The last thing that I had expected was to receive fan letters! They came pouring in. My mother kept them all. Because most of them were written to me by children I have cut out the names and addresses on the letters copied here, but since we are all thirty-eight years older, I am sure everyone can cope with seeing their own handwriting. This letter cames from someone who, despite living half way across the world, now happens to be a friend of mine on Facebook.
EMI sent me these photographs of myself to sign and send on. I’m afraid I didn’t like them one bit. They had been taken as publicity shots and it still shows. The staged pose was exactly what Claude Whatham had been working hard to avoid. Sadly he hadn’t been around to direct this shot. I look like a Woodetop and Spot the Dog rolled into one.
Sophie Neville swinging on a gate at Bank Ground Farm above Coniston Water in 1973
However, sending a photograph was not aways enough. I had the hard work of replying to the letters.
There were so many questions to answer.
And I felt beholden to reply immediately.
And once I replied, yet more letters arrived:
This was a good question, of course.
Fiona was 10. Everyone wanted to know if a sequel was coming out. I have a letter from Kit –
Kit Seymour, who seemed to know about Richard Pilbrow’s plans to adapt Arthur Ransome’s book ‘Great Northern?’ set in the Outer Hebrides. She must have sent me this second letter in about January 1974 – between Christmas and the premiere.
I wish we had made ‘Great Northern?’ It was my favorite Arthur Ransome book. Dramatising it would have been such fun. I don’t know why I was so negative, but I remember writing to Richard Pilbrow and telling him that Ransome was mistaken and had his facts about Great Northern Divers quite wrong. I had looked up information in an ancient bird book belonging to my father and wrote the most facetious letter about their geographical distribution. I hope it didn’t put him off. I should had used my time to persuade my fans to write enthusiastic letters to EMI Films. I’m sure this viewer would have convinced Nat Cohen.
It was clear that what children wanted was more of the same. I think it is true today. Parents tell me that even though the movie of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ has no really terrifying moments or spectacular visual effects, children tend to snuggle down peacefully and identify with the characters. The outcome, especially if they are taken to the real locations, is that they often take on our names for themselves, enjoying the fun of camping and swimming, fishing and sailing in the Lake District.
If you can read about how we made the film and what happened as a result here
Kit Seymour, Stephen Grendon, Sophie Neville, Lesley Bennett, Virginia McKenna, Simon West Suzanna Hamilton and the station master of the Haverthwaite Steam Railway in Westmorland, appearing in the April edition of Homes and Garden 1974
Newspapers are read one day and on the kitchen floor the next. Back in 1974 they might have been used to wrap up fish and chips. Either way, an article in the ‘paper is soon forgotten. Not so a feature in a magazine. They tend to hang around in hotel foyers and doctor’s surgeries for waiting to have their pages turned for months, if not years. The judgement they cast on our movie was important.
Director Claude Whatham and Producer Richard Pilbrow on location in the summer of 1973 in the Lake District
To my surprise I found an article about how we spent the summer of 1973 in ‘Homes and Garden’ magazine.
Photographs featuring Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville, Stephen Grendon, Lesley Bennett and Kit Seymour in the EMI film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’.
What amazed me was that the black and white photographs taken on the film set had been colour tinted. Please forgive my scanning – the pages were stuck in albums long ago and the images blur at the edge.
Stephen Grendon, Simon West, Virginia McKenna, Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville on location at Bank Ground Farm in Cumbria
Surely she was the journalist also known by her married name of Elspeth Huxley, the author who had written The Flame Trees of Thika and so many other books? She wasn’t quite right in saying the film was shot entirely on location in the Lake District, but still. She was not to know about our day at Runnymede.
Simon West, Sophie Neville and Suzanna Hamilton appearing in The Tatler
Virginia McKenna in an article in Films Illustrated, April 1974
We were in both Punch and The Sunday People. My mother saved them all, scratching lines alongside the paragraphs in which I was mentioned.
and The Tablet.
