It was a hot, humid day but great fun, preserved on film forever more. My mother had driven to Gloucestershire the night before to appear on the HTV magazine programme ‘Women Only’ with Jan Leeming. She interviewed someone about potted plans and presented an item on peg dolls. This was a pity as she would have loved seeing the donkeys. Later that year her only donkey mare, Lucy, gave birth to a spotted foal she called Leopard.
Perry Neville, in yellow and Tamzin Neville, in pink riding donkeys in Rio Bay ~ photo: Daphne Neville
‘So lucky the old Victorian boatsheds were still there then.’
Claudia Myatt’s painting of Swallow in the Secret Harbour
The Secret Harbour on Peel Island looks south over Coniston Water to the hills of Cumbria. It has to be one of my favourite places on Earth. Bringing a small dinghy in there gives you a special feeling either of exploration or of coming home. You need to go when no one else is about. On the 1st June 1973 we spent a whole day filming there with a crew of sixty or more people. It was still a magical place.
Our secret of Secret Harbour was that although many of the scenes in Arthur Ransome’s story are set there at night, back in 1973 we only ever filmed them during the day. This was achieved by using the technique of Day-Night, or Day-for-Night filming, the use of filters over the camera lens so that we could film a scene that would come across as being dark even though it was shot in broad daylight. This had obvious advantages. Filming at night is amazing, but very tiring. It demands considerable lighting set ups, which would have been impossible on Peel Island as they could not get a generator out there.
Sophie Neville with Claude Whatham
The sun wouldn’t have set until very late on 1st June in the Lake District where mid-summer nights are short. Children are only permitted to work certain hours and need to be given rest days afterwards, so filming exteriors at night just wasn’t feasible. And yet, much of Swallows and Amazons, including the most dramatic of scenes, is set at night.
Secret Harbour on the southern end of Peel Island when we were returning for lunch in the Capri whilst Richard Pilbrow’s dog looked on from the temporary jetty constructed by the crew: photo ~ Martin Neville
I remember Claude Whatham, the Director of the film ‘Swallows & Amazons’ (1974) and Dennis Lewiston, our Lighting Cameraman or Director of Photography, being intensely absorbed in perfecting our Day-for-Night sequences. This was particularly tricky for them as many were set out on the water. Having already shot one night scene on Peel Island when we were in the girls’ tent, Dennis now started the day with a scene which was set on the island, yet looked out over the water. He explained that ideally he needed constant, bright sunlight, which would look like moonlight reflected on the ripples of the water. What he didn’t like were cloud banks. And for this we would wait. And waiting for children, while out on the water or in a confided space can be hard.
In the scene where the Swallows set up the leading lights Dennis accepted the clouds. It looks fine, as it’s appropriate for it to be getting dark. The little fluffy clouds in the scene where the Amazons arrive aren’t so great as they landed on Wild Cat Island in the dead of night.
Even on land the Day-for-Night shots would take some time to line up. The candle lanterns had to be boosted with battery operated light bulbs. If you look at the lantern in Susan’s tent you can see a black electric wire coming off it, and even a bulb on the Big Screen. You don’t notice this because your attention is on the dialogue but it can easily be spotted. You might think it would be a distraction for us children but we were all quite down-to-earth and the technical detail kept our interest and our minds on our work.
These were our favourite scenes, set in our favourite place. It was the Amazons’ big day with Kit Seymour emanating leadership as she portrayed Nancy Blackett ‘terror of the seas’, with all the confidence, grace and rugged beauty Arthur Ransome must have either known or envisaged. ‘By Gum, Able-seaman – I wish you were on my crew.’
There was much dialogue for Lesley Bennett who played Peggy. She did well, but acting opposite Suzanna Hamilton is always easy. It’s like rowing in a crew led my an excellent stroke or having a good man at the helm. The part of the practical Susan was not a charismatic one but Suzanna anchored us all. Her own performance is absolutely faultless. I had much to react to but not much to say. I did manage to handle the Amazon by myself and the long shot when I captured her was achieved in one take. A triumph at the end of a long day.
