Simon West as John Walker studying the chart before the voyage.
1. It’s good to begin a film with establishing shots that explain what is happening. This could be a chart, a poster, a yacht club, a moored boat or the landscape. Then tell the story, introducing the characters and different boats.
2. Once you begin filming boats the most important thing is to keep the horizon horizontal.
Simon West and Sophie Neville bring Swallow into the Secret Harbour on Wildcat Island
Alternatively, tilt your camera at a dramatically acute angle – but don’t use compromised shots like the one above.
Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies – can you spot the safety officer?
3. When you pan – side to side – first plan and rehearse the shot with good opening and ending frames. Hold for a beat on these – it gives you a transition to the next shot in the same way as a comma or full stop.
Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville and Sten Grendon in ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974)
Pans look better if the shot moves from left to right, as that is how westeners read.
A pan works best if it’s ‘motivated’ ie follows action. Only pan from right to left if you are following a subject, then let it pass out of shot.
Avoid panning from left to right and back again. Don’t wave the camera around.
Simon West as Captain John sailing Swallow . Sten Grendon plays the Boy Roger
4. Avoid using the zoom unless it is motivated. Tilting the camera works better eg: open on a shot of a boat’s name and tilt up to find the skipper.
5. A general rule is: If the subject is stationary you can move the shot. If the subject is moving, keep the shot still.
6. Low angle shots are atmospheric – try filming at chair height, especially if you are tall.
Suzanna Hamilton as Susan with Sophie Neville as Titty busy writing the ship’s log
7. Close ups and detail are good, especially if there is some movement. eg: burgee flying in the wind.
A montage of close-ups works well to explain what is happening and explain a passage of time.
8. People do well in front of the camera if you give them something intricate to do or look at. Show what they are doing, possibly from a different angle.
9. You will need to film one boat from another. We were lashed to a camera boat to achieve these shots.
Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Simon West sailing Swallow in 1973
10. Make sure your lens is kept clean – or use water droplets for effect. Don’t let your camera get wet but capture the excitement.
Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton at the helm of Swallow with Stephen Grendon
“My professional life began at the age of ten when I gained a part in the first BBC adaptation of Cider With Rosie. Two years later, the director, Claude Whatham, invited me to interview for the part of Able Seaman Titty in the EMI film Swallows & Amazons (1974). He never thought to ask if either I, or Virginia McKenna who played my mother, could row a boat but I grew up next a lake in the Cotswolds where I was used to rowing a Thames skiff. In the film I had to row with a massive 35mm Panavision camera in the stern but it was fun. I started rowing more seriously at Durham University and managed to complete the five-hour Voga Longa in Venice on the crew of the Drapers’ shallop.
The Drapers’ Barge ‘Royal Thamesis’ in Venice
I began directing plays at university and won a place on the BBC General Trainee Scheme. After working on The Book Show and the live television chat show Russell Harty, I gained a job casting children on the BBC dramatisation of Coot Club and The Big Six. I then worked on serials such as My Family and Other Animals, Doctor Who, Eastenders and shot the wartime romance Bluebell in Paris before directing comic dramas for BBC Schools Television.
Sophie Neville, in stripy top, on the BBC Studio Director’s Course at BBC Elstree Studios, Borehamwood in 1990
I was twenty-two when I first wrote for television. It was a disaster. My concept was accepted but Nicholas Parsons had to re-write the dialogue. I later put together a few drama documentaries and an INSET series for Schools Television, which worked well. In 2004, I was commissioned to write a feature film about Germans in Africa. Sadly, the producer died but I’ve continued to develop this and written a second screenplay that is currently winning international script awards. Both are based on true stories about the lives of family members who emigrated to East Africa in 1919.
I’ve always been attracted to the wilderness and the amazing people you find there. In 1985, I drove from London to Johannesburg, making my first documentary for Channel 4. In 1992, I emigrated to Southern Africa where I set up a couple of BBC wildlife series and a Blue Peter Summer Special.
I bought a horse, lived on different game reserves and spent time between contracts writing stories illustrated with sketches made while working for friends as a safari guide.
In the western Okavango
I’d begun riding at the age of four and had such obstreperous ponies as a child that nothing in the Africa bush daunted me. We had to do most of our own veterinary work in the Okavango Delta. I ended up nursing a stallion who’d been scratched on the rump by a lion and became a great believer in Epsom salts.
I have drawn all my life but only turned professional as a wildlife artist after I broke my pelvis falling off someone’s horse. My grandfather, HW Neville, was a landscape artist who became the first art master at Stowe School after service as a re-mounts officer in WWI. Like him, I took to painting watercolours outdoors, began exhibiting in London, and made enough money at a solo exhibition to go on a YWAM Discipleship Training Course in New Zealand. On returning home, I felt called to adapt a diary I’d once kept into a humorous book entitled Funnily Enough, which was serialised in iBelieve magazine.