What’s On and the News of the World:
Kit Seymour and Lesley Bennett sailing Amazon on Derwentwater
The April addition of the film fan magazine Photoplay, which featured Steve McQueen on the cover. It cost 20p in those days.
and a publishing magazine I hadn’t heard of called Smith’s Trade News ~
Virginia McKenna eating a banana with Claude Whatham outside the catering bus with quite a good photo of Swallow wired to the camera pontoon
Kit Seymour, Lesley Bennett, Simon West, Sophie Neville, Stephen Grendon, Ronald Fraser and Virginia McKenna on the newspaper advertisement for ‘Swallows and Amazons’ released in April 1974
A school friend of mine sent me this advertisement. She had found it in a teenage magazine we all read at the time called Tammy and Sandy. There was a similar one in The Sunday Times newspaper – and no doubt many others. Film posters hung in the London Underground and at cinemas throughout the country. Swallows and Amazons was to come out, on general release for the Easter Holidays.
My mother subscribed to a press clippings agency called Durrant’s ~ Durrant’s of Herbal Hill London ECI ~ who, for a fee of £50, sent her all the articles written about the film. The Prince of Wales told a friend of mine that he never reads the newspapers. I know why. Reading about yourself is upsetting – or can be, especially if the facts are incorrect. My mother didn’t mind. She highlighted the bits about me, filling four albums.
After entertainingthe Daily Express so nicely in the Lake District this is what they printed about the film. I would think this is written by Ian Christie (1927-2010) the jazz clarinetist, who had formed the Christie Brothers Stompers with his brother Keith, and became a member of Humphrey Lyttelton’s band. He worked as a theater and film critic for the Daily Express for twenty-six years. Born in Blackpool and a habitue of Fleet Street pubs he held fiercely Left-wing views.
‘Kids won’t swallow this watery old tale’ was not good publicity. The same black and white photograph of me appeared on the front cover of The Daily Telegraph with the title ‘One Swallow won’t make a Summer’. Were they right? The Scotsmansaid:
The Scotsman ~ 1st July 1974
However, Russell Davies of The Observer, another jazz musician who now presents Brain of Britain on BBC Radio 4, saw that the film of Swallows and Amazons had niche. (If you click on the article it will enlarge).
Jack Woolgar, Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville and Stephen Grendon in a review by Russell Davies in The Observer 7th April 1974
Others recognised it as an innocent nostalgia trip ~
Others just loved it:
Stephen Grendon and Sophie Neville appearing in Chelsea Post 12th April 1974
Rosemary Caink said that her three children, ‘completely identified themselves with the children in the story.’
My favorite article wasn’t found by Durrant’s. It was written in The Brownie and must have been sent to me by a fan.
Suzanna Hamilton, Stephen Grendon, Sophie Neville and Simon West, appearing in an article published in ‘The Brownie’ ~ 27th March 1974 Please click on the article to find out more about the Brownies.
I have many more articles ~ please let me know in the Comment box if you would like to see more. Otherwise I will move on to write about how the public responded and what happened next.
Lesley Bennett, Suzanna Hamilton, Stephen Grendon, Sophie Neville, Virginia McKenna, Simon West and Kit Seymour gathered at Bank Ground Farm above Coniston Water for a publicity photograph. This one was taken by Daphne Neville.
When a television drama is ready to be transmitted there is a little publicity, but not much. Photographs might be taken for the cover of the Radio Times or a book to accompany the series, there might be a Preview at BAFTA to which journalists from the colour supplements and daily newspapers are invited, but, because the programme can be advertised on air, the actors are not intensively involved in the promotion. A feature film is very different.
Whilst we didn’t mind our photographs being taken while we were acting, and were fine about Mum clicking away with her little instamatic, we all hated having promotional photographs taken for ‘Swallows and Amazons’. They were usually so posed, set up by strangers who had no idea of the story. Virginia McKenna tried to make it fun for us but this is what we all felt about this photo-call:
~ How not to set up a publicity shot for a feature film ~
Why were the Amazons at Holly Howe? Why weren’t we with any of the boats? It was all terribly hot and difficult to squint into the sunshine. Only Mrs Batty’s dog seemed to be enjoying the attention.
The glare of the flash bulbs had started on day one. As Suzanna said in her diary, it made us feel ‘right twits.’
Claude Whatham was very good at explaining things to children. Looking back I wish that he had explained why the publicity was so important, but of course this was not his job and he would have been busy setting up the next shot. Certainly once the filming had finished we needed to know how important it was to promote the film. Richard Pilbrow really wanted to make a sequel, particularly an adaptation of Ransome’s twelfth book in the series – ‘Great Northern?’He loves the Outer Hebrides and has a house on Col. I think we might have been a little keener about publicity shots if we had been told that the out-come could have been going up there for another summer. We would have been able to look forward to the possibility, but I don’t suppose he was at leave to even suggest it.
