other secret is that there weren’t actually enough trees for the Swallows to erect the tents their mother had made for them. Two had to be added by the construction team.
Arthur Ransome’s tents are not as easy to put up as you’d imagine. It is difficult for children to get the rope taut enough between the trees to take the weight of the canvas. You need to use wagon knots or twist it with a stick. If you tie the rope too high the tents ruck up. The reality was that Suzanna had Bobby-the-prop-man to help her.
Suzanna Hamilton playing Susan with Sten Grendon as Roger camping on Peel Island
One thing that is not a secret, but can take you unawares, is that there never seems to be any firewood on Wildcat Island. It is the reason why the Swallows went to the mainland in the book.
Roger really did struggle to find sticks to pick up on that wet day in May. Mine were carefully set out for me to find by the designer but Sten really did fall over and he did get quite badly scratched by thorns. Claude gave him a bit of ‘Danger Money’ for being brave and not complaining.
Stephen Grendon playing young Laurie in the BBC Play ‘Cider with Rosie’
I’m not sure if Sten had ever received Danger Money when he played Laurie Lee in Cider with Rosie, which Claude had made two years before. We watched it that night when it was broadcast on television. It must have been shown quite late as it was was labelled as avant garde but we stayed up as of course VHS machines had not been heard of.
Rosemary Leach played Laurie’s long-suffering mother, Mrs Lee, quite beautifully. She was later to take the role of Mrs Barrable in the BBC series Coot Club, which I worked on in 1983. Mike Pratt, who played Mr Dixon in Swallows and Amazons, played Uncle Ray, and Young Billy – John Franklin-Robbins was The Stranger. Claude cast me as a little girl from Slad called Eileen Brown, who Laurie Lee always said was the first person he fell in love with. He was a friend of Mum’s and was around during the filming, since he still had a cottage in Slad. I’d been to a village school in the Cotswolds myself and enjoyed being in the classroom scenes, despite have to wear rather an itchy green dress.
Sophie Neville with Claude Whatham on location at Slad in 1971
I was too shy to put myself forward when Claude asked if anyone knew the chants to playground skipping games, but I did work hard to prepare for my big scene. I had to play quite a difficult piece on the piano, accompanying the ten-year-old Laurie Lee as he sawed away on his violin at the village concert. Rosemary Leach looked on with tears in her eyes. I was only given the music three days before the filming and had to practice eight hours a day, for those three days, before I got it right. We plodded through Oh, Danny Boy but were both so relieved to get it right that our smiles were real enough. At one point Claude took a deep breath and said, ‘Do you think you could play a little faster?’ I looked at him and replied, ‘They’re crochets. They don’t go any faster.’ He claimed that he didn’t know what a crotchet was.
Sophie Neville as Eileen Brown and Philip Hawkes as Laurie Lee in ‘Cider with Rosie’ directed by Claude Whatham in 1971.
I have written more about appearing in ‘Cider With Rosie’ here. It was pivotable as Claude Whatham invited Sten and I to appear as Roger and Titty in ‘Swallows and Amazons’ as he ‘had worked with us before’. He knew how we would react in front of the camera. I happened to have had a bit of experience crewing dinghies but the hard work I put into playing Eileen Brown gained me the role of Titty in the feature film now distributed by StudioCanal.
Sophie Neville playing Eileen Brown
You can read more in one of the editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ available online here and in paperback from Waterstones.
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
It was quite amusing when Mrs Batty’s sheep walked into Swallow’s boatshed, lifting our spirits on that rather gloomy wet day on Coniston, but I have no idea if it was caught on film. Can anyone remember seeing a television programme made up of amusing out-takes from movies prior to the 1980s? I don’t suppose ours were ever kept. It doesn’t matter – seeing them spoils the magic of the story in a way.
Simon West as John Walker taking Swallow out of the boatshed at Holly Howe aided by Suzanna Hamilton, Sten Grendon and Sophie Neville
In 1971, Claude Whatham had enjoyed glorious May weather when he made ‘Cider With Rosie’ in Gloucestershire, but it rained so hard in Cumbria that filming anything was proving difficult. He managed to capture one limpid shot of me looking at Swallow’s tatty flag.
I wrote more enthusiastically about playing Consequences in Bank Ground farmhouse. This is the game that Virginia McKenna had introduced us to and we loved it. This time we must have roped in heads of the Costume, Hair and Make-up Departments. It seems that Emma Porteous, the Costume Designer, was on set with us that wet day in May. I would think that this was when they recorded the scenes inside Holly Howe with Susan and Roger and the wonderful lady who played Mrs Jackson. Someone recently asked why Susan never thanked her for lending her the frying pan, as it seemed out of character, but she still wasn’t feeling very well. Does Susan thank Mrs Jackson in Arthur Ransome’s book?
Suzanna Hamilton’s drawings of her costumes for scenes set at Holly Howe
Ronnie Cogan was the quiet, gentle man usually clad in a grey tweed jacket, responsible for our hair on Swallows and Amazons. Foregoing the use of wigs, so very much in use on costume dramas at the time, he simply did up Virginia McKenna’s lovely thick hair, and cut ours, giving the whole movie a classic feel.
