Ronnie Cogan having a cigarette with one of the Supporting Artistes. Terry Smith the Wardrobe Master is going below in the background. photo: Martin Neville.
It was a glorious summer day to film on Windermere. Conditions were perfect. My father had been asked to appear as a film extra in the scene in Swallows and Amazons when the the crew of Swallow narrowly miss colliding with a Lakeland steamer, that transporting tourists up and down the lake.
Martin Neville wearing 1929 costume aboard MV Tern on Windermere in 1973
He was the tall dark native in a blazer and white flannels aboard the elegant MV Tern. A lovely way to spend a sunny morning in the Lake District. Until your daughter nearly drowns.
MV Tern on Windermere was built in 1890 with a steam engine, converted to diesel in the 1950s, and is still operating today.
Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton, Sten Grendon and I were sailing the Swallow, on our voyage to the island. The twelve-foot dinghy was laden with camping gear and had no buoyancy. We did not wear life jackets.
At the start of the day, Swallow was attached to the camera pontoon so that Claude Whatham, the film director, could capture our dialogue on film. The camera crew then went aboard the Tern and we sailed free, with the safety boat some distance away, behind the camera. Other boats were keeping modern boats clear of the shot.
In the script Roger is down to say, ‘Steamship on the port bow’. I think what came out was, ‘Look John! Over there – steamer ahead!’
The Tern had a young, inexperienced skipper who was coping with a notch throttle, as you can see if you watch the movie.
The screenplay of David Wood’s adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s classic book ‘Swallows and Amazons’ set in the Lake District in 1929
My mother, who normally looked after us, had been obliged to drive to Bristol as she presented a weekly programme for HTV with Jan Leeming called Women Only and had been summons to promote the channel at the Bath and West Show. Dad must have been acting as our chaperone, responsible for our safety. A sailor with years of experience racing on the Solent, he took a keen interest in all the boating scenes, but I’m sure he didn’t have a chaperone’s licence. As we sailed towards him, on an intentional collision course, he foresaw that the larger vessel would take our wind.
Three men of Cumbria who were happy to have short-back-and-sides haircuts on the deck of the MV Tern on Windermere in 1973 ~ photo: Martin Neville
My father watched from above as we only just turned in time, missing the steamer by a mere nine inches as her bow wave bounced us away and we sailed on. Ronnie Cogan had to buy him a whisky. They knew Sten could hardly swim, that any of us could have been entangled in the ropes and camping gear if Swallow had gone over. Clinker-built dinghies can sink quickly. It was a sunny day but the water was icy and very deep.
We did not know it at the time, but Dad nearly took me off the film. He had a meeting with the producer when he tested the BOAC life jackets we rehearsed in. Mine did not inflate.
Phil Brown, who belongs to the Arthur Ransome Group, said: “Tern was re-engined in 1957 with two diesel engines. Interestingly she was to have been named SWALLOW, but after a last-minute change, she was launched in June 1891 as TERN.”
It is said that children bounce. The next day, I sat school exams: geography, science and maths.
…‘Carry on Matron’. I wonder what near disasters they had on that film.
You can read more in the ebook ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons (1974)’ available from Amazon Kindle, Kobo, iTunes and all other online retailers:
In Arthur Ransome’s book Swallows and Amazons Titty is left keeping watch on an island, so small it is little more than a rock, whilst the Swallows sail into Rio Bay in search of the Amazons. Luckily for me, this is not so in the film. Susan declares, ‘They must be making for Rio’ and the scene cuts to a band playing in the municipal park at Bowness-on-Windermere. John rows into the bay pretty sure that the Amazons have given them the slip, Susan suggests that we could explore Rio and I happily declare, ‘We could buy rope for the lighthouse tree.’ And that is what we did – leaving the boy Roger in charge of Swallow. It was such a hot day I whipped off my grey cardigan before I leapt out of the boat, no doubt causing havoc for the Film Editor.
The Swallows approach the jetty in Rio. Empty camera boats are moored in the foreground beside a period launch. Are those green boatsheds still standing today?
Simon Holland, the Set Designer on Swallows and Amazons had transformed the busy Bowness of 1973 into a Lakeland town of 1929. To do this he must have had a huge amount of glass fibre boats moved. These were replaced by the beautiful wooden launches and skiffs of the period.
You can see my father in white flannel trousers, his dark hair cut short, standing on the jetty in front of the lovely old green boathouses that then overlooked the bay. He is talking to the owner of the launch with the green and white striped awning.
Much of the first part of this sequence was filmed from the grey punt used as a camera boat. It seems that Simon West, who played John was towing this as he rowed up to the jetty. It was a hot day and for once we were all feeling the heat.
