People often write to say how much they have enjoyed the original film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (U) produced by Richard Pilbrow in 1974, which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Being suitable for all ages, it is often screened at outdoor festivals and is on Netflix in Europe.
‘Is it a good movie?’ people enquire of Google.
Helen Fielding mentions the DVD of Swallows & Amazons 1974 in the first edition of ‘Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy’ claiming it to be more edifying for her children to watch than ‘Beverley Hills Chihuahua 2‘.
Dame Margaret Drabble told Claude Whatham, the director, how much she loved Titty in his filmof Swallows and Amzons, which was a huge compliment.
Sophie Neville as Titty in 1973
Elspeth Huxley CBE – author of thirty books including The Flame Trees of Thika – loved the 1974 film of Swallows and Amazons, reviewing it for The Tatler magazine under her married name, Elspeth Grant.
Simon West, Sophie Neville and Suzanna Hamilton appearing in The Tatler
There is special interest from a number of authors –
Wendy Clarke, who has set some of her psychological thrillers in the Lake District auditioned for the part if Titty in 1973. You can read her story on another post here.
The arts curator David Banning profiled the 1974 movie of Swallows and Amazons in his book on films made in Cumbria and the Lake District, which you can see here.
Trevor Boult, who writes books on ships and sailing, is a great fan. He kindly donated the royalties from his most recent book Boats Yet Sailing to The Arthur Ransome Trust. You can order a copy direct from the publisher here.
For a list of well known people who love the Swallows and Amazons books, please click here
Do you know of any other authors who have written about the film? Please leave any information in the comments section, below.
Wilfred Joesph’s title music for ‘Swallows and Amazons'(1974)
You can read the first section about how the film was made back in 1973, for free, on the Amazon preview of the ebook here:
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 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.
SL Daffodil on the River 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.
On ITV News at Ten with Nina Nannar
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.
Aboard Wherry Maud – photo Diana Dicker
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.
~Nancy Blackett in the Netherlands~
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.
At Wroxham on the Norfolk Broads
You can read more in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ available on line.
The flag Titty made for Swallow in the original film ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974)
Were some of these stitches mine after all?
A few weeks ago, BBC Antiques Roadshow featured some of the flags from the original movie ‘Swallows and Amazons'(1974) in which I played Titty Walker. These film props had been sent to me by the producer Richard Pilbrow who now lives in Connecticut. I take them with me if I’m ever asked to give a Q&A or talk about ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’. Film fans enjoy taking selfies with them.
I explained that they were made on location in 1973, possibly by the Art Director, Simon Holland, who enjoyed painting. Equally, they may have been made by the Set Decorator Ian Whittaker, who went on to win an Oscar and nominations for several more. Bob Hedges who was in charge of the action props was also adept at making props in the days when health and safety regulations were more relaxed.
In the story, Titty decides to make a new flag for the Swallow. I was keen on sewing as a child, and was thrilled to be given a needle and thread to stitch a blue swallow on the flag myself in a scene with Virginia McKenna, who played Mrs Walker, shot at Holly Howe (Bank Ground Farm) above Coniston Water in the Lake District. Rather a modern reel of cotton was caught in vision.
Virginia McKenna, as Mary Walker with Sophie Neville playing her daughter Titty Walker busy stitching Swallow’s new flag in preparation for the voyage to the island (c)StudioCanal
It was not until I returned from recording Antiques Roadshow at Windermere Jetty and had the flag on my desk that I noticed some of the stitches are different from others. It looks as if the small, white stitching on one wing could have been my own. As a child, I had thought the larger stitches rather clumsy but am sure they looked appropriate in vision. It would be worth far more if it was known to have been made by Ian Whittaker. He won an Oscar and was nominated for his work on a number of other films.
Ian Whittaker with the Art Director Simon Holland
‘Properly’, as Titty would say, the bird should be flying towards the mast, although I am assured that Arthur Ransome did once draw a diving swallow on one flag. In his book, the swallow was sewn into the cloth rather that plonked on top of fabric browned by tea but our flag has lasted for 48 years.
Property Master Bob Hedges keeping the perch alive
After Antiques Roadshow was broadcast, a lady who grew up in Bowness on Windermere, wrote to say, ‘It may be of interest that we still have the fishing rods that were used in the film. They belonged to my father Leslie Borwick and were lent to the film crew. They are rather worse for wear but still treasured as I was a big fan of the books when I was young. Unfortunately I was living abroad when the film was made so have no memories of it.’