I somehow brought out Ride the Wings of Morning, followed byThe Secrets of Filming Swallows & Amazons when we were renovating the family home in Hampshire and began writing articles while contributing to non-fiction publications. I now belong to a consortium of Christian writers called Resolute Books, with Ruth Leigh, Clare Dunn, Paul Trembling, Liz Carter and members of the Association of Christian Writers. My paperback on The Making of Swallows and Amazons is published by The Lutterworth Press. They are based in Cambridge where I spoke on writing for the screen at the British Christian Writers’ Conference last year.
We had a little miracle: Funnily Enough, which is a Christian testimony, reached No. 2 in all categories for free Kindle downloads in the UK. It was down-loaded at 250 copies and hour. After giving away 16,000 e-copies, I was in bed, recovering from a horrid biopsy, when a cut-glass crystal trophy arrived in the post: Funnily Enough had won third prize in the International Rubery Book Award.
I love the writing of CS Lewis, Adrian Plass and Catherine Fox, although Arthur Ransome has had the greatest impact on my life. I’ve given over a hundred talks about filming Swallows and Amazons and will be appearing at the Swallows and Amazons Festival at Windermere Jetty in Cumbria this summer. The Arthur Ransome Society – the second biggest literary society in Britain – is bringing along the boats used in the film along. Members of the cast and crew will be able to see the original Amazon owned by members of the Altounyan family, Arthur Ransome’s dinghy Coch-y-Bonddhu and hopefully travel on the MV Tern, which the Swallows nearly crashed into on film.
I’ve been representing Bible Society since going on a short-term mission to China in 2011. We visited the Amity Printing Press, various churches and met pastors around the country. Bible distribution is conducted openly, and is both well-organised and joyous. There are often speeches, music and songs, and sometimes free hair cutting or gynae scans for women whose health was compromised by the one-child policy. I’m now Bible Society’s volunteer speaker for the New Forest and Isle of Wight, so let me know if you need a slide show.
I now spend far too much time behind a laptop but live on the South Coast where I take exercise by collecting flotsam. Becoming New ForestBeach Cleaner of the Year was a surprise butlitter gives me plenty to write about. You find the strangest things. There are now about 2,000 Litter Pickers of the New Forest clearing up the National Park before our wildlife chokes to death. They’re all amazing.
Awarded ‘Litter Picker of the Year’
I met my husband at an archery meeting in Worcestershire. I was fed up with being single and complained to the Lord, asking “Why can’t I marry that man?”. The archer in my sights proposed to me six weeks later. His grandfather had been an Olympic archer who’d introduced my parents to the longbow in the ’sixties. Mum had given the Amazons lessons on how to shoot for the film Swallows and Amazons when we children had all wanted a go. I picked up the basics in the Lake District and became just good enough to gain the leading role as an archery champion in an adventure movie called The Copter Kids when I was fifteen. We now belong to three archery societies and sometimes win the odd trophy. It’s the only word that rhymes with Sophie.
Other answers to prayer have been pretty dramatic. Try taking medicines into a war-torn African country and you’ll find out. Shattered lives, cruelty, destruction and waste make me angry. Litter falls under this category. Fulfilment of potential makes me happy. I like walking along beaches and riding through the wilderness. I love the sound of waves and horses.
The promises of God are what give me hope for the future. I pray for their fulfilment. If locked in a church it would be nice to be with my husband. He’s never ever failed to stop and pray with me but we risk talking about the mundane. The South African intercessor Bernie Mostert would probably use the time most powerfully, but I’m yet to meet him.
There’s an apparent demand for family films and faith-based scripts in America. My own work in progress is called Banana Man – The True Story. It’s about singleness and marriage with humour akin to Debbie Isitt’s film Nativity! starring Martin Freeman. Spare me a prayer. It would be fun it that got off the ground.”
I continue to hear amazing stories about how the 1974 film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ has influenced people’s lives. Someone wrote to say, ‘This was my favourite movie growing up in Australia and the main reason I ended up moving to the UK!’
Rob Boden talking to Rupert Maas on BBC Antiques Roadshow.
There has been quite a bit in the popular press about what Rupert Maas, the expert on paintings, said of the movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974) which he saw aged 14. “It’s fair to say it got me into sailing. Just watching the romantic lives of these children in this wonderful summer. It never seemed to rain, the sun was always out…” He ended up crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Simon West as Captain John in Swallows and Amazons 1974
Marc Grimston writes, “I was read the books as bedtime stories when I was too young to read them myself… but when I was taken to see the film, the stories became alive to me. I had not seen the Lake District at that point and the film changed everything. I could visualise the landscape every time I read one of the books, that was due to the film. The characters in the stories now had faces I could recognise in my head from that point on. When I read the books now, the characters are still the same 51 years on. The books, the film and the TV series of Coot Club and The Bix Six gave me a love of boats, camping, the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads.
Krista French “Those books were my part of my childhood escape toolkit.”
