A write up of Sophie’s talk for BookBlest – the first Stroud Christian Book Festival – on The Making of Swallows and Amazons can be found on this website here
If you missed Sophie’s talk on ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’, you can read about her adventures in one of these editions, available online.
There is a brief resume of the talk on this website, here Prepare to be taken back to the 1970s:
Why is it that film posters have become more valuable than oil paintings ?
I have only just learned that the poster for the 1974 film of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ was painted by the Italian artist Arnaldo Putzu.
Thomas Connery enlightened me, writing: ‘Whether it be Space 1999, The Railway Children, The Rollers or Jaimie Sommers, he always captured likeness’ of stars faithfully and remarkably accurately.’
I agree. He portrayed Virginia McKenna well. I wonder how large the original painting was and if any of the sketches have survived.
I have been given brown eyes and look a bit worried but am hugely honoured to have been featured at all. Kit Seymour looked far more cheery.
A version of the artwork was used on cinema tickets, establishing the green parrot as one of the stars. I do like the way that Roger’s head looks out from the oval. This one gives Amazon a dark sail and shows the Amazons adopting different poses from on the poster. Nancy has folded arms and Peggy has her hands on her knees. Her stance is comic but a bit improbable. They have the wind behind them. What if the boat had gybed?
The ticket matched the souvenir programme for the film premier held in Shaftesbury Avenue on 4th April 1974. You can see inside this in an earlier post here.
I also have a large sepia poster given to my mother by a cinema. I can remember being too shy to ask for it, but she persevered. I haven’t seen another since.
As children, we all asked, ‘Who was sailing the boats?’ Magnus Smith, who now looks after Swallow, says that you can tie off the mainsheet and Susan could just about be controlling Swallow’s tiller, but Amazon looks a bit precarious. I don’t expect Arnaldo had any experience sailing dinghies. Ours were on a collision course, pitched at odd angles with rather high reefing points but he added a swashbuckling spirit, and a bit of white water spray, which is always exciting.
Arnaldo Putzu (1927-2012) began working for Rank in the 1950s and moved to London in 1967. He worked on the advertising material for many iconic movies including That’ll Be The Day, featuring David Essex and Ringo Starr, which Claude Whatham directed in 1972 prior to working on Swallows and Amazons for EMI Films. Is that the cover of the LP in the right hand corner? Claude Whatham gave me a copy. It included the song ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’.
This one is bordered by fairground lights, where as ours had been given the feel of a treasure map, with the credits on the reverse, which was clever. The original lettering, trendy in the mid-seventies, faded from fashion for a while but came back on-trend for the 40th Anniversary. The painting was somehow ageless, being used for the DVD cover up by StudioCanal until 2016. They still sell it as a jigsaw puzzle or on a mug.
According to The Guardian, ‘Putzu created some of the most famous Italian film posters of the 50s and early 60s, painting such stars as Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida.’ By 1973 ‘Putzu found himself the top-rated and most in-demand poster illustrator working in Britain. His output over the 1970s included oddball Hammer Horror fantasies such as Creatures the World Forgot and Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. For the Get Carter posters he put the ruthless gangster (played by) Michael Caine into an unlikely floral jacket, demonstrating the whimsical humour that makes his best posters unforgettable.’ An original of this poster signed by Michael Caine was once valued by Sotherby’s at between £4,000 to £6,000.
You can see more of of Putzu’s artwork here.
Lesley Bennett, who played Peggy, still has her copy of the original film poster. She should probably get it signed by the actors. Others were pasted in London Underground stations, which I found alarming as a child.
I spied a framed poster on display at Windermere Jetty Steamboat museum, where it was featured on BBC Antiques Roadshow. There is more about the movie memorabilia, which was valued by the expert Marc Allum, here.
Some originals have been for sale on this site here. Studiocanal sell various prints here.
You can read about the adventures we had making the movie in ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons’ and the multi-media ebook entitled ‘The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons’ which retails for £2.99. You can ‘Look inside’ and read the first section for free here:
Swallows and Amazons, 1974 is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video where you can watch the film trailer. HotDog.com has a review of Amazon’s streaming service, including a 30-day free trial offer.