‘There are more of us Swallows…’ Sten Grendon, playing Roger and Simon West, playing Captain John in the Secret Harbour on Wildcat Island during the filming of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in 1973
There was much dialogue for Lesley Bennett who played Peggy. She did well, but acting opposite Suzanna Hamilton is easy. It’s like rowing in a crew led by an Olympic oarsman or having an experienced skipper at the helm. The part of the practical Susan was not a charismatic one but Suzanna anchored us all. Her own performance is absolutely faultless. I had much to react to but not much to say. I did manage to handle the Amazon by myself and the long shot when I captured her was achieved in one take. A triumph at the end of a long day.
Sophie Neville in The Amazon with DOP Denis Lewiston, his 16mm camera and a reflector board ~ photo: Martin Neville
I must somehow have spent time in the school bus with my tutor on 1st June as I was learning about the Spanish Main:
My father said that his first impression of the film crew was, ‘What an awful mess of trucks and weird people!’ He’d just come from his office in the electronics industry where everybody wore suits and ties. It’s true. One of the Arthur Ransome Society members took one look at the footage Dad took of the making of Swallows and Amazons and said, ‘It looks like Woodstock.’ Woodstock on wheels. Dad couldn’t bear the notion of hanging around all day but he bought some paints with him to do what he never normally had time for while looking after us.
Daphne Neville ~ presenter on HTV
My mother, Daphne Neville, had to leave that Tuesday to spend four days at the Bath and West Show ~ a long term commitment that could not be cancelled. By this time she had been working for Harlech Television or HTV, as the station became known, for about four years. She’d started as an ‘In Vision Announcer’, reading the News with Martyn Lewis from the old Harlech Television studio in Cardiff, before moving on to present her own children’s programmes such as It’s Time for Me.
Bruce Hocking, Jan Leeming and Daphne Neville with contestants appearing on an HTV Christmas Special
By 1973, Mum was presenting a women’s afternoon series made in Bristol called Women Only, with Jan Leeming. No doubt they had to host the HTV stand at the Bath and West agricultural show. These are big events in rural Britain. My parents went on to have stands at about ten or twelve of them every year when they went on to work as wildlife conservationists.
With Jan Leeming and Mum when I was a little older
I have a horrible feeling that in the Woodstock-like atmosphere of our set, I might have taken on my mother’s role and got a little bit too bossy in the school bus. The result was a head-on attack from Sten, who must have been offended. He not only fought me but would not let go. Perhaps this was a good sign in that we had become like a real family. Perhaps it was because the balance had been tipped by our real families turning up. Sten’s father had arrived with his little sister, my little sisters were playing outside and yet we were not being given time off lessons for half-term. Perhaps it had something to do with the red and yellow sweets we had started eating on the bus. Mum said that Sten was always picking fights. He was an eight-year-old boy.
Sophie Neville in her BOAC life jacket with her sister Tamzin about to leave for the set of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ on Peel Island. Sten Grendon’s father and little sister are in the background ~ photo: Martin Neville
Luckily for Claude, the director, we were filming the scenes on Wildcat Island where the Amazons attack. ‘When we fell flat on our faces and the Amazons’ arrows flew over our heads.’ We loved this scene and it was great that Nancy and Peggy had at last arrived on Wildcat Island.
Sophie Neville and Suzanna Hamilton confronting the Amazon Pirates
I don’t know if Mum had still been around to oversee that particular act of aggression. She had taught the Amazons to shoot. The photographs I have of her doing so show her giving Nancy and Peggy archery lessons in the field outside the bus.
They were just using hazel bows made for them on site by Bobby the Property Master, but my parents did know how to use the long bow. When they were first married they joined the Worcestershire Archery Society and went on to win quite a few prizes. I know all about this because the Chairman of that society was to become my father-in-law. I too learnt to shoot and ended up marrying his son, another member of the Worcestershire Archery Society.