Leslie Borwick on Windermere
Leslie Borwick, was a keen fisherman who took his daughter out to catch perch. She said that the bamboo rods are quite fragile but one has a wooden reel, which is interesting.
Ronald Bousfield fishing at about the time ‘Swallows and Amazons’ was written
“My mother’s side of the family were very keen fishermen. Their surname was Bousefield and there is a fly called “Bousefield’s Fancy”(Frank Bousefield)”
You can read the original post about filming the fishing scene on Elterwater here
A clip of Swallow’s flag being valued on BBC Antiques Roadshow can be watched on BBC iPlayer.
The whole story of the making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) can be read here:
Sophie Neville playing Titty Walker in the 1974 movie
‘Titty from Swallows and Amazons’ often gets typed into the Goggle search engine but when I attempt to use it as a ‘tag’ a message pops up saying: ‘Sorry, you are not allowed to assign the provided terms.’ I can only conclude that Google lacks literary enlightenment but the BBC were happy for me to talk about Titty on BBC Antiques Roadshow recently.
Sophie Neville on BBC Antiques Roadshow
‘Memory picks and choses,’ as Arthur Ransome said in his autobiography (p.33) but those who love his novels often wonder what would have happened to the characters when they grew up. It dawned on me that this might be one reason why people are interested to know what we all did with our lives. I played Titty Walker in Richard Pilbrow’s 1974 movie of ‘Swallows and Amazons’. In 1962, the film actress Susan George played the same character in the black and white BBC television serial of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ with her hair in pigtails. She was called Kitty, apparently with Arthur Ransome’s approval. BBC Films decided to call the Able seaman ‘Tatty’ in the 2016 movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’, when she was brilliantly played by Teddy-Rose Malleson-Allen who went on to star in ‘Four Kids and It'(2020).
The character was inspired by a real little girl, Titty Altounyan, who stayed at Bank Ground Farm (or Holly Howe) when visiting her grandparents who lived above Coniston Water. In 1939, Miss Joyce Cartmell acquired a signed note from Arthur Ransome explaining that, ‘Titty is short for Tittymouse which is what she was called when she was a baby. Nobody ever calls her anything but Titty now’. It appears that Ransome was also asked for a photograph of himself, to which he responded, ‘Too ugly’.
Edward Thomas (1878-1917) described Arthur Ransome as ‘exuberant, rash and intelligent.’ In 1973, I can only assume the film director Claude Whatham was looking for the same spirit in us children. It was certainly captured by Wilfred Joseph’s nautical film score.
What constantly impacts me is the number of people who write in to say how much they wanted Titty to become their best friend. In many ways the characters from Ransome’s books become friends for life. You can easily gain others who have the same outlook on life by joining The Arthur Ransome Society, who offer activities and grants for young people as well as adults with a literary bent. You too can stay at Bank Ground Farm and run down the field to dip your hands in the lake.
Staying at Bank Ground Farm – ‘Holly Howe’ with TARS
You can read more about making the movie in the multi-media ebook entitled ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’.
Lakeland Arts, based at the Windermere Jetty Museum, ask how the original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ was made on location in the Lake District in 1973 –
You can find out more in the illustrated paperback, suitable for all age of readers, entitled ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’, which makes a good Christmas present when combined with the 40th Anniversary DVD with DVD extras.
I graduated from the University of Durham with a degree in anthropology and went straight into the mayhem of the BBC. I worked on a number of drama serials, filming on location in London, Paris and Corfu, and produced INSET programmes for Schools Television before setting up documentaries for the Natural History Unit and ‘Blue Peter’ in Southern Africa. I was based on a game reserve where we ran horse safaris. Disaster struck when I broke my pelvis but I used my time on crutches to turn professional as a wildlife artist. My sketches proved useful to illustrate my first books. I now live on the south coast of England where I use my spare time to raise funds for charitable projects in South Africa.
How did you get started writing?