In 2022, Swallow, the dinghy that starred in the original film Swallows and Amazons was on display at the Southampton International Boat Show, greeting families as they arrive.
Sophie Neville gave talks on filming afloat and the movie was made on location in the Lake District fifty years ago.
Over 103,000 people visit the show. Although busy, it did not feel crowded. There is a lot to see and do.
Thanks to the help of excellent technicians, presentations proved popular, with ‘inspiring talks on the Foredeck Stage’.
Sophie signed copies of ‘The Making of Swallows and Amazons‘ at Future Publishing’s corner stand.
“It was a great opportunity to meet film fans, readers and feature writers.”
You can find a four-page feature on Swallow in Practical Boat Owner magazine.
You can apply to The Arthur Ransome Society to take Swallow or Amazon out yourself on the Norfolk Broads next summer.
If you are unable to get to the Southampton International Boat Show this year, you can watch an in-depth interview released this week by Your Take:
HM Queen Elizabeth II said that ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1974) was her favorite film. She had been given the book of Swallows and Amazons as a girl and, according to Arthur Ransome, ‘said very nice things’ about his novels. He wrote to his mother in November 1930 saying, “The Queen [Mary], God bless her, pranced into Bumpus’s shop and bought a copy of Swallows and Amazons. She paid for it – I asked.” Elizabeth, The Queen Mother also ordered a set. Do they have first editions in the Royal Collection?
The Queen told the author Peter James that Swallows and Amazons was the first book she could remember reading. He has written about his time at Buckingham Palace meeting other authors here.
Archive photographs show The Queen at Girl Guides’ camp enjoying rowing and a Swallows and Amazons lifestyle, as you can see here. In this film clip, she looks a bit like Captain Nancy playing with her sister Peggy, a name that is short for Margaret:
Our late Queen kept a large flock of two hundred racing pigeons at Sandringham all her life. This uncut Movietone footage shows the two princesses being shown a carrier pigeon. Could they have been influenced by Arthur Ransome’s book Pigeon Post?
In 1940, Claude Whatham, who went on to direct the original film of Swallows and Amazons, was commissioned by Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose to paint a series of pantomime pictures on the walls of Windsor Castle. One can presume they had a chat. I have just been asked to provide photos for a new documentary for Channel 5. You can read about this wartime story on a previous post of mine here. She loved appearing in the three pantomimes that they put on, when she played the principal boy.
The Queen was able to visit Bowness-on-Windermere with the Duke of Edinburgh in 1956
She visited Coniston and Tarn Hows in 1980 and returned to Bowness-on- Windermere with the Princess Royal in 2013 when they took the Tern up to Ambleside.
I feel that the Queen would have enjoyed Ransome’s sense of humour. A few of the amusing things she said are captured here:
HM King Charles loved Swallows and Amazons as a boy. I’ve read that it was his favourite book. I met him when speaking about otter conservation but did not mention the fact I had played Titty in the original film ‘Swallows and Amazons‘.
HRH The Queen Consort has also expressed a love for Swallows and Amazons, recommending it on her Reading Room site as one of her top six books for children.
‘When asked what her favourite children’s books are, the Duchess revealed them to be Moorland Mousie by Golden Gorse… and Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome,’ which the Duchess described as “just a really good adventure story, full of a lot of imagination.” Hello magazine and Royal Central.
She also recalled her own experiences receiving new books as a child. “I still remember the intense excitement I felt as a child when choosing books to buy with my pocket money — Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel, Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons — and the joy of knowing that these precious books, clutched tightly in my hands, were my very own,” she wrote.
The Princess of Wales is vaguely related to Arthur Ransome. His brother-in-law Hugo Lupton, was cousin to Kate’s great-grandmother Olive. You can read a little more here. Her brother, James Middleton told The Standard that his favourite place was the Lake District: ‘It stems from my childhood, reading Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit, and as I got older, Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons. My family and I spent time on Coniston Water and Lake Windermere, it was almost like we were living the stories in real life… But as a family, there’s a connection to the Lake District dating back generations. My great-great-grandfather on my father’s side lived in Yorkshire and so for him and his family it was somewhere to go nearby. Every school holiday we would stay anywhere from a weekend to a week there, in sun or snow or rain, and because there was no electricity in the family cottage it was a real adventure — hiking in the mountains and playing in the Lakes.’ You can read more here.
