Westmorland – Page 7

What do children of today think of ‘SWALLOWS & AMAZONS’ (1974)?

Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton, Daphne Neville, Stephen Grendon, Lesley Bennett, Kit Seymour and Simon West promoting SWALLOWS & AMAZONS in 1973 ~ photo Woman magazine

My mother had found a purple suede Donny Osmond hat. Amazing. We were shivering, wearing our costumes in London to promote the film of Arthur Ransome’s book ‘Swallows and Amazons’ produced by Richard Pilbrow back in 1973 and released by EMI in April 1974. It’s forty years since we went up for a sailing weekend at Burnham-on-Crouch to audition for the parts.

What do children of today think of the story – of the DVD of the movie we made back in 1973? Into Film say it is one of their ‘most popular titles’.

sophie018 — Director Claude Whatham wearing my mother’s Donny Osmond hat. This is the one that sunk to the bottom of Derwentwater. Here they are on Peel Island on Coniston Water filming SWALLOWS & AMAZONS in 1973 with a 35mm Panavision camera

There are some very well considered reviews of the DVD on the Amazon site. Those who mention how children feel include:

Swallows and Amazons Forever! I recently bought this for my 9 year old daughter and 7 year old son for Christmas, the film having been one of my favorite children’s films when I was young – before animated space-zombie-machines ruled the earth. Both children thoroughly enjoyed the film and after the first 5 minutes of watching, I felt like I’d only watched it very recently: The genuine proof of a time-less classic. A great film even by today’s standards if you like to let your kids just be kids…… S.Tully, 2011

A really lovely DVD: My 8 year-old daughter loves Famous Five style adventure books so hoped she might enjoy the Swallows and Amazons DVD. I was however a little concerned that she might find it a little old fashioned. I needn’t have worried, as she loved it and watched it over and over again. A very sweet and enjoyable adventure. ~ Smudge, 2012

A double helping of nostalgia For adults, this DVD is a double scoop of nostalgia – for the original Swallows and Amazons books and the era they were set in and for the 1970s when this film was made. The film is a pretty good adaptation of the book, with just a few incidents omitted, such as the final stormy night on the island. The actors, child and adult, are well-cast. Seeing Virginia McKenna again recalls films of the 1960s such as ‘Born Free’ and ‘Ring of Bright Water’.

I wondered how children would react to this, brought up as they are these days on CGI, Harry Potter and all the rest. However, my son (9) was gripped from start to finish. I think what is appealing is the sheer independence of the children, their capability and the good old-fashioned adventures outdoors messing about in boats. Overall, a good unpretentious piece of family entertainment. ~ Secret Spi, Germany 2010

This is a fantastic movie. My daughter (6 yr old) loves the adventures that the children put together using their imagination. It is a fabulous childhood, the one we all use to have. Good clean fun for the whole family and the child actors are obviously having a great time as well. Highly recommended. J.Kennedy, Sydeny Australia 2010

Excellent kids adventure: I loved this as a kid and I bought it having read the story to my two boys. It is as good as I remembered it and I was completely amazed that my two boys love it as much as I did, if not more. They watch it again and again ~ Aldous Huxley, 2010

Classic kids film – just watch it with a group from 4 years to 11 and they all loved it. ~ Mike, 2011

Great film for children: we were extremely pleased to find this on DVD after our daughter, aged 5, is loving reading through the books together. It is a very informative & sweet adventure tale. It is so nice to find a traditional film she can safely watch & enjoy. ~ KTP, 2011

Still as good as I remember!! I have watched with my girls and they both love this as much as I did and still do!!! Good adventurous fun with no bad language, I would recommend. ~ Angel, 2011

Excellent DVD for children 5 and upwards. My grandchildren greatly enjoyed it as I enjoyed the books when I was a youngster. ~ John 2011

The Princess of Wales experienced the ‘Swallows and Amazons’ life style in Cumbria

The Duchess of Cambridge cooking on a campfire in Cumbria

“The Duchess of Cambridge,” as she was known in March 2013, “showed she was fully prepared when she braved the snowy weather to visit a Scout camp in the Lake District today.”

“Her Royal Highness, who is a volunteer in the Scout Association, joined fellow adult volunteers as they trained to work with Beaver and Cub Scouts at the Great Tower Scout Camp near Newby Bridge in Cumbria. She used her training to help look after a group of Cub Scouts from Cumbria and Manchester taking part in a pack holiday event at the 250-acre activity centre close to Lake Windermere. As part of their programme, the Cub Scouts will get a chance to try outdoor cooking, fire-lighting and tree-climbing under the guidance of The Duchess and the other volunteers.”