Journalists were introduced to us and looked after by our unit publicist Brian Doyle. Brian had worked on ‘Straw Dogs’ in 1971, the thriller that starred Dustin Hoffman, Susan George and Peter Vaughan.Susan George had of course played Titty, or ‘Kitty’ in the black and white BBC adaptation of Swallows and Amazons in the early 1960s. She was now regarded as glamorous sex symbol in British cinema – setting me rather a daunting example. Much easier for Brian to publicise her then me. She had a gorgeous figure with beautiful, thick, blonde, hair. I had what my sister still calls ‘tendrils’ and my mother calls ‘bits’. And was skinny with crooked teeth.
Brian was a lovely man. He had an amazing career, going on to work on films such as Ken Russell’s Valentino with Rudolf Nureyev and Leslie Caron, The Wild Geese, Alien, Educating Rita starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters and the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only – with Roger Moore in the lead role . He even has his name on the credits of one of George Lucas’ Star Wars films.
This was the profile he wrote for me:
Brian adored Children’s literature. His own children came up to stay on location over their half-term and spent hours playing with my sisters, indeed they all appeared together as extras in the scenes shot at Bowness, and can be seen playing on the beach. Sadly Brian died, very suddenly, in 2008. His daughter told me that he left a collection of 35,000 books.
I still have Brian’s announcement:
At this the journalists moved in. From all over the place!
There was a very trendy women’s magazine in the early 1970s called Over 21, which the senior girls at school used to read. My mother was thrilled to find that Celia Brayfield had written a double page feature. I was amazed. I didn’t mind the picture of us gutting fish, but started reading with trepidation.
(If you can read this, I’m afraid page one comes second.)
Over 21 ~ December 1973
I read it, looked up the word etiolated in the dictionary and burst into tears.
Simon West, Stephen Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville playing the Walker children, as they arrived at Holly Howe at the start of their summer holiday in the Lake District ~ photo: Daphne Neville
While I had been at home with my family, Claude Whatham had been busy in the film editing suite putting ‘Swallows and Amazons’ together with Michael Bradsell. They had previously worked together on ‘That’ll be the Day’. Our Continuity supervisor Sue Merry must have known Michael too, as he’d edited Ken Russell’s film ‘The Boyfriend’. Claude found that they definitely needed the sequence when the Walker children run up to the Peak at Darien and see Wild Cat Island for the very first time.
It is the scene that heralds the start of the adventure and indeed the opening titles of the movie. Richard Pilbrow had always wanted it to be shot at Friar’s Craig on Derwent Water. There is a postcard of this headland with notes written on it by Arthur Ransome who labelled it for the first illustrator of the Jonathan Cape edition of the book, and it seemed just right for the Peak of Darien despite being a long way from Bank Ground Farm. Although there had been two attempts made to record the handful of shots needed as the evening light lit up the islands across the water, we had always been held up and reached the spot too late in the day.
Richard must have already been over budget but the money was found to mount a pick-up shoot at Runnymede near Egham in Surrey on Saturday 8th September. We were told that King John signed the Magna Carta under an oak tree there.
We loved the idea of meeting up again. Claude said he made an effort to get as many members of the same crew together as possible so it wouldn’t seem strange.
Sophie Neville looks on as Stephen Grendon organises his costume helped by Jane Grendon with Claude Whatham and Neville C Thompson.
The one thing that was striking was how much our hair had grown. We all needed a trim. Sten needed a full hair cut. Luckily Ronnie Cogan was free.
Stephen Grendon playing Roger Walker having his hair cut by Ronnie Cogan
Neville Thompson had even managed to book the same Make-up caravan. It was here that Peter Robb-King the make-up designer toned down our summer tans in an effort to match the skins of the pale Walker children who’d been sitting in the railway compartment with their mother at the beginning of the film.
Ronnie Cogan giving Sten Grendon a hair-cut. I was in the Make-up caravan beyond.
The ironic thing was that it was Make-up that held us up when we were first failed to record the scene in the Lake District. It took so long for Peter Robb-King to sponge down all four of us with pale foundation that the sun had set before we arrived on location. I can remember my mother hurrying him along, claiming it was ridiculous as it was too dark to see our freckles anyway. I was keen on the importance of continuity and had contradicted her. Claude couldn’t believe how long it had taken us to change. He had been furious when we turned up late but tried hard not to let us think it had been the fault of us children.