The Duke of Edinburgh endorsed what he called ‘the Swallows and Amazons spirit’. In 2014, Alan Hakim of The Arthur Ransome Society spotted a copy of The Big Six in his study aboard HMY Britannia. You can find a list of authors and well known people who love the books here.
Many thanks to members of the Arthur Ransome Group for help with this article. Please add any more information in the comments below.
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 film of Swallows and Amzons, which was a huge compliment.
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.
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.
When Catherine Lamont from Australia wrote on Facebook to say, “Just read a 2020 book mentioning ‘Swallows and Amazons’ (someone spotted in a bookshelf belonging to one of the main characters): The Enigma Game, by Elizabeth Wein” the author hrself, Elizabeth Wein, wrote in to say, “Not just in The Enigma Game – I namedropped Swallows & Amazons in my novel Code Name Verity, too! It was given to me by my grandmother’s best friend when I was seven and was one of my favorites. My own children, who never actually read it, were huge fans of the film”.
Christine Stevenson said that she was introduced to Swallows and Amazons by ‘The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow’ by AJ Mackinnon about his journey from Shropshire to the Black Sea in a Mirror dinghy.
According to Kathryn Hughs in The Mail on Sunday BOOKS section, Robert Twigger ‘grew up in the 1970s obsessed with Swallows and Amazons’. He’s written 36 Islands: In Search of the Hidden Wonders of The Lake District… And a Few Other Things Too. It was well reviewed by Country Life.
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.
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:
Tom Stoppard, the playwright, said he turned books over as a child hoping they might be ‘Swallows and Amazons’. (The Guardian) In Hermione Lee’s recent biography of Tom Stoppard, she notes that as an eight-year-old boy, ‘The first real book he picked up, soon after getting to England, was Arthur Ransome’s Peter Duck, the third in the Swallows and Amazons series, a 1930s epic of Atlantic Ocean travel, shipwreck, hostile pursuit and secret treasure. He spotted on the jacket that Ransome had written some other books too. ‘My method of searching for these books had a sort of pathos about it: I simply went around picking up any book I saw lying about to see if it was called Swallows and Amazons. But it never was.’ Luckily he found a full set of Arthur Ransome books at school. ‘Stoppard, that enchanting master of the English language, was a Czech refugee, and Ransome was therefore one of his early English-language influencers.’
Melanie Philips lists Swallows and Amazons as one of the ‘great childhood books’ that ‘stay with us for ever’. ‘Books that make a profound impression on us in childhood can form part of our mental scaffolding throughout our lives.’ The Times
When asked , “What was it that first gave you the reading bug,” author Sarah Moss said, “Arthur Ransome: Swallows and Amazons. I was an outdoor child — though not always by choice — and I knew and loved the landscapes where the series is set. I re-read them with my children and they are classics with strong, likeable, flawed characters, a family dynamic that’s in some ways more interesting to me as an adult (John has some serious issues with the patriarchy) and a satisfying interest in fruit cake and pork pies. (Daily Mail)
Tony Ross – illustrator of Horrid Henry and The Little Princess, said, “I absolutely loved this book as a boy. I read it when I was ill with the mumps. The simple line drawings were just wonderful; they gave the feeling of wide open spaces and freedom. When you’re bound up in bed, when your jaw is aching and your face is the size of a football, it’s nice to be wafted out into the water. Swallows and Amazons gave me a lifelong love of sailing. I’m a bad sailor, but I love messing about on boats.” Daily Telegraph
Sir Antony Jay, the author and co-writer of Yes, Minister and Yes,Prime Minister, who was editor of the BBC Tonight programme and Head of Television Talk Features, was a fan. Janet Means of the Arthur Ransome Group said that when she was a child, and he was a very young BBC producer, that he used to lend her Swallows and Amazons books.
I had been asking if Agatha Christie referred to any of Arthur Ransome’s books. She didn’t, but I’ve been told that in the recent adaptation of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Frankie Derwent reads Swallows and Amazons aloud to a young boy who has had a traumatic experience that day, as he falls asleep. The passage she reads includes: “But the big hills up at the lake helped to make him feel that the houseboat man did not matter. The hills had been there before Captain Flint. They would be there for ever. That, somehow was comforting.” The book was adapted for television by Hugh Laurie.