Mrs Ransome was fussy about Sten’s hair. She had specified didn’t want Richard to cast children with black hair and objected to his photo but acquiesced when she saw him running around at Bank Ground Farm with a short-back-and-sides.
Virginia McKenna having her hair put up by Ronnie Cogan ~ photo:Daphne Neville
Years later my mother worked with Ronnie on Diana: Her True Story, the bio-epic of epics based on Andrew Morton’s outrageous book. Serena Scott Thomas played Diana Princess of Wales, David Threlfall was Prince Charles, Anthony Calf had the glorious opportunity to play James Hewitt and my mother was given the role of Diana’s nanny, who hit her on the head with a wooden spoon. Mum said that she later bumped into Ronnie in Oxford Street but heard soon afterwards that he had sadly died. He had a wonderful career and must be hugely missed.
Simon West having his hair trimmed by Ronnie Cogan. Can anyone tell me the name of the driver holding him still.
He’d worked on classics such as The Boys from Brazil with Sir Laurence Olivier and A Bridge too Far directed by Richard Attenborough – the Lord Attenborough. That must have been quite something. It starred Sean Connery, Michael Caine and Ryan O’Neal who I am sure would have been pretty concerned about having the standard WWII military haircut. Ronnie also worked for Roland Joffe on The Killing Fields and Kenneth Branagh when he had a pudding basin haircut, for his monumental film of Shakespeare’s Henry V. It is funny how things inter-connect. Kenneth Branagh played my great uncle AO Neville in the Rabbit-Proof Fence.
Ronnie Cogan attending to Mike Pratt in the role of Mr Dixon photo: Daphne Neville
Peter Robb-King had been the Chief Make-up Artist on Diana: her True Story. Having worked on movies such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Stars Wars – Return of the Jedi, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, he is still involved with the most amazing feature films. He has just completed The Cabin in the Woods where he was Sigourney Weaver’s personal make-up artist – and to think! He was once mine.
Sophie Neville being made up for the part of Titty by Peter Robb-King in 1973
“But, Sophie – you disappoint me! You didn’t wear any make-up to play Titty.” No, but as we filmed out on the water, sun cream became extremely important. If even a tiny bit of us had turned red or peeled the filming would have put in jeopardy. Predicting that we would turn vaguely brown, Peter decided to give us a bit of a tan when scenes where shot out of sequence, as a couple had been that first week.
Peter and Ronnie were also responsible for the continuity of how we looked so that the shots would cut together. My fly-away hair was well monitored. Mum had to wash it every other day.
Ronnie Cogan with Sten Grendon. I was in the Make-up caravan beyond.
Sten seemed to be forever having his hair trimmed. There are quite a few photographs of this particular activity in progress.
Sophie Neville with Sten Grendon’s being given a haircut by Ronnie Cogan ~ photo: Daphne Neville
You can read more in ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’ available as a multi-media ebook illustrated with behind-the-scenes photographs.
Suzanna was ill. ‘I told Claude that it was because she wouldn’t eat anything,’ my mother said. ‘Oo she was difficult.’ But it can’t have just been that. We’d all got cold filming out on the lake in our flimsy costumes and she went down hill from there.
The Producer, Richard Pilbrow, called a ‘unit day off’. It happened to be a precious, sunny Saturday. Sadly for him, it rained the next day, which the crew were originally scheduled to take off.
Producer Richard Pilbrow with Director Claude Whatham
I made the most of it. Mum hardly ever took my sisters and I either shopping or walking when I we were children, but Sten’s mother, Jane Grendon was happy to take us around the craft shops of Ambleside and up into the fells. I am sure it was just what we needed while Mum stayed with Suzanna, and had a snooze herself. She was the better chaperone on location, where she felt happy and relaxed, Jane enjoyed taking us hill walking and encouraged us to sing on mini-bus journeys through the Lake District.
My diary kept during the filming of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in 1973
The norm when filming on location is to work six days a week, resting on Sundays. This quite often has to be changed to a Saturday as some locations, such as the police will only give you clearance for tricky sequences when it’s very quiet. Busy town centres, can only be used on Sundays. We didn’t have any gun fights in Swallows and Amazons (1974) but when I was a location manager myself on Rockcliffe’s Babies I once had to get everyone out on a Sunday morning at 6.00am. We were recording a car chase going the wrong way around the Harrow Road roundabout above Paddington Station in West London with four policemen employed to stop the traffic. We had an actor clinging to the bonnet of the baddies’ car by the windscreen wipers, which were moving.
Dame Virginia McKenna on Windermere in 1973 – photo: Philip Hatfield
I look back through my diary and am so touched. Virginia McKenna was incredibly kind to take such an interest in us, bringing Suzanna strawberries and talking us all to the cinema in Ambleside. We must have watched ‘The Cowboys’, a 1972 movie starring John Wayne. I wonder if she’d met him in Hollywood. Her husband, Bill Travers had appeared in Rawhide with Clint Eastward and starred in Duel at Diablo with James Garner and Sydney Poitier when he’d been given the line, “Apaches seek revenge that way.” Titty would have loved it.