Simon West playing John Walker and Suzanna Hamilton as Susan Walker
There was no Peak of Darien at the farm in Surrey, but a field had been found where we could run up to an oak tree. We just had to pretend we were looking out over the lake.
If you click on the shot below it should take you to a post I wrote on the opening locations of the film. Scroll down and you’ll see the shot of us running down the meadow at Bank Ground farm. This was the shot Claude had to cut from to the sequence that we were currently filming. Scroll right down to the end of the post and you’ll see me on Friar’s crag looking exhausted after a long day’s filming. I am so glad we were not able to continue that day.
Director Claude Whatham with Sophie Neville, Stephen Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton and Simon West. Producer Richard Pilbow looks on ~ photo: Daphne Neville
Although he had a freelance camera operator in a stripy shirt who we did not know, we met our Director of Photography Denis Lewiston who was setting up the shot with Claude under the oak tree, using a 35mm Arriflex camera on ‘short legs’.
If you click on the photo above you should get to a Post written about a location that was set on Derwentwater near Friar’s Crag – or on part of Friar’s crag that will give you an idea of what the real Peak of Darien would look like. However, the day in September in Egham was hotter than any day we’d experienced in Cumbria. Claude was soon wearing my straw hat.
DoP Denis Lewiston, Claude Whatham, Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Simon West with Gordon Hayman behind the 35mm Arriflex Camera ~ photo: D.Neville
If you click on the photo above it will take you to the day on 8th July when we had tried and failed to shoot this scene despite rushing around.
Although we look a bit hot and stiff in these photographs that my mother took when we were lining up the shots I think that the movie was probably made by this scene. We had learnt how to magic-up performances by this stage. If you watch the finished film our faces can be seen glowing with excitement. This was also partly because we were happy to be together again, on a sunny day in a lovely place.
Sophie Neville playing Titty Walker with Stephen Grendon as Roger Walker with Gordon Hayman, Denis Lewiston and Claude Whatham behind the camera
I’ve just realised this image of Titty, clutching her school hat as she looked out over an entirely imaginary lake, was the last actual shot recorded. Soon my close-up was ‘in the can’ and ‘a wrap’ was called. It had been the 1003rd slate of the movie. We celebrated with tins of Fanta rather than champagne.
Since the first shot in the compartment of the steam train as it travelled between Haverthwaite Station and Windermere, recorded back in May, I had put on about seven pounds and grown taller than my elder brother and sister.
Daphne Neville with Stephen Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville, Jane Grendon and Simon West
I can’t help thinking that this photograph is symbolic of the futures we were to step into. Sten Grendon is holding an apple, Suzanna seems to have a framed photograph and I’d been given a roll of camera tape. What Simon West is holding is something of a mystery, but it is tightly clasped.
Simon West writing his address for me on a scrap of paper
Soon it was time to go. We changed back into our own clothes and said goodbye. Mummy took me on to see Robin Clarke, a music editor we had met on holiday who had worked on the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
It wasn’t long before we saw Claude again. Once he’d finished editing the film we were called to the work on the sound. The movie was still in the making.
Sophie Neville saying goodbye to director Claude Whatham. The film actress Teresa Graves is speaking to Neville Thompson in the back ground.
There are now three editions of the illustrated book on ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’, all available from online retailers and libraries worldwide .
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
You can read the first three chapters for free here:
Suzanna Hamilton as The Mate Susan, cooking buttered eggs with tea 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.
One of the questions I was asked when we returned from filming ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in 1973 was about the food. This could only properly be answered by going into considerable detail.
Jane and Sten Grendon walk, in costume, towards John and Margaret’s location catering wagon parked at Bowness-on-Windermere ~ photo: Daphne Neville
When on location, our breakfast, coffee, lunch and tea were provided every day from the back of a location catering van staffed by a couple called John and Margaret who had come up from Pinewood. My mother always referred to their van as ‘The Chuck Wagon’. There wasn’t perhaps as wide a choice as there is with location catering today, but good hot meals were produced on time, whatever the weather and wherever we might be.
