Rowing Club – Sophie Neville

A boaty biography

I grew up with boats in the garden. My father owned eight at one time, including two coracles and a vintage river launch called Ottor that he renovated himself.

Martin Neville with friends on the Norfolk Broads

As a young man, while setting up a team to develop the fibreglass hull, Dad raced on the Solent, volunteered on a tall ship, and wrangled an Atlantic crossing on the maiden return voyage of the QE2, taking us children around the liner when it reached Southampton.

Sophie Neville with her younger sisters aboard the QEII in 1969

I learnt to sail dinghies at Newport Bay in Pembrokeshire, later making my own sail for a Thames skiff so that I could take it down the lake where I grew up in Gloucestershire.

My father wanted a Mirror dinghy, but since they were beyond his budget we had a dubious one-design with a ? on its sail.

A family holiday in a Hullabaloo boat on the Broads – off season

Dad bought one of the first Toppers, which seemed quite daring at the time. It had no halyards. Its arrival caused much excitement. Called Earwig, the fibreglass hull was portable but proved precarious, soaking the crew as waves sloshed over her orange deck. I wasn’t much good at withstanding the cold and grew to loath setting off with wet feet.

Sophie Neville rowing to Cormorant Island — Sophie Neville as Titty and Sten Grendon as Roger rowing to Cormorant Island

Playing Titty in original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ involved quite a bit of rowing, which I kept up first as a member of the Collingwood Ladies Four at Durham University and later on the crew of The Drapers’ Shallop, a ceremonial barge that can be spotted on the Thames and River Lea, the Dart or Poole Harbour.

Rowing the Drapers’ shallop down to Runnymede

My dedication to fixed thwart rowing enabled me to take part in a Jubilee Pageant for The Queen at Henley, transport a copy of the Magna Carta to Windsor, and man an oar of the royal barge Gloriana in the Boat Race flotilla at Putney a year when Cambridge won.

Sophie Neville rowing in black cap on the River Thames at Putney

Belonging to the rowing club, City Barge, enabled me to take part in the Voga Longa in Venice – a 35km marathon – with the gold medalist Ed Coode as stroke. I later rowed a sandalo down the Amstel into Amsterdam standing to row Venetian-style, getting used to the idea of using a forcola in windy weather.

In the bows of a sandalo on the River Amstel in Amsterdam

We navigated the shallop down a tributary of the Loire in Brittany, leading a procession of two hundred and forty traditional boats into Nantes for the Rendez-vous de l’Erdre. I was asked to take the helm on the way back, great Dutch barges bearing down on us.

With the presenter and crew of France 3 news

One of my favourite vessels is a two-man canvas canoe my sister found on a rubbish dump. I nearly drowned after getting stuck in a kayak and prefer an open dugout or fibreglass equivalent. These have taken me on adventures in Papua New Guinea, across Lake Malawi and through the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

Bird watching on the Boro River – Sophie Neville with Jez Lye

Back in 1978, I helped my father, Martin Neville, to restore a 1901 steamboat called Daffodil, which they kept near Oxford at Port Meadow on the Thames.

We would steam down to Henley each year for the royal regatta or upstream towards Letchlade. You can read about how we renovated here here.

We took a Humber Yawl that Dad built to take part in a Steam Boat Association rally on Windermere and pay homage to launches used in the film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ kept by George Pattinson at the Steam Boat Museum, now known as Windermere Jetty.

Lullaby undersail, playing the Teasel on the broads

I a lot of time on the water while filming the 1984 BBC adaptation of ‘Coot Club’ and ‘The Big Six’ when we spent three months filming on the Norfolk Broads. The series starred a yacht called Lullaby from Hunter’s Yard, which you can now hire for holidays.

I went away from my wedding in a punt, Dad polling while I sat with my new husband, holding an umbrella while a rainbow appeared over the water.

At the Brewery Arts Cinema in Kendal for the launch of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ and the 40th Anniversary DVD

While serving as President of The Arthur Ransome Society, I gave twelve Q&As at cinemas. Members of SailRansome have often come along with the little clinker-built dinghy used as Swallow, which I helped purchase when she came up for auction in 2010.

I am often asked to write articles about my life afloat, and have spoken at literary festivals, on BBC Radio and on ITV News when I nearly capsized.