To read more, visit princehenryofwales.org

According to Claudia Joseph’s biography of Kate ‘Princess in Waiting’, the Duchess is distantly related both to Beatrix Potter and Arthur Ransome. The link is explained by the Daily Mail here

My mother, Daphne Neville wearing a Donny Osmond hat in 1973 on location for SWALLOWS & AMAZONS — My mother, Daphne Neville wearing a Donny Osmond hat in 1973 on location in the Lake District filming Richard Pilbrow’s movie SWALLOWS & AMAZONS

The Duchess is obviously fond of Donny Osmond hats. My mother wore one on location in the Lake District whilst filming SWALLOWS & AMAZONS (1974) . She can be seen here teaching Lesley Bennett, who played Peggy Blackett, to shoot with a bow and arrow for the scene on Wild Cat Island when the Amazons attack the Swallows who are occupying their camp.

Claude Whatham in Mum's hat with Brenda Bruce — Claude Whatham in Mum’s hat with Brenda Bruce

Our Director, Claude Whatham took a shine to it and would put it on to amuse us, although in this instance he was wearing it for warmth, probably like the Duchess on Friday. Click on the photo above to see me wearing the original purple velvet, 1973 winter season designer version, bought in Carnaby Street. I wear it all the time. It is very useful in this weather.

Peter Walker has found more photos of the Duchess in Cumbria in the Westmorland Gazette ~ she was visiting a scout camp next door to Low Ludderburn where Arthur Ransome wrote ‘Swallows and Amazons’ about a mile above Blakeholme, the island on Windermere he originally envisaged as Wild Cat Island.

Is the Duchess a ‘Swallows and Amazons’ fan?

‘The Secrets of Filming ‘Swallows and Amazons’ – the book trailer ~

With thanks to Richard Pilbrow and Theatre Projects who produced SWALLOWS & AMAZONS (1974)

~ but please share with your friends ~

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To read the filmography posts about the 1974 film please go to ~ https://sophieneville.net/category/autobiography/

The Gondola on Coniston Water in 1973 ~ photo: Martin Neville

The new film adaptation of ‘Swallows and Amazons'(2016)

Sophie Neville with Swallow on Coniston Water, Cumbria

Nick Barton of Harbour Pictures, in collaboration with BBC Films, launched a new adaptation of Swallows and Amazons on 19th August 2016.

I had joined him and his wife on the first recce to the Lake District back in 2011, staying at Bank Ground Farm, sailing Swallow on Coniston Water and taking a boat trip down Lake Windermere in Cumbria. He went on to find locations on Derwentwater and in Yorkshire with his director Philippa Lowthorpe who developed the new script with Andrea Gibb.

To see a clip of the opening scenes, starring Kelly Macdonald and Andrew Scott – please click here

If you want to know what it was like to be in the film made back in 1973 ~ please click here: https://sophieneville.net/category/autobiography/

To read more about the making of the 1974 classic, take a look at my book ‘The Making Of Swallows and Amazons’

Is ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974) one of the 50 Greatest British Films?

Nominate your favourite British Film

Here are Barry Norman’s 49 top British films as listed on the Radio Times website:

Barry Lyndon (1975)
Black Narcissus (1947)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Brief Encounter (1945)
Chariots of Fire (1981)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
The Cruel Sea (1952)
The Dam Busters (1954)
Dr No (1958)
Don’t Look Now (1973)
Dracula (1958)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
The Full Monty (1997)
Gandhi (1982)
Get Carter (1971)
Gladiator (2000)
Great Expectations (1946)
Gregory’s Girl (1980)
Henry V (1944)
I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)
If… (1968)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Kes (1969)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
The King’s Speech (2010)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
The Ladykillers (1955)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
Local Hero (1983)
The Long Good Friday (1979)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)
Naked (1993)
The Railway Children (1970)
The Red Shoes (1948)
The Remains of the Day (1993)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)
Secrets & Lies (1995)
Sense and Sensibility (1995)
The Servant (1963)
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Skyfall (2012)
The Third Man (1949)
The 39 Steps (1935)
This Sporting Life (1963)
Trainspotting (1995)
Whisky Galore! (1949)
Zulu (1963)

Tell us which film you think is missing from this list.