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
Although the Swallows spurned the conventional attractions of tripperdom, we spotted the Stop-me-and-by-one ice cream cart like lightening. I was entranced by the old cars, the pony and trap and the number of people dressed to populate Rio. They were organised and directed by Terry Needham, the Second Assistant Director. To our delight we found Gareth Tandy, the Third Assistant, was dressed in period costume too, his Motorola hidden under a stripy blazer so he could cue the Supporting Artists and keep back the general public without having to worry about appearing in vision himself. To his dismay he had had to have his hair cut. We all thought this a distinct improvement. He looked so handsome! I’m not sure if you can see him in the distance when we are climbing out of Swallow. You can just see my sisters walking towards the town at this point with Pandora Doyle, Brain Doyle’s daughter.
The Price children, Perry Neville, Jane Grendon, Tamzin Neville and Pandora Doyle in their 1929 costumes on the shore of Lake Windermere at Bowness in 1973 ~ all photos on this page : Martin Neville
Jane Grendon, our chaperone looked fabulous in her 1929 costume. It was the one and only time I saw her in a dress.
Jane Grendon as a Passer-by with her pram in Rio Bay ~ photo: Daphne Neville
She was wonderful. Being in costume enabled her to keep an eye on all the children playing on the beach. I know she would have kept them going and maintained safety as they flung pebbles into the water or rushed about with the donkeys that were giving rides along the shore – no one wearing helmets of course.
Another excitement of the day was that Claude Whatham had given Mr Price, the owner of the Oaklands Guest House where we were staying, the part of the native. The native who says, ‘That’s a nice little ship you’ve got there.’ Mum said that Kit Seymour, Suzanna Hamilton and Lesley Bennett had spied him, pacing the garden at Oaklands trying out every possible way of saying this line. ‘That’s a nice little ship you’ve got there.’ Then, ‘That’s a nice little ship you’ve got there,’ leaving the girls in fits of giggles.
John Susan and Titty walking past the hotel
After we leave the general stores, me clutching bottles of grog, you can see Tamzin in a pink dress and straight back riding a chocolate coloured donkey along the beach while Dad is pushing out a rowing skiff with a log oar. Roger looks on from the Jetty to see Perry riding another donkey in a yellow dress while Tamzin walks by in the opposite direction with none other than Mr Price, in his striped blazer, who is walking along towards the boathouses holding a little boy’s hand. I am sure it was one of his own children but it looks a bit dodgy because while Roger watches my sisters and Pandora throwing stones into the lake from the beach were the skiffs are pulled up, David Price comes walking along the jetty and delivers his line: ‘That’s a nice little ship you’ve got there.’ It’s shot in rather a creepy way. John did warn Roger to ‘Beware of natives.’
The film crew of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ wait with Swallow and Stephen Grendon at the end of the jetty while Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville line up by the launch
A moment later Pandora and my sisters are surrounding the ice cream man while John, Susan and Titty return, striding along the jetty like the three wise men, carrying rope, buns and bottles of grog.
My father’s all time passion in the form of a very graceful steam launch passes, almost silently, in the foreground. A happy, happy day. They only sad thing was that we didn’t have time to film inside the bun shop, which was such a pity as it looked glorious. Claude had been obliged to re-take a scene when some ladies – real life ladies in 1970’s garments and bouffant hairdos – had come scootling out of the Public Conveniences in the middle of a take.
What none of us knew was that is was nearly our last day on earth. The same Supporting Artists, including my father, had been booked for the next morning…
My father added:
‘George Pattinson, the man who revived the steamboat world, along with Roger Mallinson, was the character in Elisabeth the little steamer.’
George Pattinson in his steam launch Elisabeth ~ photo: Martin Neville
‘The Bowness skiffs were not like the Thames version. The outriggers caught the oars and allowed a fisherman to let go of the grip if and when he caught an Arctic char, the Windermere fish, the oars were retained. A heavy boat.
I remember the rope was huge, fat and unsuitable! Daphne was not around as she had to go south to present Women Only for HTV. She was devastated to leave the donkey scene.’
You can read more about our antics in the paperback or ebook of ‘The making of Swallows and Amazons’ available from online retailers, good bookshops, and libraries worldwide. You can read more on Amazon here.
It was a hot, humid day but great fun, preserved on film forever more. My mother had driven to Gloucestershire the night before to appear on the HTV magazine programme ‘Women Only’ with Jan Leeming. She interviewed someone about potted plans and presented an item on peg dolls. This was a pity as she would have loved seeing the donkeys. Later that year her only donkey mare, Lucy, gave birth to a spotted foal she called Leopard.
Perry Neville, in yellow and Tamzin Neville, in pink riding donkeys in Rio Bay ~ photo: Daphne Neville
‘So lucky the old Victorian boatsheds were still there then.’