Simon Leach saw a poster of the 1974 film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ and said that when it came out, “my family was living in South Australia. After watching this, my parents were so homesick, that we returned to the UK.”
Others comment on how it has given them solace during difficult times. One man wrote to say that he watches ‘Swallows and Amazons'(1974) every week.
Fiona Ring said, “It literally shaped my childhood, that was me, I was Titty, the adventures the love for the outdoors. I read and watched it over and over and now it’s even better that I’m reliving it all again with my girls. Travelling up to the lakes each year to find all your secret spots. It’s amazing. Kayaking to wild cat island with our girls in April was a dream come true.”
Sophie Neville with Suzanna Hamilton
Andy Stuart loved Arthur Ransome’s simple book illustrations. “And equally perfect were the the actors in the 1974 film. If I think of the Swallows and Amazons, those are the faces I see when I read the novels in which their characters feature, and my mind’s eye visions of the Norfolk children and the D’s are conjured from who I imagine would have fitted in alongside the original cast. You were all wonderful, Sophie Neville!”
Simon West, Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Sten Grendon in Secret Harbour
The author Duncan Hall says, “I can’t remember if I read the books or saw the film first. I don’t remember picturing the Swallows and Amazons differently so I maybe saw the film first? But would have been at a similar time. It sparked a lifetime obsession with the Lakes, boats and stories.”
Lesley Bennett and Kit Seymour as the Amazon pirates dancing on Peel Island
Rob Twycross said, “I saw myself in the children in the film. We lived our childhood like that, going off exploring, discovering and learning. Halcyon days that I fear are gone now. It’s lovely to watch it again now and feel young again, if only in my head and heart for a little while!”
Sophie Neville as Able seaman Titty in Swallow
You can now listen to the story of how the 1974 film was made on location in the Lake District on any of the audio-book platforms, including Audible.
I’ve been asked to post the hand-written letters that my mother wrote on location while we were making the original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’. It is amazing they have survived. This was sent to my great aunt who lived on the Solent and knew Buckler’s Hard where Arthur Ransome once moored.
Mum mentions Claude Whatham, the director, David Blagden our ‘sailing teacher’ who played Sammy the Policeman and Dame Virginia McKenna, the star of the movie who played my mother, Mary Walker.
This must be the cutting from the Daily Mail that I hadn’t seen for more than fifty years and yet remember the photos as being over-exposed. Mum marked me with an X, as in ‘X marks the spot.’
‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’, narrated by Sophie Neville, is now available as an audiobook on all platforms, along with Audible where you can listen to a free sample.
Whilst clearing out my mother’s house recently we found a few letters written by my parents to my great aunt in June 1973. They report on the progress of making the original EMI movie of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in the Lake District.
Stephen Grendon as the Boy Roger, Sophie Neville as Able-seaman Titty and Simon West playing Captain John Walker beside Derwentwater in 1973 ~ photo: Daphne Neville
My mother had been given headed writing paper designed for members of the production to use on location by Brian Doyle, who managed the film publicity.
It looks as if my father used his children’s felt pens.
It is interesting to learn how much my sisters earned as film extras when they appeared in the scenes shot at Rio (Bowness on Windermere).
Kit Seymour and Jane Grendon watch the filming on the jetty whilst Tamzin and Perry Neville eat ice creams with the one man in Cumbria willing to have a short-back-and-sides. You can just see the period cars parked in the background
They made £5 a day, which was the same amount as the green parrot. I calculated that those of us with leading parts, who he describes as ‘the 6 children’ earned £7.50 a day. This was probably because we were only meant to be on set for a couple of hours. As Dad mentions, I effectively worked twelve-hour days but seemed to be thriving.
Until reading this letter, I didn’t know that the movie (or ‘picture’ as Mum called it) was originally due to be released in time for the Christmas holidays. It was launched in ABC Cinemas but not until April. You can read about the film’s release and premiere at what was then the ABC in Shaftesbury Avenue on my website here.
If you go down to Riverside Studios in London you might be in for a surprise. It is on the slipway below Hammersmith Bridge that the first daleks emerged from the River Thames in 1964, intent on invading Earth.
I’d been invited to a screening of the two-part ‘Doctor Who’ serial ‘Vengeance on Varos’, first broadcast in 1985 when it was watched by 7 million viewers.
After enjoying a very good lunch, I was taken down to the cinema foyer.
There I met up with the lovely actors I’d worked with in 1984 when I was their AFM – Assistant Floor Manager. As a production team we had office 513 in Threshold House above the Post Office on Shepherds Bush Green. The producer, John Nathan Turner and his secretary Sarah Lee shared a double office – 204 Union House, which was part of the same block. The technicians and designers such as Annie Hardinge, our costume designer, and Dorka Nieradzik, our Make Up designer, were based at Television Centre but came over for production meetings. Tony Snowden, our designer, worked out of Room 400 in the scenic block near the vast prop store where he found a questionable chair for the T.A.R.D.I.S. The Visual Effects Department had their own redbrick building on the West Way at North Acton.