I began by writing for television. It was a matter of putting my own programmes together and working with BBC Books to bring out accompanying literature. I seemed to be forever submitting blurbs for the Radio Times. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that I started writing books. I self-published ‘Funnily Enough’, that won an international book award, and ‘Ride the Wings of Morning’, made up of the letters I sent home from Africa about riding horses through the wilderness.
Can you tell readers about your latest book?
The publishers Classic TV Press asked if they could bring out a paperback version of ‘The Making of SWALLOWS & AMAZONS’, a memoir I’d launched as an ebook under a similar title. As a child I played Titty Walker in the classic movie of Arthur Ransome’s book, shot on location in the Lake District in 1973. I used the daily account I kept as a 12 year-old to guide the narrative, adding anecdotes as to how disaster was averted. It has appeal for anyone who grew up in the ‘seventies or enjoys light-hearted biographies.
What else have you written recently?
I am just finishing a novel based on a true story from WWII entitled ‘Makorongo’s War’. I’ve recently written Forwards to ‘An A-Z: Cumbria and the Lake District on Film’ for Hayloft Publishing and ‘Swallowdale’ by Arthur Ransome for Albatros Media in the Czech Republic. I’m currently working on a Forward to ‘Swallows, Amazons and Coots’ by Julian Lovelock soon to be published by Lutterworth Press. Revelation Films asked me to write material for the DVD Extras of ‘Swallows and Amazons Forever!’ and since ‘Funnily Enough’ was serialised in a magazine I’ve had feature articles in Cotswold Life, Country Life, Classic Sailor and Word in Action.
Have you got a favourite genre to read? If so why?
I get totally engrossed in the memoirs I use for research but my book club keep me reading popular literary fiction.
Which writer or writers has had the most influence on your own writing?
Since I write true-life stories, I would say Monica Dickens, Helene Hanff and CS Lewis. I was hugely influenced in my youth by Gerald Durrell and James Herriot, both of whom I met when I was working in television and was impacted by how well their memoirs translated to the screen.
Where is your favourite place to write?
A thatched cottage deep in the African bush, where I can escape everyday life. I use two rooms at home on the south coast of England – one for admin and one for books.
Pen or keyboard?
Laptop, I’m afraid. It’s not good for the posture. The original material for my last three books was handwritten but had to be typed up. My prehistoric computer sadly died when I was writing my first book in South Africa and I couldn’t afford to buy a new one. Miraculously, a brand new PC was donated to the local primary school. The teachers had no idea how to use it, so I introduced them to Microsoft Word in exchange for being able to work on my book while they were busy in the classroom. I sat at a low desk on one of those tiny red plastic school chairs until I had 100,000 words and the headmistress gained computer literacy.
How would you describe your writing regime?
The ideal would be to escape to South Africa for a couple of months to get my first draft on paper so I can assimilate research material or type all day long. I would then work on the structure and keeping adding material every afternoon back at home. I find my mornings are occupied with marketing. Since I was appointed President of The Arthur Ransome Society, which is the second biggest literary society in the UK, I spend quite a few weekends giving talks.
Titty was the name of an imaginative and ‘highly original’ little girl who Arthur Ransome first got to know in the Lake District when she was aged eight. When I met her niece Barbara Altounyan, she was most amused to hear that I had once played her Auntie Titty.
~Sophie Neville playing Titty Altounyan in the 1974 film ‘Swallows & Amazons’. Official photograph taken a Bank Ground Farm above Coniston Water copyright: StudioCanal~
I’d brought Barbara some long lost family photographs that included some of Titty’s wedding in Aleppo. They are beautiful.
Titty on the arm of her father, Dr Ernest Altounyan in Aleppo, 1954
Titty on her wedding day with her husband Melkon Guzelian, her sister-in-law, her father Ernest Altounyan, her mother Dora and brother Roger, far right. You can also see Roger, Ernest and Dora below, with Roger’s wife standing far right.
There is also a more informal shot.
‘Don’t you want to know about Titty?’ Barbara asked me. ‘She was a very detailed person and quite a perfectionist.’ I knew she was a wonderful artist who had studied under Henry Moore at the Chealsea School of Art. Although she produced a lot of colourful art, she was unwilling to ever attempt to sell her work. I was also told she also had long legs. I only hope that I have represented her well.