If we ever filmed on a Sunday there would be a full roast meal. At other times they would enchant us with a choice that might include spaghetti, a dish that was new to England – or at least where we lived – in 1973. It was the kind of special meal that my mother would cook for a dinner party, served with a spoon and fork so you could swirl the pasta properly. As children we were allowed to go to the head of the queue so that we could avoid having to queue up in the rain. We’d take out plates to tables in one of the red double-decker buses. You could help yourself to knives and forks and paper napkins on the way in. We had to be careful not to get food on our costumes.
I remember when location caterers first started providing salad buffets in addition to hot lunches in the 1980s. It was such a relief not having to queue. Salads were not regarded as food for the working man back in the early 1970s but Suzanna thought otherwise. Indeed she would eat little else.
Despite the fact that Suzanna often only ate tomato sandwiches for lunch, the catering budget must have been considerable. The call sheet always seemed to specify ‘LUNCH for approx 70 persons’.
When friends came to visit us on location my parents were sensitive to this and bought a picnic, which was very much how we lived normally. This was always carried in a wicker basket and set out on a car rug, cold squash in one thermos flask, hot coffee in another. Triangles of processed cheese with ham and pickle sandwiches. No cool bags or bottles of wine. You couldn’t buy ready-made sandwiches from petrol stations or supermarkets then but if you went to a bakery they would make you a filled bap while you waited.
Daphne and Martin Neville having a picnic with their friends on the banks of Coniston Water in 1973. Sophie Neville wears an anorak over her costume.
As anyone who has read Arthur Ransomes’ books will know, the Swallows were very organised when it came to provisions. Milk from the farm, buttered eggs, seed cake, apples, molasses (toffees) and grog – I loved it all. I wasn’t too sure about fried perch but the pemmican and potato cakes cooked by Man Friday with a great knob of butter were utterly delicious. And I loved the buns from Rio. We didn’t have peas to shell on the film. Apples must have seemed a realistic alternative.
Again we have to rely on The Mate Susan for details. Surely she was modeled on Ransome’s own efficient wife Evgenia? In this extract from her diary Suzanna mentions that Richard Pilbrow’s two children came to watch the filming. She knew Abigail from London.
Mum became worried quite early on that Suzanna wasn’t eating enough. The solution came when she was taken out to dinner at a restaurant where she was able to chose from a wide menu.
As a result Suzanna was often given steak for supper back at the Oakland’s Guest House while the rest of us had whatever was on offer, which was a bit of a swizz.
‘Sailors die from it like flies’ Stephen Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville and Simon West as The Swallows eating apples to fend off scurvy.
Suzanna was of course completely right about insisting on eating salads and fresh fruit. She chivvied, encouraged and begged both the caterers and Mrs Price for more and more fresh raw food. She loved strawberries. Virginia McKenna won her heart by bringing her two boxes of fresh strawberries when she was ill with tonsillitis at the start of the filming. These would have been early English strawberries and a great treat in 1973. John and Margaret managed to find enough for us all later in the summer. They were presented in a manner that would have pleased the men working on the film crew but Mate Susan wasn’t so happy about this.
I’ve included this photograph before but it provides proof that food was an important issue. Please note that Mate Susan is first in line, inspecting everything on offer.
Suzanna Hamilton, in her red tracksuit top, seeing what the location caterers had for lunch on the set of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ by Coniston Water
If you would like to read more about what it felt like to appear in Swallows and Amazons, I have bought out a paperback: ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ for sale online or available from any library worldwide.
A newspaper article by Ernest Chapman that came out in July 1973. The main photo features Ronald Fraser as Captain Flint with Sophie Neville, Stephen Grendon, Simon West and Kit Seymour
Being back at home for the summer holidays was lovely. I must have been pretty tired. But, adjusting to real life when articles like this one appeared in Woman’s Realm was tricky. Everyone seemed to be reading about me in their dentist’s surgery.
‘What was it like?’ I was often asked.
How could I begin to describe working like this ~
The cast and crew of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ filming on the jetty at Rio in 1973
‘Did you have lots of lines to learn?’
How could I explain that this is how we worked on the dialogue?
Rehearsing with Claude Whatham out on the lake
‘What were the others like?’
How could I tell people about the whole crew, that I’d had working relationships with so many adults?
Talking to Martin Evans the Gaffer and Terry Smith the wardrobe master while leaning on a lighting stand at Bowness-on-Windermere
Technical questions were much easier to answer than, ‘How did you feel?’ No one wanted to know that most of the time I felt cold.