I’d been responsible for setting up the read through with our glamorous Production Assistant, Jane Whittacker. It had then been my job to run and organise the rehearsals on the second floor of the BBC Rehearsal Rooms in North Acton where a star-studded canteen could be found on the top floor. Colin Baker remembered it as a tower of creativity that has sadly been torn down. Geraldine Alexander reminded me of the poles I used to mark out the sets, which were pretty abstract in Philip Martin’s script. I’d used coloured tape (rather than chalk) to given an idea of the dimensions on the rehearsal room floor. We had a T.A.R.D.I.S. consul but Colin had to tell me about sonic screwdrivers and blind us with fictional technology.
We had a small office off the rehearsal room where I’d work out call times for the read through, each rehearsal and set everything up for the studio – TC6 at BBC Television Centre where parking was near impossible. The little note book I kept has all the details. Programme ID: 50/LDL/G338P. We recorded one episode on 18th, 19th and 20th July, the other on 31st July, 1st and 2nd August 1984. It was high octane stuff.
It had been my responsibility to provide and look after the action props, prompt the actors and read parts if someone was missing. I’d also time each scene, reporting back to the script editor at the end of each day. You can read more in The Doctor Who Big Blue Podcast.
Sophie Neville with Geraldine Alexander, Nicola Bryant, Stephen Yardley, Colin Baker – the 6th Doctor – and Forbes Collins
Geraldine, Nicola and I were all born in 1960. Geraldine rushed over from the set of ‘Bridgerton’ where she is playing Mrs Wilson in her/their forth season. It is unusual for those working behind the scenes to be photographed with the cast but Who fans appreciate our involvement and know we hold secrets kept for years.
After watching the first episode of ‘Vengeance on Varos’ on the big screen, Stephen Yardley, Forbes Collins and I were invited to speak on stage and answer questions from the audience. Stephen told us that he’d been working as a hod carrier, building the Victoria Line, when he saw auditions being advertised in a copy of The Stage at his library and won his first part as an actor.
I spoke about the Varian knitting I’d invented for his fictional wife played by Shiela Reid and the secret of how the T.A.R.D.I.S. judder was achieved. Philip Martin’s original script had called for rock tunnels but our director Ron Jones had decided that passages lined in iron plating would look more convincing and unusual. We had a ventilation shaft, but no crawling. Ron thought it too corny.
Stephen Yardley, Sophie Neville and Forbes Collins talking about ‘Doctor Who’
After the Q&A official photographs taken under the auspices of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society who printed them out on the spot.
It was great to meet some of the serious ‘Doctor Who’ fans as we had made the series thinking of what would interest them. I had mentioned that I’d worked with Colin Baker and Patrick Troughton (photos and full disclosure on my last post here) but forgot to tell them that I’d met Tom Baker, the third Doctor, when I’d appeared in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ and had invited Peter Davidson on ‘Russell Harty’s Christmas Party’, which I’d set up in 1982 when I was first a graduate trainee at the BBC.
Rob with Sophie Neville, Geraldine Alexander, Nicola Bryant, Stephen Yardley, Colin Baker and Forbes Collins
After a screening of the second episode, Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Geraldine Alexander spoke at a second Q & A. Colin remembered that Nicola’s underwear and red shoes had been stolen from her dressing room halfway through the recording. The memory came storming back to me. It had created quite a panic. I think she had to transmogrify into a bird in a pair that was rather rapidly dyed.
Sadly the actor Nabil Shaban, who had played our monster Sil, was too unwell to come. He’d been a delightful actor to work with, driving in from Aldershot in Hampshire, although he also had a base in Tooting. Nabil had used his wheel chair in the rehearsals, but Ron Jones needed him to ride on something that would have him at head height with the other actors, so he could achieve ‘two-shots’. The Visual Effects Department built an aquarium podium on wheels. I insisted there was a gap at the top of this to show that it was not merely a disguise.
Colin Baker speaking about ‘Doctor Who’ with Nicola Bryant and Geraldine Alexander
I was then invited to sign copies of my books and some beautiful new ‘Doctor Who’ posters, which will be sold to raise money for charity. I already had a fan interested in one, which will benefit The Waterberg Trust. I was joined by our production associate Sue Anstruther who had arrived from BBC Radio to work on the series and look after John Nathan Turner who spent rather too much time in the BBC bar.
Sue Anstruther, Alex Moore and Sophie Neville
The day had taken me back forty years and was most enjoyable. Many thanks go to Alex Moore and all those who organised it so beautifully. You can find more photos on my previous blog post.
The end credits to ‘Vengeance on Varos’
I put one, brief story about a sand monster in ‘Doctor Who’ and a few more about working in television in my memoir ‘Funnily Enough’, which is available online as a paperback, ebook or audio book. You can read a sample for free here:
Funnily Enough – the paperback with black and white illustrations
On Sunday 9th February 2025, I was invited to join the Projections in Time panel since I worked on ‘Doctor Who’ in the summer of 1984 .