Sophie Neville who played Titty in ‘Swallows and Amazons’, eating icecream at Brown Howe, the location used for Beckfoot and the Amazon Boathouse ~ photo: Martin Neville
A hot sunny day in the Lake District, at last. This was 1973 and Mum had a blue sunhat firmly wedged onto my head. I suppose this was so that I wouldn’t go pink. It was lovely to be able to eat lunch outside under the rhododendrons with my sisters but I started to roast in my stripy acrylic polo-neck jersey and begged to be able to wear something cooler. Terry Smith the wardrobe aaster was not pleased when he found me wearing one of Suzanna Hamilton’s costumes, especially since I was eating a choc-ice in it.
Lesley Bennett as Peggy at Beckfoot
Mrs Causey, our long suffering tutor, was helping me to swot for my summer exams we knew being sent north from my convent. These were taken very seriously. My father was still paying my fees. They amounted to as much as I was earning for appearing in the film.
Kit Seymour with Claude Whatham, 1973
I don’t think my little sisters had any formal education at all that week. I can only suppose that they learnt a little more about being in films even though this was the one day that I didn’t appear in Swallows and Amazons.
Property Master Bob Hedges keeping the perch alive
Who were the boys? The lad in the film clip with a Motorola and cigarette, who seems to have taken off his shirt for the first time that summer, is Gareth Tandy, the Third Assistant. The boys mentioned in my diary were slightly older. Why did we call them ‘prop-boys’? Is it something left over from the theatre? I know Bobby-Props (Bob Hedges the property master) must have been over forty and was regarded as the father figure of the unit. He worked out of a lorry with a sunshiny roof with John Leuenberger, Terry Wells and Bill Hearn the carpenter. Dad caught them on film when they were having lunch. I think they must have later gone off to Bowness-on-Windermere to help set up for our big scene the next day and kindly returned with ice-creams and Coco-cola, which would have been a great treat. They were generous to a fault.
Property Master Bob Hedges with his assistant Terry Wells
The prop-men who worked on Swallows and Amazons have movie credits to their names which would delight any actor. They never seemed to stop working. Claude Whatham may well have asked for them to join us as they’d all been on the crew of his first film That’ll be the Day. Bobby Hedges later worked with some of the others on The Rocky Horror Picture Show,Julia,The Shout and Midnight Express. John Leuenberger went on to work on Stardust, Bugsy Malone,Chariots of Fire and Superman III. Terry Wells is listed as having been the property master on epic movies such as The Mission, Braveheart, Quadrophenia, Cry Freedom, Full Metal Jacket, Troy, 101 Dalmatians and Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett, as well as big TV series such as Holby City and The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.
Property Master Bob Hedges is working in the foreground ~ photo: Daphne Neville
If you look at our call sheet for the day you can see at a glance how important the property master’s job was. Swallows and Amazons was a technically unusual film as the dinghies were action props. Swallow had to be kitted out with exactly the same rigging – plus the same ‘continuity props’ – the torch, compass, whistle, charts, blankets and provisions, originally listed by Arthur Ransome, that were in the little ship when she left Wildcat Island in the scene when John gave me the telescope.
In Scene: 135, the envelope containing the Amazon’s message is key to the action, thus an ‘action prop’. If we’d seen it before it would have been known as a ‘continuity action prop’. You can see it pinned to the post in the short film clip. Simon Holland, our set designer r art director, to whom the prop-men were working, had a number of identical envelopes made. Lesley Bennett, who played Peggy Blackett, wrote the message in her clear, italic writing quite a few times so that there would be replacements for re-takes after John scrunched up the first one and flung it in the water. There are times when a continuity action prop such as our telescope, which was irreplaceable, becomes very precious indeed. Had it been forgotten or lost it would have caused major disruption to the day’s filming.
Kit Seymour and Lesley Bennett playing the Amazons
There was very little ‘set dressing’ for these scenes but you can understand that it was crucial that the guys mounted Captain Nancy’s scull and crossbones on the Amazon boathouse. They would have taken this off at the end of the day and stored it in case re-takes were needed, which is why the carpenter returned from Bowness with a long ladder in the lorry and ice creams for us all.
We loved the props as children. I treasured the few items that Bobby made on the set and gave me at the end of the filming, such as his prototype flags. When I became an Assistant Floor Manager, the BBC’s equivalent to a Second Assistant Director, I found myself responsible for the action props with one or two prop men working with me. The few times that continuity props were forgotten or mislaid are painfully etched on my memory. That awful feeling, when a lost item effects so many people, like losing a wallet or your car keys, is magnified hugely when filming is so costly and involves so many. Despite always being terribly careful I had a continuity prop stolen from the Eastenders’ studio (see my ‘Career’ page and scroll down until you find the section with William the pug dog).
