SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS
Sophie Neville, who played Titty in the 1974 film Swallows and Amazons, shares her experiences of sailing the Blackett’s dinghy and its special place in her heart
Amazon and Swallow are perhaps two of the most famous dinghies in film history, having sailed into cinemas nearly 50 years ago.
Both of these clinker-built boats now belong to The Arthur Ransome Society, and the challenge is to fully restore these traditional craft so that families can set their sails and live out the pages of Arthur Ransome’s iconic books today.
At the age of 12, I was cast as Able Seaman Titty when the original film Swallows and Amazons was made on location in the Lake District in the summer of 1973. Dame Virginia McKenna played my mother and the six of us children had fun making Ronald Fraser walk the plank. Now hailed as a classic sailing film, I’m assured it has been broadcast on British television more times than any other movie and is currently streaming on Amazon and Netflix Europe.
Behind the scenes
One secret is that the film was made on four different lakes–Coniston Water, Windermere, Elterwater, Derwentwater– and a smelly lily pond. We were able to use Bank Ground Farm as Holly Howe and Brown Howe as Beckfoot, home to the Amazon Pirates (Nancy and Peggy Blackett) who careened their dinghy on the lake shore in the company of a 45-man film crew from Pinewood Studios.
We were only given a couple of days to get used to handling Swallow and Amazon before filming began. Although happy out on the water, the director, Claude Whatham, knew little about boats. To make up for this, we had instruction from a sailing director in the form of a good-looking actor called David Blagden who presented a television programme called Plain Sailing. He’d recently raced across the Atlantic in a 19ft yacht called Willing Griffin but was unfamiliar with blustery Lakeland winds and did not know how to break down a script.
Simon West, aged 11, who played Captain John, ended up explaining to Claude how to get a decent shot while I tried not to shiver. My costume was desi