It looks pretty scary when those arrows, fletched with green parrot feathers, fly over us. Much to Nancy’s disappointment, these were actually fired by two prop men. They strung up fishing line and attached nylon loops to the arrows to ensure that we would not actually get hit, but it was quite thrilling – and still quite risky.
Kit Seymour and Lesley Bennet as the Amazon Pirates
I never forgot the trick. When I became a BBC director myself I took much joy in using totally inexpensive visual effects, such as extended use of fishing line. I learnt how to use reflections from a skilled director called Moira Armstrong and picked up on just how much could be achieved by juddering the camera when I worked on Doctor Who. All that dramatic and complicated-looking Tardis malfunction was achieved simply by vibrating a studio camera. However, fishing line was the only visual effect used in the 1973 version of Swallows and Amazons.
Kit Seymour with Claude Whatham, 1973
After being on location for more than two weeks this was the second day that Kit Seymour and Lesley Bennett had appeared in front of the camera. The hanging around must have been pretty frustrating. In 1983, when we were planning to make adaptations of the Arthur Ransome books at the BBC, I was hoping to cast the Amazons – if not all the children – from schools up in the Lake District. I don’t expect Claude had had the time to do that. Luckily for me.
Kit Seymour (Nancy) and Lesley Bennett (Peggy) on Peel Island 1973
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.
What would you wear to go sailing on Coniston Water in May? Arriving at Wild Cat Island was exciting but I got terribly cold. Not with-standing this, a photograph of the scene was used on the cover of a 1973 edition of ‘Swallows and Amazons’.
The Passion Killer scenes ~
The crew took delight in referring to my navy blue gym knickers as ‘Passion Killers’. Claude Whatham, the director, had me tuck my dress up into them. I don’t know if he knew it but, as Arthur Ransome said, the real Altounyan girls had done this, since they usually wore dresses in the 1930s rather than shorts. It made me think that I was wearing even less and haunts me still. Soon there was a photograph in The Telegraph of me with my dress tucked up into my knickers. I was never allowed to un-tuck it between takes for fear of spoiling continuity.
Sophie Neville in her thin cotton dress and passion killers in 1973 ~ photo:Daphne Neville
Sailing in thin cotton dresses ~
Emma Porteus, the Costume Designer on Swallows and Amazons was the one listed member of the film crew who we didn’t see much on location. I’d met her at a fitting in London, when I tried on the silk dress and the shoes I wore in the train. She then had my cotton frocks made up, seemly without a thought to the Cumbrian climate. The fact that they were rather short was in keeping with 1970’s fashion, rather than 1929. It was Claude who insisted that we all – boys and girls – wore original 1929 knickers. Mum who found us vests to wear once everyone realised how cold it was out on the water. I had to beg Terry, the Wardrobe Master, to let me wear a grey cardigan in subsequent sailing scenes.
Emma Porteus must have either been expensive or busy or both. She became the designer on many of the Bond movies ~ Octopussy, A View to a Kill and the Living Daylights. She worked on Aliens with Sigourney Weaver, Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone and 1984, which starred Suzanna Hamilton with none other than John Hurt and Richard Burton. This was partly made near my home in Gloucestershire ~ Mum visited the set at Hullaverton ~ at the time I was working on the Arthur Ransome book adaptations of Coot Club and The Big Six on the Norfolk Broads. Of all the costumes worn in movies through the decades Suzanna wore a classic in that film: a workman’s boiler-suit. Not designated by Emma Porteus, of course, but by George Orwell. Nice and comfy for wearing on location.
The terrible royal blue nylon track suits with go-faster stripes that we wore on location in Cumbria were purchased to keep us warm during rehearsals. This was a huge mistake, firstly because they were ineffective in terms of thermal insulation, and secondly because they found their way into the publicity shots. They even featured on the cover of the VHS. I can remember thinking at the time that these track suits were a misguided purchase (and please note I was aged twelve at the time) but I was so grateful for the meagre warmth I willingly wriggled into the narrow trousers.