An email arrived with this wonderful invitation:
“Over the last few years, I have been part of a team at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, organising screenings based around a number of television series, but the most popular and regular of these events have been based around Doctor Who.”
“In conjunction with the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, the next event at will be a screening celebrating Vengeance on Varos, a Doctor Who story made in the studio at BBC Television Centre.
The story will be shown, followed by Q&As, as well as a photo studio session, in which fans can have a photo with the guests, and an autograph session. So far, Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Nabil Shaban, Gerladine Alexander, Stephen Yardley and Forbes Collins will be joining us. You can buy tickets here.
“I always do my best to include crew at these events as I think they have more of an overall impression.” Apparently those on the production team have been very popular and do well at the autograph table. I’ve been thinking up some stories.
Sophie Neville working on the set of Doctor Who in TC6 with Nibil Shaban, Martin Jarvis and Forbes Collins
Below is a plan of the day after, lunch for the guests, with two panels of guests.
“At the autograph table we’ll provide photos to sign, although attendees normally bring their own items. There are normally a handful of posters of the event, which we ask all of the guests to sign, which are then sold for charity.”
The story was recently re-released on a Bluray – with studio footage.
In 1983, I worked for the director Andrew Morgan on the BBC adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s books ‘Coot Club’ and ‘The Big Six’ that was screened under the title ‘Swallows and Amazons Forever!’ and is now available on DVD.
Swallows And Amazons Forever! (Coot Club & The Big Six) SPECIAL EDITION [DVD]
Andrew cast Colin Baker as Doctor Dudgeon. I had found Henry Dimbleby to play his son Tom Dudgeon, the hero of the story.
Colin Baker as Doctor Dudgeon in ‘Coot Club’ – photo Sophie Neville
I also took this photo, below, of Patrick Troughton who played Harry Bangate the eel man in in ‘The Big Six’.
Patrick Troughton playing Harry Bangate the eel man in ‘The Big Six’ – photo Sophie Neville
Many of those working on our crew worked on episodes of Doctor Who at some stage, including Di Brookes, Liz Mace and the sound recordist Colin March. I have written about the Doctor Who connection here. Having read Andrew Morgan’s memoir, I remember that Colin found out that he’d been offered the part of The Doctor while he was with us on location in Norfolk. He was thrilled.
Assistant Make-up Designer Penny Fergusson with John Woodvine who played PC Tedder in ‘Coot Club’, having appeared in ‘Doctor Who’
If we could promise a big enough audience, I could ask if Riverside Studios would host a similar event celebrating ‘Swallows and Amazons Forever!’ Please let me know if you’d be interested in coming in the comments below. I’ll ask Colin Baker if he could come when I see him on 9th February.
Those who played Time Lords had other incarnations. As a researcher, I invited Peter Davidson to sing on the chat show Russell Harty’s Christmas Party, which was fun, and appeared with Tom Baker in Sherlock Holmes. He was brilliant in that role. I wore rather a tight corset.
Sophie Neville with Tom Baker in ‘Sherlock Holmes’
You can read more about the adventures I had working in film and television in ‘Funnily Enough’, now also available on audible.
Funnily Enough – the paperback with black and white illustrations
I’m posting this collection of images with immense gratitude for all the help, support and encouragement I received in 2024.
I was unwell for the first six months of the year with one chest infection after another, but whilst languishing in bed I managed to improve a couple of screenplays I’ve been working on and the novels that accompany them.
My biopic on Freddie Mercury’s teenage adventures in Zanzibar won about ten international script awards and was selected for many more including the Best Feature Screenplay at the Berlin Art Film Festival
My WWII story set in East Africa, Burma and Japan won about seventeen awards including the Page Turner Award for Best True Story.
Sadly, I contracted Covid quite badly and couldn’t get to more than one awards ceremony but did make it to a Hollywood party in London.
Fundraiser Caroline Dolby with Sophie Nevillle.
This story was well received in Europe, particularly in Germany.
I proudly loaded some of the laurels I was sent on my website here.
The cast of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974) gathered for the 50th Anniversary – photo Lee Pressman of the Cinema Museum
One of the highlights of the year was celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the release of the movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’. The original cast and screenwriter David Wood gathered at the Cinema Museum in London for a Q&A with Brian Sibley when I was invited to read out a message from Virginia McKenna. You can watch a recording of the often hilarious event here and David Wood’s interview here.
I wrote an article about appearing in the film for Hampshire Life magazine.
The Puffin copy of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ brought out to accompany the 1974 film
I then received a message out of the blue from someone I’d never met:
“I was so excited tonight. Your episode of Antiques Roadshow came up. I had to down tools to watch you! Loved all your memorabilia.” Suzie Eisfelder in Australia.
This took me by surprise but there I was on BBC One being interviewd by Marc Allum on the shores of Windermere.
