Watching Film of 'Swallows and Amazons' on television

On Sunday on BBC1 we watched the newest film based on the Arthur Ransome book 'Swallows and Amazons.' I read all of these books when I was a child and loved them. There are about six more in the series, some of them featuring the original children from the first book. In 1973 I worked as D.S.M. (Deputy Stage Manager) at Century Theatre in Keswick and the original film with Virginia McKenna as the mother was being made at the same time. By coincidence, it was adapted for the screen by David Wood who was the son in 'A Voyage Round My Father' which I worked on as an A.S.M. when it was premiered at Greenwich in 1971 and had the same director, Claude Watham. I didn't see any of the filming, but when we went out looking for props for the plays in the Century Theatre season we were often asked if we were from the film unit. As always on any of the repertory productions I worked on, we had to 'beg, steal or borrow' items to be used as props in those plays. Looking back more than 40 years, it's a wonder that any of the local businesses lent us so much, from quite expensive tea sets to such things as samovars, which I had to find for a production when I started out in 1969 as a rather raw student A.S.M. at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham.

I didn't see the film unit for 'Swallows and Amazons', most likely because I was far too busy working on rehearsals and productions at Century, which was a theatre constructed of H.G.V. lorries that had originally toured around towns mostly in the north of England in the years after the Second World War and eventually ended up more or less permanently in Keswick, in a carpark near the bus station. I think the film unit would most likely have been down on Windermere, at the other end of the town, which would explain why I never saw it.

I'm digressing, but does it really matter? I think I might have mentioned some of this in an earlier blog post.

The new film is good and has all the elements of the original book, except that Captain Flint, who lives on a narrow boat on the lake, isn't linked in any way with Russian spies in the book as he is in the film, but no doubt this storyline was put in to give some more depth to the plot.

More Politically In-Correct Books and Films

Continuing on the theme begun in my last blog post, what about all those other works of literature, usually aimed at children, as well as films? Just think of a series of books that I read avidly as a child, beginning with "Swallows and Amazons" which were written by Arthur Ransome. They were about a group of children who seem to spend their lives perpetually on holiday in either the Lake District, Norfolk or Essex. The children are John, Susan, Titty and Roger Walker. I don't think, in all honesty, you could have a character called Titty in a book nowadays. Sorry, but the name just causes (sorry for the pun) a titter. You would have to re-name the character for a modern audience. I think it's the fact that they sail their boats on one of the Lake District lakes (I think it must be Windermere, but I'm not sure.) and there's no attempt to them wearing life jackets of any sort. When I was growing up, my father was an avid sailor, and had several yachts, some of which were sailed on the River Ouse near where we lived, mostly at Cardington Mill. We were never allowed in these boats unless we either wore a life jacket (generally a very bright orange or yellow) or we could swim proficiently (about the only decent thing I ever got from going to Rushmoor School was the fact that I learnt to swim). The stories of the Walker children continue in several other books, Pigeon Post, Swallowdale, Peter Duck, Winter Holiday, We Didn't Mean To Go To See. I think he later books might have been set in and around the Essex coast. As we used to go on holiday each year to Frinton-On-Sea, and the inlets in and around Walton-On-Naze, which was a little bit further up the coast from Frinton, this gave the stories a good deal more interest to me because I could picture the places in the books. But I think it's the fact that there's no hint of 'Health and Safety' and neither the fact that they wander around the Lakes and surrounding countryside free from any sort of adult interference. When you consider things like 'Child Protection' today, and the unfortunate stories that have come out recently about child abuse, it makes these stories, although written in the 1930's, even more intriguing. It's sad that today's children don't get the freedom to roam about as the children do in those books. Even when I was growing up in the 1960's there was no such thing as 'Health and Safety' or 'Child Protection.' Infact, when I consider the fact that living on a farm alone had many dangers and perils that would make the place a possible death-trap. We built hideouts in amongst the hay and straw bales, never once thinking that they might collapse on us and suffocate us or even catch fire. I used to make tree-houses, fairly high up in some oaks trees in the garden at Malting Farm. Thinking about it now, I could have easily fallen out of the tree and broken a leg, arm or whatever. You didn't think things like that were in the least bit dangerous in those days, but I suppose children never see the dangers in anything.

Returning to Swallows and Amazons. In the mid-1970's they made a cinema film of the book. It was, by coincidence, at the time I was an A.S.M., working at Century Theatre in Keswick. We did a series of four plays, running in repertoire, and changing every two days. Hard work, to say the least. When they began filming (no doubt on Derwent Water, on which Keswick is near). When we were out looking for props in the town for the plays we were staging, we often got asked whether we were from the film unit. It was also a coincidence that this film had a screenplay written by David Wood    who was in a play that I worked on at Greenwich Theatre called "A Voyage Round My Father" by John Mortimer. The director of the film was Claude Watham who also directed the Mortimer play, as he had done when it was originally done as a 'Play For Today' on BBC Television.