Julian Fellowes acted in the BBC adaptation of Coot Club but I’m not sure if he has referred to Swallows and Amazons in any of his novels of screenplays.
Tony Collins, who brought out 1,400 books as a publisher, mentions that he grew up reading Swallows and Amazons in the first page of his new memoir How to Make Mistakes in Publishing.
Sometimes it’s the Swallows and Amazons lifestyle that people speak of. Santa Montefiore ~ ‘I had an idyllic Swallows and Amazons childhood growing up in a beautiful Jacobean house on a farm in Hampshire.’ Guardian
Louise Minchin said, ‘I devoured Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. It gave me two things, a love of reading and a sense of adventure.’
It was the first time I was able to escape into a world that wasn’t my own and I felt like I was on board those tiny sailing boats in the Lake District having wild adventures.Daily Mail
Frances Wheen who wrote the a-claimed biography of Karl Marx joined us at Pin Mill for a marathon reading of We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea hosted by the Nancy Blackett Trust
Janet Mearns, of the Arthur Ransome Group on Facebook, spotted several references to Swallows and Amazons and Titty, ‘with the assumption that the Radio 4 audience would understand the reference’, in series 6 of the Radio 4 sitcom No Commitments written by Simon Brett.
Brian Doyle, the publicist of many iconic movies including the original film of Swallows and Amazons, wrote about Arthur Ransome in his book, The Who’s Who of Children’s Literature, claiming that he launched a ‘new age’ in children’s literature by writing about his own childhood by the lakes he loved so much. He is featured in these books about making the film, available from all the usual sites online
For a list of other well known writers who have been inspired by Arthur Ransome, please click here.
Many esteemed authors have written biographies of Author Ransome and the places that inspired him. Here, I list novelists who acknowledge Ransome as an inspiration or have references to his books within their own work. It is a list that will no doubt grow. Please add copiously to the comments below.
Sir William Golding, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, mentions Swallows and Amazons in Lord of the Flies.
Nevil Shute mentions Swallows and Amazons in No Highway. Eddie Castellan of the Arthur Ransome Group on Facebook writes: ‘Ronnie Clarke is spotted reading Coot Club as a bedtime story in the closing pages of The Rainbow and the Rose.’
Debbie Welch points out that Monica Edwards has her character Andrea reading We didn’t mean to go to sea in Punchbowl Midnight. ‘She slams it down when Peter has let Midnight (the calf) out.’ TARS member Elizabeth Williams said that Pigeon Post is being read in Summer of the Great Secret. “Monica Edwards was a great Ransome fan. She wrote a letter to him after the publication of Great Northern? There isn’t a record of a reply.”
In her YA novel Neverland, Australian author Margot McGovern lists Swallows and Amazons as one of the nine “childhood favourites” that the psychiatrist uncle of 17-year-old protagonist Kit had allowed her to keep in her room after a suicide attempt. The novel is set on an island recovery centre for disturbed teenagers and sailing is one of the therapeutic activities offered. Margot’s website tells us that Neverland (Penguin Random House Australia, 2018), was short-listed for the Text Prize and the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature.
Katie Fforde, president of the Romantic Novelists Association, mentions Arthur Ransome in her novel A Vintage Wedding. Martin Allott spotted this, explaining, ‘It’s a gentle romance about the love lives of three female friends who set up a wedding planning business… Lindy mentions some favourite books, one of which is Old Peter’s Russian Tales.’
Kathryn Brissenden wrote: ‘In Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher, Judith gets given the latest Arthur Ransome for Christmas. Winter Holiday, I think it was.’
Liz Taylorson has recently brought out a romance entitled Summer Showers at Elder Fell Farm that not only features the book Swallows and Amazons but makes quite a thing of Titty’s name. You can find the extract here.
Kit Pearson wrote the Guests of War trilogy (The Sky is Falling, Looking at the Moon and The Lights Go On Again). Adam Quinan explained that they are about a British sister and brother evacuated to Canada during the early days of the Second World War. ‘The older sister loved Ransome’s books and compares his stories to Ontario lakeside cottage life.’
