Google my name – Sophie Neville – and you will come across rather astonishing newspaper headlines ingrained in the internet’s listing system. They are remarkably popular articles.
Everyone, it seems, wants to know what it is like to be called Titty.
Titty is not my own name, but I have been known as Titty since 1973, which is quite a time for a girl. It is a titualar title in that I have no power. I can do little more than respond with good humour to those who see me as a living representative of ‘Swallows and Amazons’. Like it or not, letters, emails and messages keep arriving addressed to Titty. They are all wonderful, some so enchanting they have been kept along with the old black and white stills taken on location. I attempt to answer each one.
Sophie Neville as Titty – a photo montage of put together by a fan of the film
It can be amusing – I found there was a Facebook group called ‘Titty from Swallows & Amazons is one hot cookie.’ When I asked to join the group, all the other members fled. You can see for yourself. It is still there. I am pretty sure they were a group of fashion students – or hope so.
I automatically respond when the name is called and wave back, as I’m sure the Able-seaman would. It is quite fun seeing the reaction of passers-by if children call out ‘Titty!’ when they see me coming, but as one church warden pointed out, ‘At least your real name is not John Prescott.’
What creepy people don’t seem realise is that I can see the words typed into search engines that bring people to my own website. I’ve had some crackers. It was the navy blue gym knickers I wore to play the part of Titty that attracted quite a bit of unfortunate attention. I had to remove a few photographs featuring this particular item of my costume and talk about the green parrot instead. Children often ask if I still have one.
I woke one morning to a comment from Australia alerting me to a peTITTYon in the Daily Telegraph – you could cast your vote online ‘More support for Titty!’ was one cry.
Although Titty Walker is a fictional character, with adventures of her own, she was inspired by a real child known to Arthur Ransome when he was writing ‘Swallows and Amazons’ back in 1929. I have written about her here and have more photos of her on this website. Titty Altounyan’s real name was Norah Mavis Altounyan but she preferred the nickname of Titty. Ransome explained in a note to Miss Joyce Cartmell 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’. Tittymouse was a character in English folktale Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse.
If anything, Titty Altounyan lived rather reluctantly with the fame that came along when the novel became a bestseller. Her descendants were upset to hear that the character’s name was changed to Tatty in the 2016 film adaptation of ‘Swallows and Amazons’. Her daughter was tearful about the lack of consultation and her niece outraged. They saw it as ‘history being re-written’. Ransome was a journalist but what he would have thought of the editor of the Guardian coining the ‘Titty Tatty’ story, which others called ‘Tittle-Tattle’ or the ‘Tittygate debate’, I do not know.
I learned that it wasn’t until after 1929, that the word ‘titty’ took on meaning as a mammary gland. The character’s name was changed to Kitty when the BBC made a black and white television serial of the book back in 1962 when Susan George played the part. Ransome was still living in the Lake District at the time. He seemed to accept the name change, but loathed additions to the story-line and the attitude of the director who had wanted to blast rocks from the entrance to Peel Island on Coniston Water. As you can see from an earlier post, I was contracted to play the part of ‘Titania’ in the movie made in 1973, but the name TITTY was typed throughout the screenplay. Mrs Ransome was the script editor.
Simon West as John and Sophie Neville as Titty in Swallow 1973
Ransome’s brilliance was that he made Able-seaman Titty, the little sister into the heroine of ‘Swallows and Amazons’. CS Lewis did the same by making Lucy Pevensie heroine of The Chronicles of Nania. It is not surprising that most little girls reading the story want to ‘be Titty’. They don’t give a second thought to an alternative meaning to the name. It is accepted as genuine, and they tend to regard jokers as immature. ‘May I call you Titty?’ one five-year-old asked. What could I say? She knows that her cat has titties on her tummy but that’s not rude and it’s no reason to change the name in her eyes. I am assured that girls in the US don’t bat an eyelid. Boys may snicker at first but are soon swept away by the story.
The voyage really has proved Swallows and Amazons Forever. I warned the cast of the new movie that they were in for the long-haul – but it’s a voyage that I am sure will prove both amusing and delightful.
The crossed flags my publisher asked me to draw (with permission)
later used on the call sheet of the new movie
You can read about how I came by the part and what it was like to be on location in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ now available as an audio book.
Sophie Neville 