Brian Doyle, the Publicity Manager on ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in typical cold weather gear on Derwent Water in the Lake District
Dennis the DPO ~ Everyone on the crew was wrapped up warm and well equipped with wet weather gear. They needed to be. There was so much hanging around. While it took a little time to line up a dinghy for a shot, Dennis Lewiston the Director of Photography was very strict about waiting for clouds to pass so that it looked sunshiny, even if it wasn’t that sunny in reality. This could take ages. ‘Takes’ were often snatched between clouds. Looking back, this proved crucial. My memory is of Dennis, in a navy blue raincoat, peering at the sky with a shaded eye glass that he wore habitually around his neck.
Dennie Lewiston went on to make The Scarlet Pimpernel with Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, Ian McKellen and Julian Fellows, The Rocky Horror Picture Show with Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and Meat Loaf, The Country Girls, starring Sam Neill, Marilyn and Me, Heidi with Patricia Neal, Montana and numerous other TV movies.
Filming the filming ~ I did not know until I read Mum’s letter, above, that John Noakes had been offered a part in Swallows and Amazons or that Blue Peter, had been given the chance to document the making of the film. I wonder if John Noakes ever knew this? Biddy Baxter, the editor, was keen on ‘behind the scenes’ items. Lesley Judd had worn a lovely red dress to make one earlier, in February 1973, about Dad’s Army with Arthur Lowe and John le Mesurier, who happened to be a cousin of Dad’s, but Blue Peter never made it to Cumbria. Instead my father bought 16mm stock for his company’s Bolex and shot a number of reels. The footage was never sold but not forgotten. I found most of it in 2003 when the BBC included it in the Countryfile documentary presented by Ben Fogle that was re-issued as Big Screen Britain.
Notes on my Diary: It looks as if the food had improved. We had turkey for lunch on location, which was a great treat in the early ’70s, and ‘a super salad supper’ at the guesthouse, which I had evidently enjoyed. Does anyone remember such things being a real treat?
Translation of my mother’s letter home:
My Darlings = Dad and my sisters
‘Letter to SAJ’ = Sister Ann-Julian, my headmistress. She signed her name SAJ and everyone called her Saj.
When my long hair was cut for the part of Titty we sent the pony-tail back to my form at school so they could thatch the cottages of a model village they were making of medieval Childry. I was really sad to be missing the project.
Toos = Mum’s nick-name for me.
Ruth = our cleaner from the village who was helping to look after my sisters
B… = (no idea)
Gertie = Mum’s enormous Irish mare
& co = our moorland ponies
Lupy, Joshua and Blue = our dogs. She must have been a bit homesick.
You can read the whole story of what happened next in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ or the ebook on ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’, which includes links to behind-the-scenes cine footage:
16th May 1973, was the third day of filming the original movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’. My mother wrote a letter to my father who was at home in Gloucestershire with my two younger sisters.
Mum kept all her letters, my diaries and scrapbooks in a smart carrier bag. It once contained an expensive velvet dress bought for me in Carnaby Street when we met Claude Whatham, the director of Swallows and Amazons back in April 1973
1970’s English food ~
The food at our guesthouse was talking its toll. It was not a good idea to feed children on packet soups and baked beans in the days when 35mm film stock was so extremely expensive. No one realised why, but the ingredients made Sten hyper-active, or as my mother put it, ‘causing a little hoo hah.’ A visiting journalist wrote, ‘By the end of the day Roger, aged seven, had mown down the entire film crew using a hammer as a mock machine gun. He had fallen down several times and emerged with grazed knees all splattered with mud.’
Location catering ~
Suzanna Hamilton, who was playing Susan, simply refused to eat the revolting food. Mum said, “I couldn’t get her to eat anything.” Location catering is excellent now but back in the early 1970’s it could be pretty basic canteen food produced from a ‘chuck wagon’. We’d queue up for a tray of meat and two veg, which was usually consumed in a red London double-decker converted into a dining bus. There were no salads, no fruit, just a working man’s lunch with coffee in plastic cups and paste sandwiches provided later with tea. The tea was good.