In Red Letter Holiday by Virginia Pye the mother of the family is reading Swallows and Amazons aloud.
Teacher, Teacher! by Jack Sheffield has one of his star pupils reading Swallows and Amazons.
Magnus Smith says that How the Heather Looks by Joan Bodger and Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr mention Ransome’s books.
Kirsty Seccombe of The Arthur Ransome group read ‘The Summer of Secrets’ by Barbara Hannay, published in 2019, which is mainly set in North Queensland. When a guest arrives by canoe at a dinner party the main female character exclaims, ‘Just like Swallows and Amazons!’
Christine Stevenson said that she was introduced to Swallows and Amazons by ‘The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow’ by AJ Mackinnon about his journey from Shropshire to the Black Sea in a Mirror dinghy.
In The Boyhood of Grace Jones by Jane Langton, an American book from 1972, the main character is obsessed by the books, and fantasizes about being as good a sailor as John Walker.
Mary Treadgold mentions Swallows and Amazons in her WWII children’s novel We Couldn’t Leave Dinah published in 1941. It was her first book and won the Carnegie Medal.
W.J. Burley, the Cornish crime writer, gives Charles Wycliffe, the fictional police detective is his books and TV series, a love for Arthur Ransome’s books.
Danny Brocklehurst mentions Swallows and Amazons very briefly in Stone.
Libby Purves, now President of The Arthur Ransome Society, mentions Swallows and Amazons in her novel Regatta. I need reminding if she mentions Ransome in her other books.
Victor Watson references Swallows and Amazons in his Paradise Barn quartet. I think one of the kids wants to borrow it from the library.
The Swallows and Amazon series gets mentioned An Island of our Own by Sally Nicholls, Coming Home by Rosamun Pilcher and Impossible! by Michelle Magorian. Does she also mention We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea in Goodnight Mr Tom?
Clare Havens refers to Swallows and Amazons in The Bellamy Bird, a novel which she asked Virginia McKenna to narrate when it came out as an audiobook.
Tessa Hadley wrote about the Mate Susan being dull, tame and sensible in her short story entitled Bad Dreams. Tessa Jordan says that it, ‘contains the most remarkable depiction of the spell cast by Swallows and Amazons.’ It was reviewed in the Guardian here.
A member of the Arthur Ransome Group wrote: “I’ve recently finished listening to the audio version of ‘Warlight’, Michael Ondaatje‘s post-WW2, espionage novel (for adults)… early on in the story, the child protagonist has a copy of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ and, when another child has an epileptic-type fit nearby, an adult present jams the book into the fitting child’s mouth, presumably to stop her biting her tongue. Could this be the most bizarre intertextual referencing of an AR novel so far?”
Other authors, playwrights and illustrators have expressed their love for the Swallows and Amazon series:
Janet Mearns wrote to say, ‘I am reading author Penelope Lively‘s account of her childhood in Egypt where English children’s books were in short supply. She says, ‘…when the Arthur Ransome books found their way to…Cairo I became infatuated, addicted.”
Garth Nix who wrote The Left-Handed Book Sellers of London specifically calls out ‘Swallows and Amazons’ as an inspiration at the end of his book.
Philip Pullman chose We Didn’t Mean to go to Sea as one of his 40 favourite children’s books in a Waterstones promotion and borrows Ransome’s phrase ‘signaling to Mars’ from Winter Holiday in La Belle Sauvage.
Dame Fiona Kidman, novelist, poet, short story writer, loved Swallows and Amazons so much she ‘read it and reread it many times’ but I don’t know if she refers to Arthur Ransomes books in any of her own works. Please let me know in the comment below.
JRR Tolkein who corresponded with Ransome gave ‘Swallows and Amazons’ books to his children, reporting back favourably: ‘I am sure Mr Baggins would agree in words such as he used to Thorin: to have been fancied by you, that is more than any hobbit could have expected.’
Jeanne Birdsall‘s Penderwicks books are highly recommended for young Ransome fans. Alan Kennedy has also written in what has become a Ransome genre.
Katherine Hull and Pamela Whitlock were young fans of Arthur Ransome who helped and encouraged them to publish their novel The Far-Distant Oxus.
BJ Pitman references Swallows and Amazons in Airmid and Satori in the Banduri series.