GRUMPYBUG from North Yorkshire commented,’Most actors just take a bit of something for a memento. She nicked half the props.’ The truth was that Richard Pilbrow had sent me the flags from America. The exciting news was that Swallow and Amazon, the dinghies used in the film, have survived and are being renovated for anyone to sail from Hunters Yard on the Norfolk Broads where we made the BBC serial ‘Swallows and Amazons Forever!’ back in 1983.
The broadcast coincided with an online Q&A with the writer David Wood OBE and top Hollywood make up designer Peter Robb-King. All this was great pre-publicity for 50th Anniversary celebrations of the film in Cumbria when I met film fans, signed copies of my books, gave a couple of talks and was interviewed by John Sergeant, president of The Arthur Ransome Society who hosted the two-day event.
A good account of the weekend was featured in Flip the Media. It was covered by BBC News, there was an item on Look North, North West News and BBC Breakfast television.
Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Kit Seymour on BBC Breakfast
After chatting on BBC Radio Cumbria I was interviewed by Luke on CalonFM radio.
I returned from the north to write a Foreword to Dr Anthony Mitchell’s book ‘From Dust to Trust’, which describes life around Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya.
I then helped Paddy Heron to raise funds to help a little boy called Max get medical treatment in Germany by auctioning two signed copies of my books and later auctioned another book for BBC Children in Need.
As an ambassador for the UK charity Schoolreaders I was invited to an amazing event at the House of Commons hosted by Giles Brandreth and gave three talks on Zoom.
Having spoken at the Royal Thames and Army & Navy clubs in London, Arnside Sailing Club in Morecambe Bay and Royal Southern Yacht Club earlier in the year, I gave an illustrated talk at Yarmouth Sailing Club on the Isle of Wight before going on a trip the Galapagos Islands.
I returned to news that my mother had collapsed and focused on aspects of life that weigh-lay us all: hospital visits, repairs and redecorating, general admin and clearing out my mother’s house. She’s made a remarkable recovery. I’m left exhausted but am looking towards the year ahead with hope.
“The smell is just the same.” Suzanna Hamilton began rowing me across Coniston Water from Bank Ground Farm, taking us back to childhood days.
“It sounds the same.” The colours, the landscape, the feeling of being out on the water was still magical.
Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville at Coniston Water in the Lake District
As girls, Suzanna and I had appeared as Mate Susan and Able seaman Titty in Richard Pilbrow’s original film of Swallows and Amazons, adapted by David Wood and released in cinemas on 4th April 1974. It starred Dame Virginia McKenna and Ronald Fraser but it was the two of us who were invited to return to the film locations in 2003 to be interviewed by Ben Fogle for an episode of the long-running BBC series Country File. Thanks to sunshiny weather and the support of Geraint and Helen Lewis, his report proved so successful that it was repeated on Country Tracks and featured in the series Big Screen Britain alongside iconic landscape movies such as The Dam Busters and Whistle Down the Wind.
We had been talking about swimming off Peel Island soon after we began filming Swallows and Amazons in the Lake District in May 1973. The director, Claude Whatham, was fresh from making a BAFTA nominated adaptation of Cider With Rosie when he cast Sten Grendon as young Laurie Lee, and the rock-and-roll movie That’ll Be The Day starring David Essex and Ringo Starr. Although happy out on the water, he knew little about boats. The producer, Richard Pilbrow, had insisted on finding children who could sail well rather than audition young actors and teach them to sail, and advertised the opportunity in sailing clubs. This was pivotal. Simon West (who played John), Kit Seymour (Nancy) and Lesley Bennett (Peggy) all had experience with a natural feeling for the wind and emanated confidence. They were only given a couple of days to get used to sailing the little boats used as Swallow and Amazon before filming began and yet their skill ended up making the film a classic.
Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies
We had instruction from a sailing director in the form of a good looking actor called David Blagden. He’d recently crossed the Atlantic in a nineteen foot yacht called Willing Griffin but was unfamiliar with blustery Lakeland winds and did not know how to break down a script. Simon, aged eleven, ended up explaining to Claude how to get a decent shot. Suzanna took her lead from him and I clung to the gunwales, trying hard not to shiver in a costume designed by Emma Porteous that consisted of no more than a short yellow dress and enormous pair of navy blue gym knickers.
It was unusual for a movie to feature so many scenes set in two small boats. Mike Turk, whose family had been building boats since 1295, and Nick Newby of Nicol End Marine on Derwentwater, took up the challenge of constructing Claude a cross-shaped pontoon to act as a mobile camera mount so that our dialogue could be captured. This extraordinary vessel had two outboards but wasn’t easy to handle. The dinghies were wired to it with underwater cables but tended to pull away. The base to Swallow’s mast broke, proving safety was an issue, but the idea eventually worked.