Here is a letter I have from Barry Norman, received back in 1974:

Letter from Barry Norman April 1974

Magazine articles written about ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in 1974

Homes and Garden magazine ~ April 1974 — Kit Seymour, Stephen Grendon, Sophie Neville, Lesley Bennett, Virginia McKenna, Simon West Suzanna Hamilton and the station master of the Haverthwaite Steam Railway in Westmorland, appearing in the April edition of Homes and Garden 1974

Newspapers are read one day and on the kitchen floor the next. Back in 1974 they might have been used to wrap up fish and chips. Either way, an article in the ‘paper is soon forgotten. Not so a feature in a magazine. They tend to hang around in hotel foyers and doctor’s surgeries for waiting to have their pages turned for months, if not years. The judgement they cast on our movie was important.

Homes and Gardens April 19741 — Director Claude Whatham and Producer Richard Pilbrow on location in the summer of 1973 in the Lake District

To my surprise I found an article about how we spent the summer of 1973 in ‘Homes and Garden’ magazine.

Homes and Garden article page three — Photographs featuring Simon West, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville, Stephen Grendon, Lesley Bennett and Kit Seymour in the EMI film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’.

What amazed me was that the black and white photographs taken on the film set had been colour tinted. Please forgive my scanning – the pages were stuck in albums long ago and the images blur at the edge.

Homes and Gardens April 1974 — Stephen Grendon, Simon West, Virginia McKenna, Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville on location at Bank Ground Farm in Cumbria

Surely she was the journalist also known by her married name of Elspeth Huxley, the author who had written The Flame Trees of Thika and so many other books? She wasn’t quite right in saying the film was shot entirely on location in the Lake District, but still. She was not to know about our day at Runnymede.

The Tatler 4th April 1974 — Simon West, Sophie Neville and Suzanna Hamilton appearing in The Tatler

Films Illustrated ~ April 19741 — Virginia McKenna in an article in Films Illustrated, April 1974

We were in both Punch and The Sunday People. My mother saved them all, scratching lines alongside the paragraphs in which I was mentioned.

and The Tablet.

What’s On and the News of the World:

The April addition of the film fan magazine Photoplay, which featured Steve McQueen on the cover. It cost 20p in those days.

and a publishing magazine I hadn’t heard of called Smith’s Trade News ~

Smith's Trade News 1974 — Virginia McKenna eating a banana with Claude Whatham outside the catering bus with quite a good photo of Swallow wired to the camera pontoon

The true story is told in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ available online in different formats including an audiobook.

'The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville' — Different editions of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974) by Sophie Neville’

Publicity photographs used to promote ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in the early 1970s – or how we hated having our photographs taken.

A publicty photograph for 'Swallows and Amazons' — Lesley Bennett, Suzanna Hamilton, Stephen Grendon, Sophie Neville, Virginia McKenna, Simon West and Kit Seymour gathered at Bank Ground Farm above Coniston Water for a publicity photograph. This one was taken by Daphne Neville.

When a television drama is ready to be transmitted there is a little publicity, but not much. Photographs might be taken for the cover of the Radio Times or a book to accompany the series, there might be a Preview at BAFTA to which journalists from the colour supplements and daily newspapers are invited, but, because the programme can be advertised on air, the actors are not intensively involved in the promotion. A feature film is very different.

Whilst we didn’t mind our photographs being taken while we were acting, and were fine about Mum clicking away with her little instamatic, we all hated having promotional photographs taken for ‘Swallows and Amazons’. They were usually so posed, set up by strangers who had no idea of the story. Virginia McKenna tried to make it fun for us but this is what we all felt about this photo-call:

Virginia McKena, Lesley Bennett, Stephen Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton, Sophie Neville, Simon West, Kit Seymour for 'Swallows and Amazons' — ~ How not to set up a publicity shot for a feature film ~

Why were the Amazons at Holly Howe? Why weren’t we with any of the boats? It was all terribly hot and difficult to squint into the sunshine. Only Mrs Batty’s dog seemed to be enjoying the attention.

The glare of the flash bulbs had started on day one. As Suzanna said in her diary, it made us feel ‘right twits.’

Claude Whatham was very good at explaining things to children. Looking back I wish that he had explained why the publicity was so important, but of course this was not his job and he would have been busy setting up the next shot. Certainly once the filming had finished we needed to know how important it was to promote the film. Richard Pilbrow really wanted to make a sequel, particularly an adaptation of Ransome’s twelfth book in the series – ‘Great Northern?’ He loves the Outer Hebrides and has a house on Col. I think we might have been a little keener about publicity shots if we had been told that the out-come could have been going up there for another summer. We would have been able to look forward to the possibility, but I don’t suppose he was at leave to even suggest it.