Bella Mackie mentions Arthur Ransome stories in chapter sixteen of How to Kill Your Family, but spells his name incorrectly.
Arthur Ransome books are mentioned by Elinor Brent-Dyer in Changes for the Chalet School
Many authors have been inspired by Ransome:
Duncan Hall brought out the Brambleholme series of books for children aged 8-80 set in the Yorkshire Dales.
Jon Tucker has written a series five Those Kids books set in Tasmania and New Zealand that effectively bring Ransome into the 21st Century.
Julia Jones, whose Strong Winds series begins around the Shotley Peninsular where the Ransomes once lived, is a great fan of the Swallows and Amazons series. She has been sailing Arthur Ransome’s yacht Peter Duck since she was a little girl and mentions his books in her novels. She writes on behalf of other authors who quote Swallows and Amazons: ‘All of us are honest about our inspiration: we acknowledge Arthur Ransome in our credits / we join The Arthur Ransome Society / introduce a Swallows and Amazons-reading child into our stories and in my case, at least, get our lead characters thinking desperately ‘what would the Swallows do next?” You can read more in her article about authors who have been inspired by Ransome’s writing entitled X Marks the Legacy.
Julia reminds me that Marcus Sedgwick wrote a whole novel based on Arthur Ransome’s adventures in Russia where he met Evgenia, the woman who was to become his second wife, entitled Blood Red, Snow White. I have a copy.
The science fiction author Charles Stross also features Ransome in Russia during the Civil War in one of The Laundry Files novels: The Apocalypse Codex.
Catherine Lamont added, ‘there is an Agatha Christie TV adaptation in which one of the protagonists is seen reading Swallows and Amazons to a child character. (I think it’s ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’)
You might be able to find out more on All Things Ransome.
Please leave any other connections who might have spotted in the comments below.
The Duke of Edinburgh is reputed to have spoken of a ‘Swallows and Amazons spirit’ or ‘the spirit of Swallows and Amazons’. The books are certainly loved by many.
I was interviewed by the antiques expert Marc Allum who reckoned my collection of memorabilia from the 1974 film would be worth about £5,000. You can read more about this here. I have a feeling this episode recorded at Windermere Jetty might be repeated someday soon.
Rupert Maas the art expert on BBC Antiques Roadshow, who watched the film as a boy, said that the Arthur Ransome books inspired him to sail across the Atlantic. He valued Swallow, the dinghy we used in the movie at more than £10,000.
Salman Rushdie told of arriving at an English public school having learned about England from Arthur Ransome’s ‘Swallows and Amazons’. That school was Rugby where Ransome had been a reluctant pupil himself. (Radio 4’s ‘This Cultural Life’ broadcast on 22nd June 2024.) He told the Sunday Times, ‘If I was going to be posh, I’d say the book that made me a reader was Alice in Wonderland. But the real truth is Swallows and Amazons. Somehow in Bombay, all those Arthur Ransome books showed up in the local bookstore. I loved the enormous personal freedom the children had. They had boats and could go sailing in the Lake District with no grown-ups in sight. They could have adventures on islands with pirates. I was a child of the same age as these children and I was very attracted to this lifestyle of these kids messing about in boats.’ He moved to the UK at the age of twelve specifically to go to boarding school. When speaking on Desert Island Discs he said he was following “some spirit of adventure, I guess. I remember reading the Swallows and Amazons books. The amount of personal freedom those children had, I thought it was sensational.” I wonder what influence the books had on his writing? Does he mention any of Arthur Ransome’s books in his classic children’s novel ‘Haroun and the Sea of Stories’?
Jeffrey Archer was inspired by the book saying it was one he would take to a desert island. “I love Swallows and Amazons because it has the sense of children working together. It was very moral in that it made clear that individuals don’t matter.” (The Independent) “Swallows And Amazons was unputdownable – though I did not try to emulate their adventures.” (My Weekly) “It’s a story with enduring appeal” (The Express)
Kate Adie, the News correspondent, who, on ‘I’ve never seen Star Wars’ (BBC Radio 4 ), gave ‘Swallows and Amazons’ 10/10 a few years ago.
Labi Siffre, the singer-songwriter said on Great Lives that Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons books taught him responsibility and a morality that shaped and influenced his life.