Titty Altounyan at her sister Brigit’s wedding to John Sanders in 1953
(NB: Ransome did not write ‘Swallows and Amazons’ while on holiday on Coniston Water as was stated in the programme. To see a photograph of Low Ludderburn, the house above Windermere where Arthur Ransome lived and wrote ‘Swallows and Amazons’ please click here and scroll down.)
You can read about what it was like to play the part of Able Seaman Titty in the original film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in this illustrated paperback, available online or to order from libraries worldwide:
Simon West and Sophie Neville as brother and sister on Peel Island in 1973
I had dinner with Captain John last night. It was extraordinary meeting up after forty years; a lifetime had whizzed by.
Tall, with dark hair, Simon West is no longer recognisable as John Walker but he looks back fondly on our time making the film ofArthur Ransome’s book Swallows and Amazons in 1973, when we spent seven weeks of the summer term on location in the Lake District. To my surprise he doesn’t remember being cold at all. I claim that he was given a few more clothes to wear than me and had more to concentrate on. He was at the helm whilst I was a mere able-seaman in Swallow. He said that he hated it when she was wired to the pontoon and he had to pretend he was sailing.
Simon West and Suzanna Hamilton sailing Swallow from Peel Island where Sophie Neville stands shivering on the shore. Was this shot filmed from a camera pontoon?
Simon thought that I probably remember more about the experience than he did because my mother was there, chatting about what was going on every evening and naturally re-enforcing the shared experience.
‘I must have kept a diary, as it was part of our schoolwork, but I haven’t seen it since. I’ll look in my parent’s attic.’ Simon thought that it was his mother who put together an album from the black and white photos that Richard Pilbrow gave us after the filming.
Simon West as Captain John sailing Swallow near Peel Island on Coniston Water. Sten Grendon plays the Boy Roger in the bows.
Simon said that he remembers more about filming the six-part BBC serial, ‘Sam and the River’, in which he had the title role in 1974. Much of it was shot on the Thames Tideway east of London. ‘Of course all those places have changed enormously since then, whilst the Lakes are very much the same. I have never been able to find a copy of that series, which is a shame. I’d love to see it.’ We can’t find a copy in English, but there is a version in German entitled ‘Tom und die Themse’ currently for sale on DVD here.
Simon’s own children grew up watching Swallows & Amazons, which is still broadcast once or twice a year on television. He said that when they went to see the Warner Bros. Studios in Hertfordshire where much of the Harry Potter movies were made he felt hugely appreciative of the fact that we had been out on location the whole time, rather than boxed up on a film stage, acting against a green back ground.
Claude Whatham wearing his American Parker coat, as Dennis Lewiston and Eddie Collins line up a shot over Derwentwater at dawn
Simon did remember the great Parker coats that Richard and Claude found to cope with the Cumbrian weather. So do I. My father bought one too. They were blue-grey and enormous, lined with fake sheepskin, their hoods edged with Eskimo-like fake fur.
‘They had recently come over from America,’ he explained, ‘And were a real innovation. Before that we just had tweed coats.’
‘And Mackintoshes. Dennis Lewsiton wore a blue Mac.’
‘Those dreadful nylon anoraks,’
‘That are back in fashion.’
‘The American Parkers are fashionable now too – all that fake fur around the hood. Uggh.’
Suddenly the cogs of close association clicked in. Simon tossed his head in a certain way that I recognised as his own expression of humour. He said that he was really pleased that Bobby Moore chatted to him at the film Premier at Shaftesbury Avenue.
‘Sir Booby Moore? Was he there? Did we meet him?’
‘Yes.’
I’d totally forgotten.
Simon said that he had become very attached to his Parker fountain pen from Aspreys, engraved with the words ‘Swallows & Amazons- 1973’, that Claude Whatham gave to each of us as a gift after the filming. ‘Stupidly I left in the boot of my car when I was in Paris, aged about twenty-seven. It was stolen with a load of other things.’ I had lost mine too. I dropped it on a footpath somewhere in Durham.
‘What did you spend your fee on?’
‘Oh, sailing dinghies. It was good to know I had £500 in the bank around the time I was heading towards the British Championships. You know, at first we had ply board hulls but the time came when I needed to buy a fibreglass boat.’ It was with this that he became the National Optimist Champion. We agreed it was money put to good use.
After the age of about sixteen, Simon’s family became interested in orienteering. Maps seems to have had a strong influence on both our lives.