Journalists were introduced to us and looked after by our unit publicist Brian Doyle. Brian had worked on ‘Straw Dogs’ in 1971, the thriller that starred Dustin Hoffman, Susan George and Peter Vaughan. Susan George had of course played Titty, or ‘Kitty’ in the black and white BBC adaptation of Swallows and Amazons in the early 1960s. She was now regarded as glamorous sex symbol in British cinema – setting me rather a daunting example. Much easier for Brian to publicise her then me. She had a gorgeous figure with beautiful, thick, blonde, hair. I had what my sister still calls ‘tendrils’ and my mother calls ‘bits’. And was skinny with crooked teeth.

Brian was a lovely man. He had an amazing career, going on to work on films such as Ken Russell’s Valentino with Rudolf Nureyev and Leslie Caron, The Wild Geese, Alien, Educating Rita starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters and the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only – with Roger Moore in the lead role . He even has his name on the credits of one of George Lucas’ Star Wars films.

This was the profile he wrote for me:

Brian adored Children’s literature. His own children came up to stay on location over their half-term and spent hours playing with my sisters, indeed they all appeared together as extras in the scenes shot at Bowness, and can be seen playing on the beach. Sadly Brian died, very suddenly, in 2008. His daughter told me that he left a collection of 35,000 books.

I still have Brian’s announcement:

At this the journalists moved in. From all over the place!

There was a very trendy women’s magazine in the early 1970s called Over 21, which the senior girls at school used to read. My mother was thrilled to find that Celia Brayfield had written a double page feature. I was amazed. I didn’t mind the picture of us gutting fish, but started reading with trepidation.

(If you can read this, I’m afraid page one comes second.)

Over Twenty One — Over 21 ~ December 1973

I read it, looked up the word etiolated in the dictionary and burst into tears.

Far worse was to come.

Desperation, music and laughter ~ the filming of ‘Swallows and Amazons’, 12th July 1973

Film Director Claude Whatham — Director Claude Whatham

Our director, Claude Whatham had a problem. Despite two attempts he had failed to shoot the key scene when the Walker children – who had just arrived at Holly Howe – discover the Peak at Darien and look out over the lake to spot Wild Cat Island for the very first time. He saw it as crucial to the motivation of the story.

Claude had shot the sequence of us running down the field at Bank Ground Farm in the evening light. He had what would technically be called our POV (point of view) of the island. He had nothing in between. There was no dialogue but without the right light the sequence would not cut together. And now it was raining, endlessly. We waited around all day, yet again, hoping for the weather to clear. It did not.

I can’t believe that we went, what would now be termed, wild swimming in the Lake District after making such a fuss about recording the swimming scenes at Peel Island. Even if it was raining the water must have been fairly warm. I don’t suppose we were in for that long. I’m now rather shocked that we dried our hair by sticking our heads out of the windows of the mini-bus. We could have all been decapitated.

While Claude was busy looking at the sky I spent the rest of the day industriously sticking small photographs into my scrap-book. Mum had her camera films developed by Triple Print so that she had some to give away. This was the result:

Two of these tiny photographs show us sitting in the Grizedale Forest with Wilfred Josephs who composed the music for Swallows and Amazons. He had visited us on location when we were shooting the charcoal burners scenes. If I blow up this tiny photograph you can see a little more of him.

Wilfred Josephs

Wilfred had written a canon with the idea that he could do something musical with our voices. Our efforts were being recorded by Robin and his assistant when Mum took these snap shots. The words went in a round, like this:

Swallows: ‘Swallows sail the ocean-wide, Natives we can not abide.’ (Sung in a high register)

Amazons: ‘We are the Amazons.’ (Sung beneath us in a low register)

What Wilfred soon discovered was that, apart from Lesley Bennett, we were all pretty useless at holding a tune. Whatever was recorded on that day near the charcoal burners’ hut never made it to the final sound track – or even the LP that EMI brought out to accompany the movie.