Someone once stole the soap from the set of Bluebell. I can’t think why. It was a miserable little piece for a scene set in Bescancon Internment Camp. Prisoner of war soap. The prop-buyer got very angry. I quickly made up something that looked like the original but I couldn’t do the same when our prop-man lost Gerald Durrell’s pre-war binoculars on the island of Corfu. I remember him turning out his van in despair before finding them carefully stored in bubble-wrap behind his seat. I don’t think any of the props were mislaid on Swallows and Amazons, despite all the rushing around in boats, but Mum says that we shot a scene wearing the wrong costumes. We are not sure which this was but no doubt it will be recoded in the later pages of my diary, which you can read here…
Sophie Neville, Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton and Sten Grendon on Wildcat Island in the scene where the Swallows find a place to camp
Arthur Ransome’s description of Wild Cat Island is based on at least two real islands. The landing place and open grassy camp site illustrated in the books can be found at Blake Holme on Windermere but when Richard Pilbrow went there in 1972 he was so disappointed by the sight of caravans, and the fact it was near the shore, that he decided to make the film almost entirely on Peel Island where you find Ransome’s Secret Harbour. We never went to Blake Holme.
Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton with Sten Grendon in the bows, while Sophie Neville looks on from the shore of Peel Island
It was at Peel Island on Coniston Water that Ransome met the Collingwood family when he was a boy. The Collingwood grandchildren, Taqui, Susie, Titty, Roger and Brigit Altounyan, later camped there getting slugs in their hair. Roger Altounyan told my old friend Bill Frankland that he secretly spent the first three nights of his honeymoon there. It must have been magical.
We loved crossing to the island – it was hugely exciting, even in the rain. There is something about the sheer rock faces, which makes it like a fortress, the ancient Viking settlement WD Collingwood believed it to be. Getting us back for lessons and lunch can’t have been easy and there was no loo.
The Swallows on Wild Cat Island
Had I been producing Swallows and Amazons I might have used Peel island for the unique Secret Harbour but tried to use ‘Near Peel Far’ on the mainland for the landing place. There is a nice open beach there and one wouldn’t have had to lug all the heavy paraphernalia of filming over the water – you can imagine time and effort involved in taking a 35mm Panavision camera across with its mountings and track. I don’t know how they powered the arc lamps we needed to light the campsite, which was quite dark beneath the trees. They must have run the cables under water.
Suzanna Hamilton as Susan, cooking buttered eggs on the camp fire on Wild Cat Island. Director Claude Whatham, Sue Merry, Bobby Sitwell and DoP Denis Lewiston look on, clad in wet weather gear.
But – the wonderful thing is that now, when children reach the island, most of the places featured in the film are there. The Landing Place has nearly washed away. We never knew it at the time, but one great secret is that the beach was created especially for the film. They must have dumped a huge amount of shingle there. The other secret is that there weren’t actually enough trees for the Swallows to erect the tents their mother had made for them. Two had to be added by the construction team.
Arthur Ransome’s tents are not as easy to put up as you’d imagine. It is difficult for children to get the rope taut enough between the trees to take the weight of the canvas. You need to use wagon knots or twist it with a stick. If you tie the rope too high the tents ruck up. The reality was that Suzanna had Bobby-the-prop-man to help her.
Suzanna Hamilton playing Susan with Sten Grendon as Roger camping on Peel Island
One thing that is not a secret, but can take you unawares, is that there never seems to be any firewood on Wildcat Island. It is the reason why the Swallows went to the mainland in the book.
Roger really did struggle to find sticks to pick up on that wet day in May. Mine were carefully set out for me to find by the designer but Sten really did fall over and he did get quite badly scratched by thorns. Claude gave him a bit of ‘Danger Money’ for being brave and not complaining.
Stephen Grendon playing young Laurie in the BBC Play ‘Cider with Rosie’
I’m not sure if Sten had ever received Danger Money when he played Laurie Lee in Cider with Rosie, which Claude had made two years before. We watched it that night when it was broadcast on television. It must have been shown quite late as it was was labelled as avant garde but we stayed up as of course VHS machines had not been heard of.
Rosemary Leach played Laurie’s long-suffering mother, Mrs Lee, quite beautifully. She was later to take the role of Mrs Barrable in the BBC series Coot Club, which I worked on in 1983. Mike Pratt, who played Mr Dixon in Swallows and Amazons, played Uncle Ray, and Young Billy – John Franklin-Robbins was The Stranger. Claude cast me as a little girl from Slad called Eileen Brown, who Laurie Lee always said was the first person he fell in love with. He was a friend of Mum’s and was around during the filming, since he still had a cottage in Slad. I’d been to a village school in the Cotswolds myself and enjoyed being in the classroom scenes, despite have to wear rather an itchy green dress.