Back on books and films. Just think of Harry Potter. Why didn't the Dursleys, who had young Harry as a lodger (where they actually related? Were they really Harry's aunt and uncle?) Nevertheless, they had Harry under their care, so why did the poor boy end up living under the stairs? Why were they never prosecuted for child abuse? Expecting the child to live in such confined conditions is surely abuse of some sort? Why didn't the authorities intervene?

Then think of Oliver Twist, in particular the musical version, on stage and screen. What are they teaching children if they watch Oliver! That crime seems to pay, perhaps? Teaching youngsters to PICK POCKETS! Really terrible.

I seem to have veered off course about unsuitable or politically un-correct films for children, but never mind. I'll get back on the them in another blog post. It was good to reminisce on various things. The whole point of these blog posts I suppose.

Recent Reading . . . and some Writing . . . Part 1

I have quite a wide taste in what I enjoy reading. I've had a passion for good reading since I was quite a young age. When I was at school we were always supposed to have something to read, taken out of the school library or else bought from a local shop. Infant, it's a habit which I have continued to this day. I always have a book to read and once one is read I have another to read.  I read Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" and the later books which featured the same characters. "We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea" which I believe was set in and around Essex, along the coast from where we used to go on holiday when I was a child, Frinton-On-Sea, Walton-On-Naze and all the little inlets along that stretch of coast. The characters were real to me, and the stories were good. I'm not sure whether children read them today. I think they were written in the 1920's and 30's so perhaps they wouldn't appeal to modern children, bought up with iPads, Gameboys, Nintendo etc. My father was a sailor and had yachts which were sailed along that bit of coast, around the Colne Estuary, Brightlingsea as well as Frinton (see earlier blog posts on our family holidays.) So a series of books featuring children who sailed was of interest to me, not that I was a sailor myself. My father put me off, to some extent, as he wasn't the most patient of people, when it came to his children in a boat he was sailing. When I went to work as a D.S.M. at Century Theatre in Keswick in the early 1970's they were in the process of making a film version of "Swallows and Amazons" on Lake Windermere, although I was too busy with the season of plays we were producing to be able to watch any of the filming, which was a real shame.

I got hooked on anything with a really good plot. I was a radio drama fan (something I doubt children of today can say.) Radio Four (or the good old Home Service it was named up until about 1967 when the B.B.C. introduced us to Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4. No doubt it was easier to give the stations numbers than to come up with any other name.) I think it's the fact that, with a radio adaptation, you have to use your imagination far wore than when it's done in a visual medium, such as film or television or even stage. For that I think Radio Four is quite unique. Where else can you get such a rich selection of drama? Nowhere I can think of. I got hooked on adaptations of novels, done as "Saturday Night Theatre" as well as a Sunday night adaptation of books as well as stage plays. It was through an adaptation of "Rebecca" by Daphne Du Maurier, that I discovered not only that novel, but all, or about all, her other novels, such as "Frenchman's Cove", "Jamaica Inn" as well as her later novels such as "The House On The Strand." Such an incredible author, how she could evoke a place, such as Cornwall where most of her earlier novels are set. "The House On The Strand" is a particularly clever piece of writing, and it worked so well as a radio piece and wouldn't work as a film or a television series (thankfully.) and knowing today's television it would be ruined. "Rebecca" is perhaps best known as being made into a film by Albert Hitchcock and starring Laurence Olivier as Max DeWinter. It has been adapted for television a couple of times, the first with Joanna David as "The Girl" and then much more recently with Charles Dance. More of Daphne DuMaurier's stories have  been made into films, most famously, another Hitchcock adaptation being "The Birds" as well as "Don't Look Now" with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland and directed by Nicholas Roeg. It's a really scary film and, although a good 40-plus years old, well worth a view if you get a chance to see it. It's shown regularly on television although you could get it on DVD. I supposed DuMaurier would be considered a 'woman's novelist' and I suppose, when I first came across her, not having then read anything of hers, it would have put me off,  as I think I might have thought the novels to be sort of 'Mills and Boon-ish', but how wrong could I be, as her books are so well plotted and the characters so captivating, particularly "Rebecca" that I was soon hooked and had to read more of them.

In the late 1960's Radio Four did a quite brilliant serialisation of the J.R.R. Tolkien novel "The Hobbit." It was done in eight episodes. I have recently managed to purchase this adaptation of a set of CD's from "The Works" in Milton Keynes. As a result of the radio adaptation I read the book and later on I discovered "The Lord of The Rings" (also adapted for B.B.C. Radio and part of the CD set.) I had it originally in a very thick paperback edition which I think I bought on a trip into London and took with me when I went to work as an A.S.M. at Liverpool Playhouse in the early 1970's. I read it every decade or so after that, and had it in three hard-bound editions, I think purchased from Book Club Associates and later I had an illustrated, one volume edition. So I know the trilogy very well and enjoyed the Peter Jackson movie trilogy which was pretty faithful to the original. At the time of writing this I haven't seen "The Hobbit." It seems unnecessary to me to make it into three films, because it's a relatively straightforward book. No doubt it was done for financial reasons, which seems a shame. I may eventually get round to viewing it on D.V.D.