Wilfred Josephs on location in Cumbria — Composer Wilfred Josephs with Sophie Neville, Lesley Bennett, Claude Whatham, Kit Seymour, Simon West and sound recordist Robin Gregory ~ photo: Daphne Neville

Mum was thrilled to meet Wilfred Josephs. He was fantastically talented, with a huge list of credits to his name. Born in 1927, he qualified as a dentist at the Universtity of Durham ~ where I also studied ~ before becoming a full-time composer in the early 1960s. His career was launched when his Requiem in memory of the Jews who were lost to the Holocaust won La Scala. He went on to compose 12 symphonies, 22 concertos and was commissioned to write a number of overtures, ballets, operas and other vocal works. In the field of television he is perhaps most well know for producing the theme music for I,Claudius, Enemy at the Door, The Prisoner and Pollyanna. He worked for Claude Whatham on the movie score for All Creatures Great and Small that starred Anthony Hopkins and Simon Ward, as well as the television drama W.Somerset Maugham and the serial Disraeli, which Suzanna Hamilton appeared in.

In the early 1970s Wilfred had also composed the theme music for Claude’s BBC play of Laurie Lee’s auto-biography Cider with Rosie, which Sten and I had acted in. Wilfred Josephs sadly died at the age of seventy, but I found that someone has put his haunting composition for Cider with Rosie onto YouTube. It was so good to hear it again. It comes with colourful cider-making images but – unless passionate about cider – you can have a look at more of my scrapbook while you listen to it. Like the film-score to Swallows and Amazons the orchestra was conducted by Marcus Dods.

Some of these tiny photographs from the contact sheets that Richard Pilbrow gave us are fascinating.

You can read more about making the film in the ebook entitled ‘The Secrets of Making Swallows and Amazons’ here:

You can listen to Wilfred Owen’s haunting music for ‘Cider With Rosie’ here

The 50th Day ~ making the movie ‘Swallows and Amazons’, 11th July 1973

Producer Richard Pilbrow with Neville C Thompson on Derwentwater in the Lake District in 1973 — Producer Richard Pilbrow with production associate Neville C Thompson on Derwentwater in the Lake District in 1973

This photograph of Richard and Neville sitting on the deck of Captain Flint’s houseboat in the pouring rain must epitomize the struggles they went through to work around the weather and bring ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in on budget.

It was Claude Whatham’s dream to end the movie with an aerial shot of Swallow and Amazon sailing away from Captain Flint’s houseboat. He had a helicopter pilot standing-by with a special cameraman, but it wasn’t to be. He needed bright sunshine for the shot to cut with our farewell sequence after the battle. We waited three days but the weather was too dull and wet to film anything useful. I’m so glad. Claude ended up freezing the simple shot that captures Arthur Ransome’s book completely. It was used on the front of one of the first VHS copies of the movie.

'Swallows and Amazons' on VHS — The Amazons, played by Kit Seymour, Lesley Bennet and the Swallows, played by Sophie Neville, Suzanna Hamilton, Simon West and Stephen Grendon on the cover of the original VHS version of ‘Swallows and Amazons’

I’m afraid we hung about the very nice Waterhead Hotel in Ambleside getting bored and precocious, or so the evidence suggests. Since John and Margaret, our location caterers, had returned to Pinewood Studios, we were taken to the hotel restaurant for lunch.

We loved the cinema in Ambleside. Was it the same then as Zeffirellis, the cinema in Compston Road operating today? The adults must have found it a good means of keeping us peacefully entertained, but then again they were all film-makers who loved movies. Zanna didn’t come to the cinema that afternoon. She walked four miles up Wanstell Pike with Jane Grendon.

Albert Clarke, the stills photographer on the film crew, had given us contact sheets of the black and white photographs that he had taken during the filming. I spent my time at the Kirkstone Foot Hotel, where Claude and Richard were staying, with a tube of Copydex ~ or ‘rubber solution glue’, as they kept saying on Blue Peter, sticking the tiny photographs into the scrap books that I had been keeping.

Richard Pilbrow kindly let us choose large 10’x 8′ versions of the photographs, which we are able to take home to our families. I kept mine all these years, never using them for anything, but treasuring them as a memory of those happy, fulfilling days spent in Cumbria in 1973.

Black and White photograph of a waterfall in the Lake District — ‘It’s Niagara!’ Titty declared. ‘We could get a barrel and bounce down it.’ Sten Grendon, Suzanna Hamilton, Simon West and Sophie Neville as the Swallows on their way to visit the charcoal burners

You can now read about making the movie in the ebook ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’ or the paperback entitled, ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974)’ available at most online distributors or to order from your library or local bookshop.