Sophie Neville with Claude Whatham on location at Slad in 1971
I was too shy to put myself forward when Claude asked if anyone knew the chants to playground skipping games, but I did work hard to prepare for my big scene. I had to play quite a difficult piece on the piano, accompanying the ten-year-old Laurie Lee as he sawed away on his violin at the village concert. Rosemary Leach looked on with tears in her eyes. I was only given the music three days before the filming and had to practice eight hours a day, for those three days, before I got it right. We plodded through Oh, Danny Boy but were both so relieved to get it right that our smiles were real enough. At one point Claude took a deep breath and said, ‘Do you think you could play a little faster?’ I looked at him and replied, ‘They’re crochets. They don’t go any faster.’ He claimed that he didn’t know what a crotchet was.
Sophie Neville as Eileen Brown and Philip Hawkes as Laurie Lee in ‘Cider with Rosie’ directed by Claude Whatham in 1971.
I have written more about appearing in ‘Cider With Rosie’ here. It was pivotable as Claude Whatham invited Sten and I to appear as Roger and Titty in ‘Swallows and Amazons’ as he ‘had worked with us before’. He knew how we would react in front of the camera. I happened to have had a bit of experience crewing dinghies but the hard work I put into playing Eileen Brown gained me the role of Titty in the feature film now distributed by StudioCanal.
Sophie Neville playing Eileen Brown
You can read more in one of the editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ available online here and in paperback from Waterstones.
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
In the early ’70s most people had long hair. Ours had to be cut and bobbed to match the 1929 hair styles in Arthur Ransome’s well-known illustrations. I wrote in my diary that, ‘Sten went first and came out looking much older with all his locks cut off!
Simon was next. He looked much the same, except with his ears showing.’ We thought they looked so much better with short-back-and-sides. Mum said that Sten really did have long, flowing hair, which looked extraordianry on a nine year old boy.
Suzanna Hamilton, Lesley Bennett, Sophie Neville, Kit Seymour and Simon West before their hair was cut for ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in 1973. photo~ Daphne Neville
I’ve just been reminded that the production company really struggled to find male Extras to be in Swallows and Amazons because no one wanted this cut. The actors were the same. Mike Pratt, who played Mr Dixon the diary farmer, couldn’t have his hair cut as he was in the middle of filming a television series, The Adventures of Black Beauty, set in the Victorian era – a good excuse to avoid being shorn. His hair had to be pinned up under a flat cap, which looked weird on the big screen. You could see the kirby grips.
My mother had huge reservations about my straggly blonde hair being chopped off and said she nearly refused to let them. I am very glad she didn’t. It was wonderful having short hair. My haircut proved such a great success that I believe it set a fashion for having a graduated bob or ‘Titty Haircut’.
The dentist ~
I am sure that as well as having our teeth cleaned that they were checked over before they caused a problem. As it was I lost a fairly conspicuous milk tooth during the filming at a time when it caused havoc with the continuity. The director was not pleased but there was nothing he could do. Because the film could not always be shot in sequence you’ll see a full set of teeth in one shot and one missing in another. People still comment on it today.
The sailing director ~
Because Claude Whatham, the film director, was not a sailor himself he appointed a sailing instructor or ‘Sailing Director’, David Blagden who took us sailing in both Swallow and Amazon before the filming, as my diary relates.
David Blagden and my mother, Daphne Neville ~ photo: Richard Pilbrow
We needed to get used to handling the dinghies, was great fun. David made it fun. He was a tall, dark, good looking actor who had been in Kidnapped and was given the part of the Sammy the Policeman, which he did very well. ‘Now then, Miss Nancy.’ Having his hair-cut was such a big thing that he took off his helmet during scene to make the most of it, displaying his very short hair to the the world. We all adored David, who was well known for having sailed across the Atlantic. He had come in tenth, out of fifty-nine competitors, in the 1972 Observer Single-handed Transatlantic Race. He made the crossing in Willing Griffin a Hunter 19, the smallest yacht ever to offically participate in a transatlantic race. I’m afraid that my father thought that he over estimated his abilities. He was of the opinion that crossing the ocean was not quite the experience needed for clinker built sailing dinghies, which could jibe viciously without warning when wind blustered down from the fells, and didn’t rate him highly for the job. Dad was concerned about our safety. After the film David attempted to cross the Atlantic once more. He was never seen again.