Simon West as John Walker studying the chart at Holly Howe before the voyage.
Simon and his wife now have four grown children. ‘We are split down the middle: three of us sail, three of us do not.’ But every year he takes the family up to the Lake District to go fell walking, something they all enjoy very much.
If anyone sees a brushed steel Parker pen on eBay engraved with the words ‘Swallows & Amazons 1973’ please let me know. I’d love to be able to return it to Captain John.
Here you can see Simon appearing in ‘Sam and the River’(1975). This is the German version entitled Tom und die Themse:
You can read more about our adventures making Swallows and Amazons in these books, available online:
Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’
Sten Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville as the Walker children in 1973
In this morning’s despatches ~ via the Royal Mail ~ a letter arrived saying, ‘I’m sure we would all love to know how the recent screening of the film went and how you enjoyed the experience.’
Last Sunday, Suzanna Hamilton and Sten Grendon joined me at the Michael Croft Theatre for a specialscreening of Richard Pilbrow’s 1974 adaption of ‘Swallows & Amazons’ put on for an audience of excited children by Dulwich Film. We hadn’t watched the movie together since the premiere at the ABC in Shaftesbury Avenue in 1974. I hadn’t even seen Sten since that year. As we walked into the darkened auditorium, Sten’s girlfriend, who struck me as being rather special, insisted that we sat together to watch the film.
Blurred memories do come rushing back. I never managed to produce a real owl hoot. Simon could – and I am sure Captain Nancy was adept, but it was all the trying to that brought us together.
Director Claude Whatham at the Landing Place on Wild Cat Island with Suzanna Hamilton, Simon West, Sten Grendon and Sophie Neville
And as I watched the one thing that really struck me was, ‘How big Landing Place beach was then!’ I found myself leaning over and whispering to Sten that it has all but washed away. He didn’t know that the beach had been especially constructed for the film. It had been kept a secret.
Rehearsing a scene on the Landing Place with Swallow
Our experience of making the film in 1973 was really quite technical. It was a wet summer and we had something of a battle against the elements to complete the scenes scheduled for each day. Back then, the aim was to capture enough footage to make the equivalent of 4 minutes of film in the final edit. You’d think this would be easy but each frame had to bear scrutiny on the big screen. Since attention to detail was paramount, even making scrambled eggs in front of the camera was a demanding task.
As the wind blew north up Coniston Water we joined in the concentration required for the task of film-making. We were in Cumbria to work back then, even if working in the Lake District was something of an adventure, something we did for fun.
Sten Grendon on set with Claude Whatham and Suzanna Hamilton
So when we relax back and watch the film now we have a huge appreciation of what Claude Whatham put together. We laughed out loud, appreciating the humour. Much of this was generated by the serious expression on Roger’s face when he was picking up the why and wherefore of how something worked for the first time. It’s been a rare and ageless form of comedy that children loved forty years ago and evidently still love today. They always notice, ‘the bit when Roger doesn’t realise the cap is on the telescope.’ Adults love the fact that Roger always seems to be eating.
‘Oh yes!’ Sten remembered afterwards. ‘That pork pie I ate standing in the Amazon River. I was offered the choice of eating a meat pie or an apple. Well, I chose the pie, but it wasn’t so great when I had to eat another for the second take, and then another two for a different camera set-up.’
Isn’t it funny how well one can remember food?
Sten Grendon as Roger Walker and Suzanna Hamilton as Susan Walker on Peel Island
‘Are you really old?’
‘Not so very old, by I was younger then,’ as Virginia McKenna said in the guise of Mrs Walker remembering her days camping in homemade tents. I bet someone asked Arthur Ransome the very same question.
I grew taller and had my teeth put straight. Same straggly hair. Sten still has all his thick dark hair and is quite tall himself. He works as a gardener now. Suzanna still has the biggest smile. She is the one who now needs to stand on a camera box but then she is the only one of us who does. What I mean to say is that she is the professional actress. We just turn up for fun.
‘And the others?’
I don’t know. Really, I don’t know. I’d love to see them again but am quietly waiting for them to contact me. I hope they do. I have the first proof of a book to send them – it’s the diary I kept whilst making the film, forty years ago.
Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton and Sten Grendon in 2013
Sophie Neville 