'The Making of Swallows and Amazons (1974)' — published by The Lutterworth Press

The dangers of filming discussed during our last days making ‘Swallows and Amazons’ on 10th July 1973

Claude Whatham showing the 16mm camera to Simon West and Sophie Neville. Sue Merry and Denis Lewiston. — Director Claude Whatham letting Simon West and Sophie Neville handle the 35mm Ariflex. Sue Merry and Denis Lewiston can be seen behind us.

When Suzanna Hamilton brought me the diary she kept during the filming of Swallows and Amazons we had time to reflect on the seven weeks we spent together in the Lake District during that far off summer of 1973.

‘We were beautifully looked after,’ she said. ‘I mean we were really well cared for. Look – Jane took me fell walking.’ Our diaries record that our local driver Jane McGill also went to endless lengths to make things fun for us – ever with safety afore-thought.

Jane Grendon on Coniston — Jane Grendon, Sten’s mother and one of our two chaperones who took us fell walking.

She was right. Jane Grendon, who was Sten’s mother, and Daphne Neville, my mother, were our official chaperones. They worked day and night with very little time to themselves.

Both had left younger children and animals at home in Gloucestershire with their husbands, which can’t have been easy.

Sophie Neville on location film Swallows and Amazons in 1973 — A photo taken of the swing at our unit base opposite Peel Island earlier in the filming when the school bus and caterers were still around

Mum later wrote an article for Woman magazine saying that being a chaperone was ‘Fascinating, Fattening and Fun’, but it must have been exhausting. It would have been quite a trial preventing us from getting sunburnt let alone keeping us entertained.

Daphne Neville with Sophie Neville and Simon West on Coniston Water — Daphne Neville, having organised Sophie Neville and Simon West into track-suits, life jackets, sun hats and the safety boat in 1973

When we had to do anything scary or unpleasant during the filming of Swallows and Amazons, such as walk through scratchy brambles, Claude Whatham would assuage any moans by awarding us ‘Danger Money’. It was a huge encouragement. He gave me £2.00 for being good about diving into the chilly water for the swimming scenes. It was a lot of money back then. My mother would make a careful note of it whilst we were still in costume.

A list of who had earned Danger Money written by my mother on the back of a Script Revision page

We spent our gains in Ambleside buying presents to take back for the stay-at-homes. I think we might have received a little more after Swallow was nearly mown down by the Windermere Steamer, an incident which had actually been dangerous. I am not sure what Kit and Lesley had been doing to receive £1 each. They may have just got wet and cold sailing.

Daphne Neville with Sophie Neville while filming 'Swallows and Amazons' in Cumbria — Daphne Neville with Sophie Neville while filming ‘Swallows and Amazons’ in Cumbria. Kit Seymour is walking along the jetty in the background.

After all the rushing about in boats, the risks taken clambering from one vessel to another and inevitable dangers that we faced out on the water, it was the boredom involved in filming that proved most dangerous; children’s games that went terribly wrong ~

This was the swing in question, strung from a tree on the shores of Coniston Water opposite Peel Island where a couple were living in a wooden caravan. The white ‘Make-Up’ caravan, that had previously been used as a dressing room for Virginia McKenna, and later Ronald Fraser, is parked beside it. It was there that I was sent to lie down.

The swing opposite Peel Island by Coniston Water — A snap shot taken earlier in the year of my little sister on the swing at the Unit Base opposite Peel Island ~ photo: Martin Neville

It was a shame that the baseball game Molly organised ended so abruptly. We enjoying it and longed to keep playing but she realised that it could so easily have been one of us who ended up with a black-eye.

Stephen Grendon who played Roger Walker — Stephen Grendon, longing to climb a tree whilst in costume

At one stage we all got into whittling wood. Bod Hedges, the property master, made a number of props on location. Different versions of the Amazons’ bows and arrows were carved from hazel on the banks of Coniston Water. He also made forked uprights for the fireplace and various stakes for the charcoal burners’ scene. Suzanna bought a penknife with her Danger Money and became quite a keen carver until the knife slipped. Jean treated the cut finger with such a massive bandage that Claude put a firm stop to any future whittling. It had been the one thing that kept us quiet. We were active children yet not allowed to climb trees or get wet. Instead Lesley Bennet plucked away at a tapestry and I painted pictures.

Arthur Ransome - Jermey Fisher Frog — A bad copy of Beatrix Potter’s Jeremy Fisher Frog, looking not unlike Arthur Ransome.

Possibly the biggest danger was getting too fond of the primary objective – catching the bug that is film-making. Richard and Claude still had a few vital scenes to record and yet the weather forecast was bleak.