Molly and Richard Pilbrow in 1973
Richard Pilbrow and the other boats ~
Richard Pilbrow, who was producing Swallows and Amazons loved boats and was often out on the water with us. It seemed that he came on on this day with us in a motor boat – it was one of those typical glass-fibre ones with a small cabin that were thought quite snazzy at the time. Along with the gaff-rigged dinghies, Swallow and Amazon there were quite a number of other period boats used during the filming – not least Captain Flint’s Houseboat, one of the Windermere Steamers and the Holly Howe rowing boat, or native canoe, in which Virginia McKenna so gallantly rowed out to the island when as Mother she came to visit her children only to find Robinson Crusoe (me) in residence. Richard loved them all. So did we.
You can read more in the ebook that retails at £2.99
Sophie Neville speaking about ‘Swallows and Amazons’
‘When you went to see the charcoal burners, did Susan really leave her basket behind?’
‘Yes, she did!’ I’d totally forgotten, but she left it behind by mistake.
I was invited to speak after dinner at the 11th Arthur Ransome Society Literary Weekendheld at Willis Hall, Bristol University. It was a joy and delight to meet the organisers and delegates, of which there were about 150. All seemed interested in learning more about the making of Swallows and Amazons, the feature film of Arthur Ransome’s book produced in 1973 by Richard Pilbrow of Theatre Projects and distributed by EMI in 1974.
Director Claude Whatham with his cast of Swallows and their basket
‘How old were you all?’ I was asked.
‘Ahh, that is rather a secret,’ I had to admit. When the filming began I was twelve, yet playing the part of Titty who was meant to be only nine. I managed to pretend to be much younger but the reality was that, although skinny, I was a tall child with long legs, so tall that in some shots you can see that I am taller than my elder brother John. Claude Whatham, the director, seemed unconcerned but had either holes dug for me or a box produced for John to stand on when were side by side. At other times he simply had John in a higher position.
Titty appearing to be much shorter than her elder brother John
John was played by Simon West, who even aged eleven was a true leader and excellent sailor. He became a National Optimist champion in 1975. Suzanna Hamilton, who played my elder sister Susan, was aged twelve. Lesley Bennett, who played Peggy was actually the eldest aged thirteen, and Kit Seymour turned thirteen during the filming. But, unlike at school, it didn’t seemed to matter to us. We all felt the same age and got on well as a result. Sten Grendon, who played the seven-year-old Roger was actually aged nine. He couldn’t swim well, but somehow survived.
I do remember that Roger received more danger money than any of us. Claude would compensate us for getting scratched by brambles – as poor Roger was – by handing out extra pocket money. I think we earned £2 each for enduring the icy waters of Coniston when the swimming scene was shot on a grey day in May. The water was so cold that it was agony and the money hard earned. Titty, who was keen on imitating cormorants, had to dive underwater. I nearly passed out. I am not very good at being wet and cold or when it comes to heights either, so it was encouraging to be rewarded after climbing trees, ‘For fear of ravenous beats.’
When you watch the film you can see that Susan inadvertently burnt Roger with the large flat frying pan, which she’d just taken off the camp fire. He flinches and she muttered ‘Sorry’, before ploughing on with the scene. The moment was captured in the film.
The frying pan that burnt Roger
One problem encountered when filming with children is that they can unexpectedly lose their milk teeth. I did. People still comment on this today. I lost an eye tooth. In some scenes it is there, then it will suddenly vanish only to re-appear again.
Titty’s tooth is obviously missing on the voyage to the island.
Claude was not very pleased that his continuity was blown and there was definitely no tooth fairy. He wasn’t very pleased when I grazed my leg falling off a swing at lunch time either. Suzanna cut her hand whittling wood. Bobby, the Props man seemed so happy and absorbed making bows and arrows for the Amazons, out of local hazel saplings, that we all wanted to try for ourselves and started carving. I bought a penknife with my danger money and made a bow, which I still have today. This occupation kept us all quiet until of course Suzanna nearly chopped a finger off and ended up with such a big bandage that Claude howled with dismay. We were banned from whittling after that, but I did learn to shoot with the bow and arrow. This proved providential since I gained the part of an archery champion in the next feature film I appeared in. Years later I met the man who became my husband at an archery event. He was chairman of the society. I might never have met him if I hadn’t learnt to shoot for the feature films.
‘Here we are, intrepid explorers, making the first ever voyage into uncharted waters. What mysteries will they hold for us? What dark secrets shall be revealed?’ Titty uttered dramatically as she looked out towards Wildcat Island. In fact we weren’t that intrepid. Our dinghy was wired to a pontoon on which was a 35mm Panasonic camera, a few yards of track and an entire film crew: sound, camera, lighting, wardrobe g et al.