Jane Garvey, of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, chose We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea as one of her five favorite books. “I’ve no idea why I loved this book so much, but I know I did. It’s one of the Swallows and Amazons series, and involves an accidental trip to Belgium. I found it absolutely hair-raising – I’m not exactly intrepid myself so it probably petrified me.” (The Week)
David Bellamy, the botanist and television presenter who lectured at my university ‘… said he was inspired in his love of nature as a boy by the books of Sir (sic) Arthur Ransome, author of Swallows and Amazons. “By the time I was 14 I’d read all his books and saved up so that I could go to the Lake District to camp and learn to sail. It tipped me towards natural history.”’ The Guardian
Norman Willis, former General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress and president of the European Union TUC, became President of The Arthur Ransome Society. It is still going from strength to strength.
AA Gill, the British journalist said, “Swallows and Amazons:- Being dyslexic, I started reading late and this was the first book without pictures that I read on my own. My Grandmother gave it to me for Christmas when I was nine. It took me about three months to read but I was gripped.”
Adam Hart-Davis, the cycling TV presenter, actually met Arthur Ransome as a boy. He has often spoken at The Arthur Ransome Society’s events and has written a number of non-fiction books on what the past has done for us.
Benjamin Britten who was born in Lowestoft had a well known love of Swallows and Amazons and was keen to base a children’s opera on one of the books. ‘So desperate was he for Ransome’s We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea that at one point he swapped his composition draft of the newly completed cantata Saint Nicolas for a copy of the book!’ BrittenPears Arts
Hayao Miyazaki, hailed as ‘the animation legend’ lists Swallows and Amazons in his Top 50 Favourite Children’s Books.
Sarah Moss, the Sunday Times bestselling author told the Guardian, “I loved the Swallows and Amazons series, and especially Swallowdale in which a shipwreck is redeemed and the adults provide exactly the right support when the children mess up.”
Dick Strawbridge, and Dr Alice Roberts the anthropologist, presented a documentary devoted to the landscapes that inspired Ransome as an author in both the Lake District and East Anglia, which was repeated on television recently. I think Dick Strawbridge may have stumbled on the drystone remains of the the charcoal burners’ hut that we used in the original film, without knowing it. You can watch their explorations here:
There are more enthusiasts listed in the previous post here.
You can read more about Oscar winners, actors and other well known people associated with the original film of Swallows and Amazons here:
When Jonathan Cape first published Swallows and Amazons on 21st July 1930 for the price of 7/6d, it was eagerly received by numerous authors including JRR Tolkein and AA Milne. I’m often asked which well known people alive today have expressed an interest in Arthur Ransome’s series of books.
Griff Rhys Jones, who presented The Secret Life of Arthur Ransome using clips of the 1974 film of Swallows & Amazons in which I played Titty, joined me at Pin Mill in Suffolk for a marathon reading We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea, Ransome’s novel that tells of the Swallows’ hair-raising voyage to Flushing. You can find Griff’s books here.
John Sergeant, the veteran newscaster, has made a number of documentaries about Arthur Ransome, chatting to Griff on The Secret Life of Arthur Ransome, and The Secret Life of Books.
Ben Fogle interviewed Suzanna Hamilton and myself on Countryfile and Big Screen Britain after exploring the locations around Coniston Water. You can watch the episode here.
Libby Purves, author and broadcaster, is now President of The Arthur Ransome Society. She refers to Swallows and Amazons in at least one of her novels.
A keen sailor, she also took part in the marathon reading of We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea organised by The Nancy Blackett Trust who own and look after the Goblin, the yacht portrayed in the story.
Dame Ellen McArthur, yachtswoman and Patron of The Nancy Blackett Trust, claims that Arthur Ransome’s novels inspired her to sail. She gives Swallows and Amazons a good mention in her book Taking on the World. Ellen was portrayed by Suzanna Hamilton in a Stephen Sharkey play at a festival at the Southall Playhouse. Suzanna played Susan Walker in the 1974 film of Swalllows and Amazons.