It is with The Arthur Ransome Society that I have been able to sail an historic wherry down the Norfolk Broads, take an old German ferry to Lundy Island and cruise down Coniston Water on SL Gondola.

As a member of the Nancy Blackett Trust, I’ve sailed on the Orwell, in the Solent and through the inland waterways of the Netherlands, visiting Middleburg.

I enjoyed crossing the Veersemere to Zierikzee in the wake of my own forefathers.

Over the years, I’ve grabbed the chance to sail yachts to Salcombe, up the coast of Norway and through the Mediterranean but I still love taking out a small boat in the Lake District or on the Norfolk Broads.

You can read more in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ available on line.

What we did on our holiday ~ Part 3

The Drapers’ shallop on the River Erdre

You know what it’s like; you never see photos of yourself on holiday until someone else sends them to you. Here I am, rowing in the bow of the Drapers’ shallop. By some miracle we seem to be together, in that our blades are barely visible.

The most challenging task for me is raising my oar in salute, as we did here for our landlady:

The long oars are heavy. The only way I can raise mine is by putting one end under my foot.

My fellow rowing club member who took these shots from the water explained that his camera unexpectedly went into an ‘Impressive Art’ setting. Although this looks like a painting, it was for real, taken out on the water from a sandolo.

As you can imagine, the whole trip took quite a bit of organising, but it was worth it. This shot was also taken on art mode.

While some of us worked really rather hard on our holiday, others enjoyed the river from a different perspective.

Next week, on Wednesday 24th and Thursday 25th September, The Draper’s Shallop will be taking part in Countryside Live at Lee Valley in the London Borough of Hackney, when children from the inner city of London will get a chance to pull an oar and experience what it feels like to travel on the river as Queen Mary once did. I’m volunteering on the Thursday.

On Saturday 27th September, she will be competing in London’s river marathon along with 300 other crews. The course of the The Great River Race starts at London Docklands, with vessels rowing up the River Thames under all the great bridges of the capital to Ham House in Richmond, passing under Kew Bridge at about 3.00pm. Let me know if you spot her!

~ photos by Robin Privett

‘What did you do on your holidays?’

I am often asked what I get up to on holiday. We once rowed some forty-five kilometers down a tributary of the Loire, leading a procession of 240 traditional boats into Nantes for the Rendez-vous de l’Erdre –

The journey started in Portsmouth, where the crew from our boat club, City Barge, gathered to load two boats onto the cross-channel ferry to Le Havre.

We took Serena, a Venetian sandalo and The Royal Thamesis, a thirty-six foot shallop belonging to the Draper’s Company.

Towing them from Oxford to Brittany was no mean feat, but other vessels from Great Britain had also made the crossing, including a thirty-three foot steamboat.

We launched the shallop at a pretty town called Nort sur Erdre where a jazz band was already playing to herald the festival de la Belle plaisance française.

Stephanie Pasgrimaud from France Televisions Pays de la Loire came aboard to interview me – in French and English – for the regional News on France 3.

That afternoon we rowed some way down to Monsieur et Madame Courant’s B&B on the river where we met up with other members of the party and stayed for the next four nights.

I had the most lovely room overlooking the water; chambre d’Empire.

As the mist rose the next morning we put up our canopy to transport our passengers downstream.

We have a crew of six oarsmen, with a cox and a wiffler. I alternated with others, taking on all three tasks.

We row in medieval fashion, one oar each, seated on a fixed thwarts. Please click on the image for a history of the vessel. You may have seen our boat if you watched the Queen’s Jubilee pageant, rowing in third place, while old Father Thames glared down from our badge on the stern, elvers peaking from his beard.

That first morning in Brittany we practised various manoeuvres before rowing a short distance to a boat club, where we moored for a picnic lunch.

Here we met oarsmen from all over Europe.

Including those who row standing up.

We rowed on to moor up for the night at the small town of Suce-sur-Erdre

where Stephanie was reporting on our progress for France 3.

Here the crews of the 240 boats taking part in the event were treated to a special dinner held outside with a jazz band playing sea shanties.

The organisers had brought together traditional boats, passé nautique, of many kinds.

Although there were four steamboats and a number of canoes

most were in the class de voile-aviron ~ row and sail ~ principalement des bateaux de petites tailles, souvent anciens, et correspondent pour la plupart à des critères de rareté ou d’élégance.