‘Did you have to wear make-up?’ This was a difficult one, as we didn’t wear conventional make up but my legs were regularly coated in a layer of foundation so as not to appear shockingly white. You can see the smooth effect in the photograph above. Suzanna was amusing about this in her diary. She hated being sponged down with a matt base and sun-bathed whenever she could so as to avoid it in the near future.
‘What did you wear?’
Suzanna drew pictures of the two dresses she wore at Bank Ground Farm. I always rather liked her blue gingham one. Unlike the Duchess of Cambridge I have never worn a yellow dress apart from the sleeveless one I had to climb into to play Titty. It was really too short for 1929. I remember the costume designer, Emma Porteus, confiding in Mum that they would cheat on the length a bit. Hem-lines were very much above the knee in 1973. Arthur Ransome would have turned in is grave. Luckily Titty’s dresses just look a little out-grown.
Suzanna Hamilton’s drawings of her costumes for scenes set at Holly Howe
‘How did they film you sailing?’
Again Suzanna provided wonderful graphics of this. I don’t think I’ve yet published this page of her diary.
Suzanna Hamilton’s diary about using the camera pontoon on Coniston Water. If you click on the picture you should get through to Ben Fogel’s documentary where Claude Whatham describes this in further detail.
‘What was Virginia McKenna like?’
This question was easy. ‘She was lovely.’
The Walker family played by Suzanna Hamilton Stephen Grendon, Sophie Neville, Virginia McKenna and Simon West at Bank Ground Farm in Cumbria
Many years have gone since we sat amongst the daisies at Bank Ground Farm. I am now happy to talk about anything. Do click on the comment box below or go on a Facebook page to ask any questions you might have about the filming of ‘Swallows and Amazons’.
It was time to say goodbye. We’d had the most wonderful seven weeks filming on the Lakes but the end had drawn in with the clouds. It was time to go home.
Since we lived in Gloucestershire it was a long drive south. I’m not sure how Jane and Sten Grendon got back, as I don’t think Jane drove, but we must have dropped off some of their things on our way past their village.
I remember seeing my real sisters and walking around the garden in the afternoon sunshine, looking at all that had changed. We’d left in early May, now it was full summer and the school holidays. I don’t know how I had the energy left to write up my diary.
Back in the garden at home with a swan
‘Shall we go and put flowers on Luppy’s grave?’ Perry asked. I hadn’t heard that our dear old dog, the sheep dog I had known all my life, had died while we were away. I was inconsolable. Mum explained that they hadn’t wanted to tell me when it happened as we were filming, she thought that the sadness on my face would have come through on camera. I understood this but was still desolate. Having had to cope with the grief of losing Luppy, on top of the heartbreak of leaving everyone I had grown so close to in the Lake District, I was not in a good way.
One of the most treasured things that I had returned with – apart from the lump of Cumbrian slate Jean McGill had given me – was a hard-back copy of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ signed by the entire cast and crew.
Signatures of the cast, director and producer of the movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in my hardback copy of Arthur Ransome’s book
Here you can see inscriptions from Virginia McKenna who had played my mother and Ronald Fraser who obviously saw himself as Uncle Jim rather than Captain Flint.
Mike Pratt and Brenda Bruce who appeared as Mr and Mrs Dixon, Jack Wolgar and John Franklyn-Robbins who embodied the Charcoal Burners with Brian Robylas (sp?) and Moria Late who played Mr and Mrs Jackson.
Stephen Grendon, Sophie Neville and Simon West with Brian Robylas ~ photo: Daphne Neville
It is interesting that all the children signed their character names with their real names in brackets. We must have grown to associate ourselves more with the characters names than with our own.
Claude Whatham in 1973
Claude Whatham wrote, with thanks, and Richard Pilbrow enchanted me by drawing a picture of Wild Cat Island at night.
Molly and Richard Pilbrow in 1973
Sadly, we didn’t manage to nab everyone on the crew, but collected a few signatures.
Brian Doyle, the film publicist on ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974)
The only other signature on this page is from Brian Doyle, Mum’s friend the publicity manager on the movie who encouraged us to collect the autographs.
Signatures of the rest of the cast and crew of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in the back of my Jonathan Cape edition of Arthur Ransome’s book
At the back of the book David Blagden, who played Sammy the Policeman as well as overseeing the sailing.