Richard Pilbrow and his film crew on the camera pontoon
A grey punt was also used. I remember Simon West towing it as he rowed us into Rio. It was easy to transport from one lake to another but must have been tippy. Somehow David Cadwallader, the grip, managed to keep the horizon horizontal using no more than a spirit level. Shadows were lifted from our faces by using huge reflector boards apt to catch the wind. It must have been impossible to use filler lights out on the water, although they somehow managed to power a number of sets on Peel Island.
Sophie Neville in the Amazon with DOP Denis Lewiston, his 16mm camera and a reflector board ~ photo: Martin Neville
Richard Pilbrow kindly sent me Swallow’s pennant from his home in America. Unlike Ransome’s original sketch of the crossed flags, the bird flies away from the mast, which is technically incorrect, but I was thrilled to receive the genuine film prop used in vision. If you look closely you can see some of the stitches I made whilst in conversation with Mother, played by Virginia McKenna.
It would have been good if Swallow’s hull had been painted white in line with illustrations in the books. Her varnished planks are a nod to the 1970’s when everyone was busy stripping pine, but the important detail is that she has a keel rather than a centerboard. It makes her difficult to turn, and markedly slower than Amazon, but grants her stability. This feature may have saved us when we really did just miss colliding with the MV Tern on Windermere, which alarmed my father who was on the Tern’s deck. He knew how difficult Swallow would be to turn with the larger vessel taking our wind. We were fully laden with camping gear and yet totally lacking buoyancy of any kind.
Simon West as Captain John sailing Swallow. Sten Grendon plays the Boy Roger
One secret of filming Swallows and Amazons is that it was set on four different lakes, a smelly lily pond that served as Octopus Lagoon, and Mrs Batty’s barn where night sailing sequences were shot with Swallow mounted on a cradle. One challenging scene was when the Swallows were cast off from Wild Cat Island to sail north to the Amazon River, leaving Titty behind to light the lanterns. I slipped underwater whilst pushing her free of branches overhanging the landing place but regained my footing and waved them off. Simon caught ‘a fair wind’ but the boom swung so far out that Suzanna held the mainsheet by the figure-of-eight knot and Swallow sped up Coniston Water like a ‘pea in a peashooter’, as Ransome wrote in Winter Holiday. A gust hit them broadside as they cleared the island and Swallow gybed, but Simon calmly stood to catch the boom, scarified the wind and took her on up the lake. Watching the sequence still brings tears to my eyes.
Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton at the helm of Swallow with Stephen Grendon in the bows, while Sophie Neville looks on from the shore of Peel Island
No one had given much consideration to the rowing involved in the story. Built as a run-about boat by William King of Burnham-on-Crouch, Swallow has two sets of rowlocks but it was tricky to keep time when she was wired to the camera pontoon. The first scene attempted was when the Boy Roger and I had to row her back from the charcoal burners with Susan at the tiller.
Sophie Neville as Titty and Stephen Grendon as Roger rowing to Cormorant Island
We rowed again on Derwentwater, making our way out to Cormorant Island to look for the treasure. It took everything in me, but I later managed to row Amazon out of Secret Harbour in one take at the end of a long day filming. The action was repeated with Denis Lewiston, the lighting-cameraman, and his 35mm Panavision camera in the stern. Cold, with wet feet, I completed the scene but had to be carried ashore by a frogman acting as the safety officer. Titty later anchors Amazon off Cormorant Island on Derwentwater, but the shot of her wrapped in the sail, sleeping aboard, was taken in the darkened barn at Bank Ground Farm. The fishing scenes were recorded on Elterwater with Swallow moored near the reedbeds.
Sophie Neville as Titty and Simon West as John
My one regret is that we didn’t follow the book when sailing the captured Amazon back to Wild Cat Island. The wind was up and Claude Whatham needed Simon to sail Swallow ahead of the Amazon which was lashed to the pontoon. I originally took the tiller as Titty is urged to in the story, but had trouble with the rudder and Susan is at the helm on the cover of the paperbacks brought out to accompany the film and a DVD distributed by the Daily Mail.
I was somewhat surprised to see Swallow outside Elstree Studios where we went to post-sync the film. They set up a tank on the sound stage so that Bill Rowe, the dubbing editor who was to win an Oscar for The Last Emperor, could capture the sounds so taken for granted and yet so evocative of handling wooden boats. I was concerned that she’d been given away (and she nearly was) but, as Richard Pilbrow made plans to adapt other Ransome books, she was sent to Mike Turk’s warehouse in Twickenham and stored with maritime props such as the Grand Turk, a replica of HMS Indefatigable, built in 1996 in Turkey for Hornblower.
When Mike’s collection was eventually auctioned in 2010 I was alerted, first by my father, then by Magnus Smith. We found Swallow’s details online, took one look at the photos and clubbed together to purchase her, launching SailRansome at the 2011 London Boat Show. The idea that others could go out in her with an experienced skipper was greeted by John McCarthy who recorded the sounds of sailing Swallow for Paddling With Peter Duck, his programme made for BBC Radio 4.
