Tom Stoppard, the playwright, said he turned books over as a child hoping they might be ‘Swallows and Amazons’. (The Guardian) Hermione Lee notes in her recent biography of Tom Stoppard, that as an eight-year-old boy, ‘The first real book he picked up, soon after getting to England, was Arthur Ransome’s Peter Duck, the third in the Swallows and Amazons series, a 1930s epic of Atlantic Ocean travel, shipwreck, hostile pursuit and secret treasure. He spotted on the jacket that Ransome had written some other books too. ‘My method of searching for these books had a sort of pathos about it: I simply went around picking up any book I saw lying about to see if it was called Swallows and Amazons. But it never was.’ Luckily he found a full set of Arthur Ransome books at school. ‘Stoppard, that enchanting master of the English language, was a Czech refugee, and Ransome was therefore one of his early English-language influencers.’
I have been asking if Agatha Christie referred to any of Arthur Ransome’s books. She didn’t, but I’ve been told that in Hugh Laurie’s adaptation of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Frankie Derwent reads Swallows and Amazons aloud to a young boy who has had a traumatic experience, as he falls asleep. The passage she reads includes: “But the big hills up at the lake helped to make him feel that the houseboat man did not matter. The hills had been there before Captain Flint. They would be there for ever. That, somehow was comforting.” Hugh Laurie must be a Ransome enthusiast.
Michael Frayn the awarding winning novelist, screenwriter and playwright, perhaps best known for his farce ‘Noises Off’, and dramas entitled ‘Copenhagen’ and ‘Democracy’, names ‘Swallows and Amazons’ as his first “Great Life Choice” on BBc Radio 4’s ‘This Cultural Life.’
Julian Fellowes acted in the BBC adaptation of Coot Club but I’m not sure if he has referred to Swallows and Amazons in any of his novels of screenplays.
Sir Antony Jay, the author and co-writer of Yes, Minister and Yes,Prime Minister, who was editor of the BBC Tonight programme and Head of Television Talk Features, was a fan. Janet Means of the Arthur Ransome Group said that when she was a child, and he was a very young BBC producer, that he used to lend her Swallows and Amazons books. Janet spotted several references to Swallows and Amazons and Titty, ‘with the assumption that the Radio 4 audience would understand the reference’, in series 6 of the Radio 4 sitcom No Commitments written by Simon Brett.
Tony Ross – illustrator of Horrid Henry and The Little Princess, said, “I absolutely loved this book as a boy. I read it when I was ill with the mumps. The simple line drawings were just wonderful; they gave the feeling of wide open spaces and freedom. When you’re bound up in bed, when your jaw is aching and your face is the size of a football, it’s nice to be wafted out into the water. Swallows and Amazons gave me a lifelong love of sailing. I’m a bad sailor, but I love messing about on boats.” Daily Telegraph
Jago Silver who illustrated ‘The Storybook Bible’, which has sold over 2 million copies, produced a set of Never stop exploring prints, depicting Wild cat Island and other scenes from ‘Swallows and Amazons’, which he has brought out on the cover of notebooks and mugs.
The illustrator and painter Caroline Assheton brought out this pastel of Titty from the original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’, enabling prints to be sold in aid of BBC Children in Need.
Miss Literarty has brought out this interpretation of Arthur Ransome’s 1930 classic, Swallows and Amazons, depicted in the style of a 1930s vintage travel poster and available on Etsy.
Tony Collins, who brought out 1,400 books as a publisher, mentions that he grew up reading Swallows and Amazons in the first page of his new memoir How to Make Mistakes in Publishing.
Joel Walker of the Arthur Ransome Group recommends ‘Mountains of the Mind’ by Robert Macfarlane, which won the Guardian First Book Award, saying: “Chapter 6, ‘Walking off the Map’, starts with a quote from ‘Swallows and Amazons’ and goes on to briefly but brilliantly explore the history of exploring and map-making, with an emphasis on what drives us to do it. All very relevant to the Swallows. The last bit of the chapter touches on how we can continue exploring, even in places that have apparently already been thoroughly explored; there is a paragraph about ‘Swallows and Amazons’, and how children are especially good at this. There is also a lot of Ruskin throughout the book, plus the odd mention of Kanchenjunga. And I learned that Ruskin’s favourite mountain was the Matterhorn, which gave me the delightful thought of Ransome imagining Ruskin meeting the young Jim Turner, Molly Turner and Bob Blackett, telling them about the Matterhorn and that leading to their choice of romantic name for the Old Man.”
Melanie Philips, the British journalist, broadcaster and author, lists Swallows and Amazons as one of the ‘great childhood books’ that ‘stay with us for ever’. ‘Books that make a profound impression on us in childhood can form part of our mental scaffolding throughout our lives.’ (The Times)
Journalist, and a TV presenter and author Louise Minchin said, ‘I devoured Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. It gave me two things, a love of reading and a sense of adventure. It was the first time I was able to escape into a world that wasn’t my own and I felt like I was on board those tiny sailing boats in the Lake District having wild adventures.’ (Daily Mail)
Frances Wheen who wrote the a-claimed biography of Karl Marx joined us at Pin Mill for a marathon reading of We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea hosted by the Nancy Blackett Trust
Brian Doyle, the publicist of many iconic movies including the original film of Swallows and Amazons, wrote about Arthur Ransome in his book, The Who’s Who of Children’s Literature, claiming that he launched a ‘new age’ in children’s literature by writing about his own childhood by the lakes he loved so much. He is featured in these books about making the film, available from all the usual sites online
For a list of other well known writers who have been inspired by Arthur Ransome, please click here.