David Blagden who played Sammy the Policeman ~ photo: Daphne Neville
David drew me a picture of what must be a vision of himself, sailing into the sunset in his little yacht Willing Griffin that had taken him across the Atlantic.
Phyllis B was my tapestry-making stand-in. Simon Holland our art director (set designer) drew me a wonderful set of crossed flags that were also paint brushes ~ a logo for my life.
Art Director Simon Holland at Bank Ground Farm in 1973 ~ photo: Daphne Neville
I have a signature from Kerry Darbishire (I thought she’d written Dartisnine) who played Bridget’s Nurse, our Fair Spanish Lady. Like the actors who played the Jacksons, she was not credited on the movie but played a significant part. She still lives in Cumbria.
Nurse with Baby Vicky, the ship’s baby at Holly Howe
We left Jean McGill, our driver and unit nurse, in Bowness-on-Windermere.
Jean our driver and location nurse operating the radio with Sophie Neville ~ photo:Martin Neville
Eddie Collins was the camera operator, Ronnie Cogan our hairdresser, Joni Turner was a local lady who worked on a few days as Suzanna’s stand-in.
Talking to Martin Evans the Gaffer and Terry Smith the wardrobe master while leaning on a lighting stand at Bowness-on-Windermere
Terry Smith was the wardrobe master, Albert Stills is Albert Clarke who took the black and white photographs day after day. Terry Needham was our long-suffering second assistant director.
Sophie Neville with Terry Needham and the unit radio at Derwentwater ~ photo: Daphne Neville
On the last page I have a very classy signature from Robert – who I think was one of the Keswick boatmen looking after the Lady Derwentwater.
Our boatman and the houseboat in 1973 ~ photo Daphne Neville
Denis Lewiston the DoP also left his mark on my life.
Dennis Lewiston, director of Photography on ‘Swallows and Amazons’ ~photo:Richard Pilbrow
Peter Robb-King signed himself ‘Make-up for the Stars’ and Gareth Tandy as ‘The Whip-cracker’, which surprised me as I had never seen his whip. Graham Ford obviously didn’t want me to change and Margaret Causey, our tutor, sent her love. We’d been though so much together and in such confined spaces.
Swallow and the film crew setting up at Bowness-on-Windermere ~ photo: Richard Pilbrow
Interestingly, I also have an inscription from Ian Fuller the sound editor listed as if he was around on location. I am sure he was the chap I would have met next. Claude and Richard would have gone straight down to the cutting rooms to edit the film. It is not usual for actors to enter such territory but our adventure was to continue. We were soon to be summons to the Elstree Studios of EMI at Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, just off the A1.
The crew as I remember them filming with Swallow and Amazon from the pontoon ~ photo: Richard Pilbrow taken on Derwentwater in 1973
Our director, Claude Whatham had a problem. Despite two attempts he had failed to shoot the key scene when the Walker children – who had just arrived at Holly Howe – discover the Peak at Darien and look out over the lake to spot Wild Cat Island for the very first time. He saw it as crucial to the motivation of the story.
Claude had shot the sequence of us running down the field at Bank Ground Farm in the evening light. He had what would technically be called our POV (point of view) of the island. He had nothing in between. There was no dialogue but without the right light the sequence would not cut together. And now it was raining, endlessly. We waited around all day, yet again, hoping for the weather to clear. It did not.
I can’t believe that we went, what would now be termed, wild swimming in the Lake District after making such a fuss about recording the swimming scenes at Peel Island. Even if it was raining the water must have been fairly warm. I don’t suppose we were in for that long. I’m now rather shocked that we dried our hair by sticking our heads out of the windows of the mini-bus. We could have all been decapitated.
While Claude was busy looking at the sky I spent the rest of the day industriously sticking small photographs into my scrap-book. Mum had her camera films developed by Triple Print so that she had some to give away. This was the result:
Two of these tiny photographs show us sitting in the Grizedale Forest with Wilfred Josephs who composed the music for Swallows and Amazons. He had visited us on location when we were shooting the charcoal burners scenes. If I blow up this tiny photograph you can see a little more of him.