Peter Willis in the Nancy Blackett with John McCarthy
The Arthur Ransome Society now own both historic dinghies. Rupert Maas valued Swallow highly when she appeared on BBC Antiques Roadshow in 2021.Everyone gasped but her true worth is akin to Captain Flint’s hidden treasure: instead of gold ingots his trunk contained precious memories that no doubt kept him on course when the storms of life blew in. Just as Arthur Ransome’s books grant us solace, my prayer is that many will be able to grab the chance of sailing the little boats that take us into the stories immortalized on film so long ago.
Back in 1974, none of us knew that Amazon had been used in the BBC adaptation of Swallows and Amazons made just eleven years previously and broadcast in 1963. I met the White family when they brought Amazon from Kent to Cumbria to feature in Country File. Ben Fogle had found their twin daughters on Peel Island, looking very much like Nancy and Peggy in damp bathing costumes having been swimming in the lake. It has been extremely generous of them to enable other families to sail such a precious boat.
Not so very long ago, a few TARS joined me at Keswick for a talk and screening of Swallows and Amazons at the Alhambra cinema when we grabbed the chance to go aboard the Lady Derwentwater. Nick Newby explained how she had been decommissioned in 1973 to appear as Captain Flint’s houseboat. Her temporary conversion was overseen by Ian Whittaker, the set dresser who went on to be nominated for a number of awards and won an Oscar in 1993 for his work on Howard’s End. The Lady Derwentwater has since been given a new stern but is in good shape, back in her role as a passenger launch.
The mfp Vinyl LP of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ with Sophie Neville and Simon West bringing Swallow into her harbour
Arthur Ransome was taught to sail on Coniston Water by the Collingwoods in a boat they kept below Lane Head, now known as Swallow I. People often ask if the original Swallow II, a sea-going dingy with a standing lugsail built by William Crossfield, and sailed by the Ransomes, is still around. After being kept on a mooring in Bowness Bay, where she was looked after by a boatman called John Walker, she was sold in September 1935 and sadly ‘vanished without a trace’.
The Amazon, originally named Mavis, and also sailed by the Altounyan family, now resides in the John Ruskin Museum at Coniston where she can be visited much like a great aunt. Ransome’s dinghy Coch-y-bonddhu or Cocky, the model for Scarab in his books, restored and owned by TARS, is on display at Windermere Jetty, the museum where the fourteen foot RNSA dinghies used in the 2016 movie of Swallows and Amazons have been moored. A few of the steamboats used to dress the scenes set at Bowness-on-Windermere or Rio in 1973, such as Osprey and George Pattinson’s launch Lady Elizabeth, may be in residence. They are currently restoring the SL Esperance used by Ransome as his model for the houseboat.
In 1983, I worked behind-the-scenes on the BBC drama serial of Coot Club and The Big Six (and wrote Extras for the DVD titled Swallows and Amazons Forever!) We spent three months filming on the Broads, using the four-berth gaff sloop Lullaby to play the Teasel, a vintage dinghy for Titmouse and a punt for Tom Dudgeon’s Dreadnaught. They have all been kept at Hunter’s Yard, near Ludham in Norfolk where you can hire classic boats. While exploring the Broads you can track down the Death and Glory, Janca, used to play the Hullabaloo’s Margoletta, and the wherry Albion used for Sir Garnet along with yachts like Pippa that were also featured in the serial. Hopefully, Arthur Ransome’s ‘good little ship’ the Nancy Blackett, bought with his ‘Spanish gold’ or royalties, will one day star as Goblin in a film adaptation of We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Arnaldo Putzu’s poster for the EMI film Swallows and Amazons (1974)
Half a century has passed since the original film Swallows and Amazons first came out in cinemas, the good little ships featured sailing improably on the poster. Thanks go to Magnus Smith, Rob Boden, Diana Wright, Marc Grimston, and all those who have looked after and lovingly restored the inspirational boats that appeared in the movie. They mean so much to so many. Three million cheers to those at The Arthur Ransome Society who are working with Hunters Yard in Ludham to make both little ships available for hire in 2025 .
Amazon will soon be available to hire at Hunter’s Yard, Ludham
If all goes to plan, you will be able to take them out. When you do, smell the freshness for me. Stroke the varnish, take in the feel of the ropes, the weight of the oars. It may be chilly, but that too is part of the experience of liaising with old boats out on the water.
An original hardback copy of my book on how we made the 1974 film of Swallows and Amazons was sold in Paddy Heron’s online auction for £86 to raise funds for BBC Children in Need 2024.
It exceeded bids for the autobiographies of Theresa May, Michael Ball, Charles Spencer, Tim Peake, Lynda La Plante, Father Alex Frost and a number of amazing biographies.
An unframed print of a portrait of her playing Titty executed by C. Assheton was also sold in the online charity auction, which raised a total of £14,705 – which is fantastic.
Paperback and ebook editions of my same story are also available at Waterstones and online from all the usual stockists including Amazon
Sophie Neville 