Sir Richard Branson often says how much he loved the book as a boy, describing it as, “a lovely kids’ adventure book.” He told The New York Times: “As a very young kid, I loved the Arthur Ransome novel Swallows and Amazons. It’s about a group of children having adventures in England. Now I read it to my grandkids. It’s a beautiful book.” I met Richard years ago when I worked on The Russell Harty Show. To may amazement, he recognised me when I was filming in the street in Kensington months later, so perhaps he has watched the original film of Swallows and Amazons.
John McCarthy, the journalist and keen sailor, made a radio programme called Paddling with Peter Duck, sailing Swallow, the dinghy featured in the 1974 film. You can sail her yourself via SailRansome.com
Theresa May said she loves Swallows and Amazons. ‘When she was young she appears to have enjoyed reading… listing… Swallows and Amazons among her favourites.’ Mirror and Daily Mail She gave a copy to Baroness Davidson, once leader of the Scottish Conservative Party.
David Dimbleby loves gaff-rigged boats and recently helped with PR at the London Boat Show. He visited us on the set of the BBC Drama serial Swallows and Amazons For Ever! filmed on location in Norfolk.
Sir Ben Ainslie ~ Steven Morris of the Guardian reports: “He recalled how he started sailing in Cornwall on the creeks around Falmouth as a boy. Ainslie has called it a Swallows and Amazons kind of childhood. He had friends on the other side of the creek so he sailed over to see them.”
Ben lived in Lymington – and came to our club to celebrate after the Olympics.
Nikki Henderson, the youngest ever Clipper Around The World yachtswoman was inspired by the book Swallows and Amazons naming Swallow and one of the coolest sailing boats ever in Yachting World as reported by the Nancy Blackett Trust.
Alan Smith of BBC Radio 4, appeared as a boy in the scenes shot at Bowness. He was on location at the Haverthwaite Railway Station in May 1973 on the first day of filming Swallows and Amazons(1974) with Virginia McKenna who starred in the film as Mrs Walker. To read more, please click here.
Arthur Ransome might be amused to know that a number of politicians were inspired by his novels. Jess Asato, MP for Lowestoft, said, on Radio 4’s ‘The Week in Westmister’, that her favourite childhood reading was ‘Swallows and Amazons’. She is on the Education Committee which is accepting Reading for Pleasure submissions.
The list continues in the next post here.
You can read about The Making of Swallows and Amazons in paperback or on Kindle. The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons is available on all the ebook platforms. There is a review here.
Duncan Hall of the Arthur Ransome Group suggested this song by The Divine Comedy describes Titty’s character rather well.
Please click her for a recording on Youtube
(Ignore the incongruous photo of office politics – I could provide them another)
Duncan adds, ‘Neil Hannon of the excellent Divine Comedy – wrote all the songs/music for the Swallows and Amazons musical. Piano and vocal versions were included as bonus tracks on the deluxe version. The Amazon Pirates song is very funny!
I have written about becoming Robinson Crusoe in an earlier post here.
What hadn’t occurred to me was that, as Catherine Lamont points out, ‘Titty frequently invokes roles or role models to help her (or Roger) overcome anxiety.’ Does she imagine herself as Robinson Crusoe to avoid being frightened about being left alone on Wild Cat Island, or is she longing to experience what it would feel like to be a shipwrecked sailor?
She cast her mother as Man Friday, which is quite amusing. You can find more behind-the-scenes photos of Dame Virginia McKenna in this guise here
I did love finding this cartoon by Lee Healey on Twitter recently.
Although the original novel was written over three hundred years ago, there are a number of versions of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ on Amazon Prime, along with ‘The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe’. Wouldn’t Titty like that?
Robinson Crusoe has been re-published a thousand times. Being a child of the 1960s, I grew up with this theme tune:
You can find different versions of the true story. This is the story of the castaway Alexander Selkirk who was abandoned on a remote Pacific island off the coast of Chile, who hunted feral goats, was once attacked by rats and befriended wild cats but was rescued after four and a half years by The Duke. He ended up robbing Spanish ladies and becoming a circumnavigator.
The video below, tells another version of Alexander Selkirk’s story but concludes that the novel Robinson Crusoe was more likely to have been based on Henry Pitman’s adventures in the Caribbean in the late 1680s. It was he who met Man Friday and ate a roast tortoise:
There are a few more castaways clad in goatskins detailed here
Sophie Neville 