Wilfred had written a canon with the idea that he could do something musical with our voices. Our efforts were being recorded by Robin and his assistant when Mum took these snap shots. The words went in a round, like this:
Swallows: ‘Swallows sail the ocean-wide, Natives we can not abide.’ (Sung in a high register)
Amazons: ‘We are the Amazons.’ (Sung beneath us in a low register)
What Wilfred soon discovered was that, apart from Lesley Bennett, we were all pretty useless at holding a tune. Whatever was recorded on that day near the charcoal burners’ hut never made it to the final sound track – or even the LP that EMI brought out to accompany the movie.
Composer Wilfred Josephs with Sophie Neville, Lesley Bennett, Claude Whatham, Kit Seymour, Simon West and sound recordist Robin Gregory ~ photo: Daphne Neville
Mum was thrilled to meet Wilfred Josephs. He was fantastically talented, with a huge list of credits to his name. Born in 1927, he qualified as a dentist at the Universtity of Durham ~ where I also studied ~ before becoming a full-time composer in the early 1960s. His career was launched when his Requiem in memory of the Jews who were lost to the Holocaust won La Scala. He went on to compose 12 symphonies, 22 concertos and was commissioned to write a number of overtures, ballets, operas and other vocal works. In the field of television he is perhaps most well know for producing the theme music for I,Claudius, Enemy at the Door, The Prisoner and Pollyanna. He worked for Claude Whatham on the movie score for All Creatures Great and Small that starred Anthony Hopkins and Simon Ward, as well as the television drama W.Somerset Maugham and the serial Disraeli, which Suzanna Hamilton appeared in.
In the early 1970s Wilfred had also composed the theme music for Claude’s BBC play of Laurie Lee’s auto-biography Cider with Rosie, which Sten and I had acted in. Wilfred Josephs sadly died at the age of seventy, but I found that someone has put his haunting composition for Cider with Rosie onto YouTube. It was so good to hear it again. It comes with colourful cider-making images but – unless passionate about cider – you can have a look at more of my scrapbook while you listen to it. Like the film-score to Swallows and Amazons the orchestra was conducted by Marcus Dods.
Some of these tiny photographs from the contact sheets that Richard Pilbrow gave us are fascinating.
Producer Richard Pilbrow with production associate Neville C Thompson on Derwentwater in the Lake District in 1973
This photograph of Richard and Neville sitting on the deck of Captain Flint’s houseboat in the pouring rain must epitomize the struggles they went through to work around the weather and bring ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in on budget.
It was Claude Whatham’s dream to end the movie with an aerial shot of Swallow and Amazon sailing away from Captain Flint’s houseboat. He had a helicopter pilot standing-by with a special cameraman, but it wasn’t to be. He needed bright sunshine for the shot to cut with our farewell sequence after the battle. We waited three days but the weather was too dull and wet to film anything useful. I’m so glad. Claude ended up freezing the simple shot that captures Arthur Ransome’s book completely. It was used on the front of one of the first VHS copies of the movie.
The Amazons, played by Kit Seymour, Lesley Bennet and the Swallows, played by Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton, Simon West and Stephen Grendon on the cover of the original VHS version of ‘Swallows and Amazons’
I’m afraid we hung about the very nice Waterhead Hotel in Ambleside getting bored and precocious, or so the evidence suggests. Since John and Margaret, our location caterers, had returned to Pinewood Studios, we were taken to the hotel restaurant for lunch.
We loved the cinema in Ambleside. Was it the same then as Zeffirellis, the cinema in Compston Road operating today? The adults must have found it a good means of keeping us peacefully entertained, but then again they were all film-makers who loved movies. Zanna didn’t come to the cinema that afternoon. She walked four miles up Wanstell Pike with Jane Grendon.
Albert Clarke, the stills photographer on the film crew, had given us contact sheets of the black and white photographs that he had taken during the filming. I spent my time at the Kirkstone Foot Hotel, where Claude and Richard were staying, with a tube of Copydex ~ or ‘rubber solution glue’, as they kept saying on Blue Peter, sticking the tiny photographs into the scrap books that I had been keeping.
Richard Pilbrow kindly let us choose large 10’x 8′ versions of the photographs, which we are able to take home to our families. I kept mine all these years, never using them for anything, but treasuring them as a memory of those happy, fulfilling days spent in Cumbria in 1973.
‘It’s Niagara!’ Titty declared. ‘We could get a barrel and bounce down it.’ Sten Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton, Simon West and Sophie Neville as the Swallows on their way to visit the charcoal burners
Sophie Neville 