The Swallow wired to the camera pontoon. Here we are rehearsing the scene where Titty and Roger row to Cormorant Island
The little bit of extra money Claude gave us was indeed compensation for encountering grave danger on one occasion. I don’t remember there being anything about it in Arthur Ransome’s book, but in the film there is a sequence when the Swallows nearly collide with the Tern, an elegant steamer that has taken tourists up and down Windermere since 1891. There is rather a large difference between the shot of the dinghy with the Tern coming towards her when Susan calls, ‘Look John! Steamer ahead!’ which was shot when Swallow was attached to the floating pontoon, and the next shot, a top shot, which was taken from the steamer when we were sailing free.
That is when things went wrong. The Tern turned, John lost his wind in the lee of the larger vessel and we four children came perilously close to ending up in a very Duffer-ish state. Swallow had no centre board, only a keel and a shallow rudder, so she was difficult to turn at the best of times. We were acutely aware that Roger couldn’t swim, we had no buoyancy and I was perched on a pile of heavy old camping equipment. My father, who is a good dinghy sailor with years of experience racing in the Solent, was watching from the deck of the steamer, helpless. He could foresee the problem and yet was able to do nothing. Although we just managed to avoid a true collision he was so shaken someone had to find him a glass of whisky.
You can read more about the making of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974) here:
Serendipity [ser-uh n-dip-i-tee] an aptitude or faculty for making desirable discoveries by accident
Serendipity indeed. The word has been quoted to me so many times that I’ve started to take note. The serendipit in question connects me to a rather large, bald man with massive moustaches called Arthur Ransome.
In March 1973 my father was sent a letter, completely out of the blue:
We are at present casting for a film version of SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS which Mr Whatham is going to direct. We were wondering if you would be interested in your daughter being considered for one of the parts in this film. Amazing!
Sophie Neville as a child ~ photo: Martin Neville
To gain a part I had to be able to swim well. I think this was to do with ensuring I was unlikely to drown. As it happened I could row, sail and swim. My parents had taught me but I can’t remember Claude Whatham asking me about this when he interviewed me. He wanted to know what my favourite Television programme was.
‘Blue Peter!’
‘Why?’,
‘Because they show you how to do things.’
It was exactly what Mr Whatham wanted to hear. Why? Because that is what Arthur Ransome does in his books. He doesn’t tell. He shows his readers how to sail. And how to camp. By the age of twelve I had already read about seven books in the series and loved the stories. What I didn’t know then was the effect they would have on the rest of my life.
By May 1973 I was on my way up to the Lake District to play Titty Walker in the feature film being produced by Theatre Projects and distributed by EMI. I didn’t think I was right as Titty at all. In real life Titty had been Anglo-Armenian and grew up in Syria. The illustrations show her with dark hair, cut in a bob. And I thought of myself as far more like the practical Susan, Titty’s older sister. However I was assured that I could play Titty and I did. Able seaman Titty, crew of the Swallow. Thankfully they cut my straggly blonde hair and I sang out the dialogue that I already knew off by heart from reading the book, ‘I expect someone hid on the island hundreds and hundreds of years ago.’
How the real parrot arrived on my shoulder I can’t quite remember but within months of returning from Coniston Water I had a green and yellow parrot of my own. I think he had outlived his owner and was given to us to keep. He was good company and very chatty. I adored him and could take him anywhere. When I was asked to be in Animal Magic to talk about the film he sat on my shoulder while I was rowing a boat, and I think did most of the talking.What I didn’t realise was how themes from Arthur Ransome’s life would follow me through the rest of my life.
When the time came for me to matriculate I went to Collingwood College at the University of Durham. The name resonated later when I discovered that W.D. Collingwood’s grandchildren were the real Swallows. W.D. Collingwood was an archaeologist living above Coniston Water, where the books are set, and had excavated Peel Island– or Wild Cat Island– finding the remains of a Viking settlement there. Some one had hidden there hundred of years ago. WD Collingwood Titty’s grandfather studied at the Slade, as did my own grandfather, HW Neville. He may have been there at the same time as Titty’s mother Dora Collingwood.
Arthur Ransome won a Kitchener Scholarship. Years later these rare awards have been won by both my niece and my nephew. When Arthur Ransome first lived in London, he had digs in Hollywood Road. When I moved to London I shared flats with friends, first in Tregunter Road, then Harcourt Terrance, which ware merely extensions of Hollywood Road, which is off the Fulham Road in West Brompton. I had gained a graduate traineeship at the BBC. The first drama series that I worked on was Swallows and Amazons Forever! an adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s books set on the Norfolk Broads, Coot Club and The Big Six. It was not a chance thing, I contacted the Producer and asked if I could work on the series, but the fact that I’d heard about it was unusual, and amazing really that it was made that year when I was available to join the production team. I had first worked with Rosemary Leach, who played The Admiral – Mrs Barrable, when she starred, not as Missee Lee, but as Mrs Lee in Cider with Rosie. I later found myself working with William the Pug dog on Eastenders when he featured as Ethel’s ‘Little Willie’ . It was such fun to see him again. He was a playful little dog with a great sense of fun.