Pinewood location catering ~ Suzanna Hamilton pearing into the chuck wagon ~ photo: Daphne Neville
The fruit bowl in our bus ~
Mum started to order fruit and we relished it. Back then, it was a huge treat to have bananas or melon, oranges and grapes. A bowl sat in our bus where we were given lessons on Formica tables downstairs. The upper deck was used by Terry the Wardrobe Master as as our changing room. It was furnished with bunk beds, which Mum made me rest on after lunch. I don’t think she could pin down the Amazons and I objected at first but I must have needed to lie down and rest properly, especially when it was cold.
Molly and Richard Pilbrow in 1973
Molly and Richard Pilbrow on location with the two red London Double Decker buses where coffee was being served ~ photo: Daphne Neville
The film crew ~
Apart from Sue Merry, the ‘Continuity Girl’, the film crew consisted entirely of men, forty-five of them. I include the Hair and Make-up Designers, the Wardrobe Master, the Art Director, Set Dresser, Prop Master and Carpenter, Sound Recordist and Boom Operator, the Director of Photography, Camera Operator, Focus Puller and Grips with the Electricians from Lee Electric who looked after the lights and generators, Lorry Drivers and Sailing Director, the Director, three Assistant Directors and the Production Associate and Producer. I think there might have been a Film Accountant and Location Manager. Being a feature film financed by EMI Films we had a permanent Stills Photographer and a Publicity Manager. And this was a small crew as Terry seemed to cope without Wardrobe Assistants or Dressers. They all knew each other pretty well from being on previous movies. I have a list of where they had digs in Ambleside. It’s quite interesting to see who shared with who.
Whenever we needed boats, six local boatmen could also join the queue for the chuck wagon – and the mobile loos. Mum wouldn’t let me use them. They were looked after by a ratty looking chap who later managed to persuade one of the Ambleside girls that he was the film’s Producer.
Neville Thompson, who was effectively the on-line Producer, had a production secretary called Sally Shewing, but she must have been stuck in the office as we never saw her. Molly Friedel, Richard Pilbrow’s girlfriend and assistant, was often on location. We adored her. She was American, tall with long brown hair and always had time for us. I remember her working on the lighting design for the next Rolling Stones Concert by the shore of Coniston Water whilst we milled about, playing on the rocks.
We had our tutor, Mrs Causey and a wonderful mini-bus driver called Jean McGill. She had been a top air steward but had returned to Cumbria to look after her ailing mother and drove us around the area to keep busy. As soon as we found out that she was also a qualified nursing sister, Mum made sure that Jean was taken on as the official location nurse. This was great as it meant she could be around the whole time and we never had to wait for the bus. We found we soon needed a nurse too. Someone was always hurting themselves.
Jean McGill, our driver and location nurse, operating the radio with Sophie Neville ~ photo:Martin Neville
So in all, with our chaperones there were usually about six women around as well as journalists, friends and relatives who came to watch. It was a huge circus with often eighty people milling about. Certainly the Call Sheet asks the caterers to provide lunch for seventy on normal days. It would be much more when we had crowd scenes such as when we explored Rio.
The male:female ratio on crews is very different today. There are often more women than men, perhaps not on movie sets, but certainly on BBC drama crews. It was already different by 1983 when Richard and Molly Pilbrow came to visit us on the location of Coot Club in Norfolk, when there were about equal numbers of men and women on location. It made for a better, family atmosphere, certainly more appropriate with so many children involved. Since he still held the rights to Arthur Ransome’s series of Swallows and Amazons books, Richard Pilbrow was the Executive Producer on the BBC serial Joe Waters produced. It was so good to see him again. I gather he is still going strong having just been awarded the Knights of Illumination Lifetime Recognition Awardfor more than fifty years of work in theatre lighting.
‘But John’s our Captain.’
Sophie Neville 