I wrote that Garth brought a pocket chess set. I’m afraid I couldn’t spell properly. This was meant to read Gareth. I have known two Gareths in my life. A Gloucester Old Spot pig, living in North Wales and Gareth Tandy, our third assistant director. His aunt Jessica Tandy was the famous Hollywood actress who had appeared in Alfred Hitchcock dramas such as The Birds. In later life she went on to star in Driving Miss Daisy with Morgan Freeman, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and Nobody’s Fool with Paul Newman, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith.
Gareth had acted in all sorts of things as a boy from Oliver Twist to Dr. Findlay’s Casebook. If I’m not mistaken, Swallows and Amazons was his first film as an Assistant Director but he made a career of it, going on to work on amazing movies includingthe original Superman, For Your Eyes Only ~ the Bond film with Roger Moore, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Bourne Identity with Matt Damon, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp, Nanny McPhee, with Emma Thompson and Colin Firth, Johnny English Reborn with Rowan Atkinson and was the First Assistant Director on A Fantastic Fear of Everything.
Gareth signed himself ‘The whipcracker’ in my going-away book. It think this was because it had been his job to get us through costume and make-up and onto the set at the right time but I was left puzzled because he had done this with such charm we had never noticed any whips cracking at all. There must have been. Poor Gareth had been the runner with a walky-talky stopping unwanted traffic, cue-ing various boats and lugging tea urns about, but he did this with good grace and we all loved him. And no wonder, seeing as he’d given us a chess set just because Suzanna was ill in bed.
Sophie Neville with Jane Grendon in 1973 ~ photo: Daphne Neville
When you next go to Bank Ground Farm you must stand outside the front door and imagine the sight of two red London Route Master buses making their way down the drive back in 1973. They swayed from side to side.
We thought it comic. I still can’t work out how they managed to avoid how bringing down the dry stone walls. While sheep grazed outside in the rain, we made ourselves comfortable at the Formica tables in one of these converted buses and got down to our lessons.
Meanwhile Ian Whittaker, the set dresser, and Simon Holland, the art director on ‘Swallows and Amazons’, transformed Mrs Batty’s upstairs rooms into the Walker children’s bedrooms of 1929. I changed on the top deck of our bus and was rushed through the rain with a coat over my nightie to the magical atmosphere of the film set. This was warmed by arc lights. Everyone became focused what was just in front of the camera: me reading an early edition of Daniel Defoe’s classic book, Robinson Crusoe. The director, Claude Whatham needed to establish that he was Titty’s hero. I can remember having to hold the book in special way so the cover could be seen clearly.
You can see that in my diary, I described this as ‘a bed scene’, which might amuse some actors, especially those who are not at all keen on doing bed-scenes (every actor I know). The beds themselves are probably still at the farm.
Sophie Neville, Virginia McKenna and Simon West on the cover of the ‘Swallows and Amazons’ LP, which is still available on Amazon.co.uk
They may have shot the scene where Captain John is learning Morse Code in the same room. Simon West then had to be made very brown indeed, the Make-up Designer dabbing away with a tiny sponge. This was for the uneasy sequence, much later in the story, when he returned to Holly Howe to explain himself to his mother. This was shot with Virginia McKenna writing letters at a desk in the square bay window, with the view of Coniston Water beyond. I had used it when stitching Swallow’s flag in the scene recorded the day before.
Virginia McKenna and Lucy Batty at Bank Ground Farm on 15th May 1973
Mrs Batty later told me that the bay window leaked terribly and that she was glad to get rid of it. She built a lounge area in its place, which became a dedicated Swallows and Amazons room. I’d been chatting to her back in 2002 when we were waiting for Ben Fogle and the BBC crew of Countryfile. They had been looking for other locations used in the 1974 film before a planned interview with me and Suzanna Hamilton, who had played my sister Susan. I remember Suzanna’s train had been terribly delayed.
We’d waited and waited and waited. It got later and later. When Suzanna’s taxi finally arrived, I was so excited to see her that I encouraged her to run down to the lake as we once had as children.
Sten Grendon, Simon West, Virginia McKenna, Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville on location at Bank Ground Farm in 1973
The Countryfile director must have been at her wit’s end. Ben Fogle came down to fetch us. My excuse was that Suzanna needed a stretch after her a long journey from London.
The Westmorland Gazette captured the three of us plodding back up the field.I did the whole interview holding a bottle of grog, given to me by Arthur Ransome fans who were staying at the farm. You can see it in the photographs if you look closely. I don’t think Ben knew what it was.
Ben Fogle, Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and the BBC crew recording Countryfile at Bank Ground Farm in October 2002
My father’s 16mm home movie footage of the making of Swallows and Amazons was cut into this interview with such success that the documentary was re-shown on Big Screen Britainalong with other landscape movies such as Whistle Down the Wind and The Dambusters.
Sophie Neville 