Coot Club and The Big Six
The first documentary I directed for the BBC involved an adder. I was filming in at a Nature Reserve in Dorset with a group of children who came across one immediately. It was huge, a black adder. The Billies would have declared this a great sign of luck. I’m not sure I thought much about Swallows and Amazons, over the next few years but I did film at a school in Cumbria and loved being back in the Lakes.
After working at the BBC for eight years I fell ill and, much like Arthur Ransome, had to abandon my full time job to work from home. Like him I had a yearning to spend as much time as possible in the great outdoors and chose to live in the wilderness. I spent my time exploring southern Africa, camping and cooking on fires. Of the subjects I’d studied at university the ones I most enjoyed were cartography and water-colours. I started to earn my living by drawing birds, animals and decorative maps. The maps usually depicted game reserves and involved giving names to landmarks as places of interest, just like Titty’s maps. I must have drawn forty maps in the style of those on the original cover of Swallows and Amazons, using the same borders and style of lettering. And I kept diaries, writing just as Titty would have done. I also worked freelance for the BBC, mainly setting up wildlife programmes. A rye smile did pass my lips when I was asked to find South African items for Blue Peter. I was thinking back to my first interview at Theatre Projects with Claude. They came to South Africa for their summer expedition one year, and it was I who sent them off to film the Outspan harvest and wild dog puppies in the Kruger National Park. After a while I fell into the pattern of flying back to England at Easter time and returning to Africa in the autumn. This was partly through choice, partly to comply with visa regulations and work commitments. I’d migrate every year with the swallows.
When we were making the feature film of Swallows and Amazons my mother looked after all six children. The girls playing the Amazons, Nancy and Peggy Blackett, needed to learn how to shoot with a bow and arrow. My mother taught them. She had learnt how to draw a long bow when she was first married, and was encouraged by an ex-Olympian called Bertie. I became interested too, which stood me in good stead as the next part I had in a feature film was playing Liz Peters, a fictional archery champion.
Thirty years after the premier of Swallows and Amazons I had flown back from Africa and was staying at my parents’ house, when a lady arrived from Korea. She timidly knocked on the door, explaining that she was translating Swallows and Amazons into Chinese and would love to talk to me about the book. She came bearing gifts: a hand-quilted wedding bedspread and a pile of silk garments amounting to a bride’s trousseaux. It was a week after I had met my husband-to-be. At that stage he had not even asked me out and I had no idea we would marry. I’d met him at the archery – shooting with my bow and arrow. He was Bertie’s grandson. My three sisters have never been a bit interested in archery. If I hadn’t been enthused by Swallows and Amazons, and consequently taken it up to play Liz Peters, I would never have met my husband. I still have the wedding quilt.
Sophie with her husband on the coast of South Africa
And then I met Dr Frankland, a Harley Street Consultant who was to become an historical adviser on a script I was developing. I soon learnt that Bill Frankland had been a good friend of Roger Altounyan and knew his sister Titty. As young men they both worked for Alexander Flemming.
Roger, Titty and their elder sisters Susie and Taqui were W.D.Collingwood’s grandchildren, the real characters on which Arthur Ransome based the Swallows. What I didn’t know was that Roger Altounyan became an allergist. He developed the spin-inhaler, experimenting on himself. Dr Frankland explained that he eventually died as a result. I was allergic to feathers as a child and prone to horrific asthma attacks. Not from parrot’s feathers but old pillows and eiderdowns. The Ventolin inhaler is something to which I probably owe my life. Dr Frankland, who is to celebrate his 100th birthday this March, still works as a Harley Street allergist and is often called upon to make broadcasts on Radio 4. He instigated the pollen count, numbered Saddam Hussein as one of his most grateful patients and has been the expert witness at a number of murder trials.
Bertie’s Olympic bow now hangs on my stairs. I am still sailing dinghies, still drawing maps but thankfully no longer suffer from asthma. Harbour Pictures with BBC Films are now planning a new film adaptation of Swallows and Amazons. A whole new generation of children will be shown how to sail and camp and cook on open fires. I couldn’t be more thrilled.
Phil Brown, who belongs to the Arthur Ransome Group, said: “Tern was re-engined in 1957 with two diesel engines. Interestingly she was to have been named SWALLOW, but after a last-minute change, she was launched in June 1891 as TERN.”
Sophie Neville 