T
he release of the new Swallows and Amazons
fi lm this 19 August marks the end of a long
journey for producer Nick Barton of Harbour
Pictures, who struck upon the idea more than a
decade ago. Nick, whose previous productions include
Calendar Girls and Kinky Boots, read the Ransome
books as a child. His own childhood in Cape Town was
nearly as free as those of Ransome’s fi ctional characters,
with whole days spent picnicking on Table Mountain and
swimming in the sea (“people didn’t know about the
great whites back then!”). These days, Nick is a creature
of tide and mud, living as he does with his family in
north Norfolk, where he sails a Norfolk Oyster out of
Blakeney Harbour. He is also quite at home in London’s
Groucho Club, where we meet for lunch.
Like all Ransome fans, Nick can list his favourite books
in order. From the top it goes: Peter Duck, Swallows and
Amazons, Winter Holiday and Missee Lee (joint third),
Pigeon Post, We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea and Coot Club.
Nick is ready to defend the sub-plot, which re-casts
Jim Turner in the role of a British spy up against two
Russian agents trying to capture him. “In the last 40
years [since the 1974 fi lm], the world of family fi lms has
changed out of all recognition. Now they are huge
action fi lms.” In 1974, the Walkers’ and Blacketts’
adventures were up against Winnie the Pooh and Tigger
Too and Herbie Rides Again. The expectations of
children have changed since then, after experiencing the
likes of big-budget action spectaculars like the Harry
Potter series, or the mind-bending CGI animation of the
likes of Finding Nemo, whose successor Swallows and
Amazons will be up against this August. The continuing
popularity of Ransome’s novels suggests that children
are still capable of embracing Ransome’s vintage
subtelty in book form, but Nick insists that what works
in a book might not work on the big screen: “This was
always supposed to be a feature fi lm – never for TV.
Experience has taught me that you need something to
make the fi lm stand up.”
Re-casting Uncle Jim as a spy is more authentic than
you might think. Nick points out that Jim is already
Ransome’s alter ego, and Ransome really was an MI6
spy – codename S76 – and conducted his espionage in
Russia during and after the First World War. The twomain executors of the Ransome estate, Christina
Hardyment and Geraint Lewis, loved the script that
Andrea Gibbs and team came up with, which was a
welcome endorsement for her and Nick.
The fi lm was shot on Coniston and Derwentwater.
“Windermere is too busy now. Keswick is the new Rio –
Bowness would have been too touristy.” Derwentwater
was very rough when they were up there. “The ferry was
cancelled one day and my family and I were the only
boat out on the lake, on our Norfolk Oyster (a stout, 17ft
sea boat). The wind, which blew up to F7, was so strong
we couldn’t tack at one point. I thought a lake would be
child’s play after Blakeney Harbour, which is challenging
with its creeks and sanbars, but Derwentwater is 200ft
deep with very fi ckle winds. The real Swallows and
Amazons [the Altounyan children] weren’t allowed to
sail unaccompanied on the Lakes.”
The sailing dinghies in the fi lm are RNSA 14s: “Arthur
Ransome’s boats were 14ft. The RNSA 14s were built in
the 1950s and 60s to go on battleships to teach young
people to sail.” Barton took all three boats to Peter
Lawson of Sail Blades in Cumbria, recommended to him
by the Glenridding Sailing Centre. Peter changed them
all from gaff to lug rig and made the sails for them.
“One big decision was to stay or not to stay the
dinghies. The RNSA 14 is quite a powerful boat, and
there was no way it could be sailed without stays on
these dangerous waters with fi ckle winds and children
on board. There is a very strong health and safety
imperative on modern fi lm sets.” Luckily, Nick’s
insistence that the children should not wear lifejackets
went unchallenged. A result of this was that each of the
two boats had a rescue diver on board at all times, sat
under tarps up forward, hiding any evidence of a
centreboard case on Swallow, which did not have one in
the book. Another diffi cult decision was whether to
have Swallow bright or painted. She’s painted in the
book, but for today’s audience, brightwork gives a
stronger impression of an old wooden dinghy.
Will there be more? If Swallows and Amazons is a
success, it would pave the way to a whole series of
Ransome fi lms, the next one probably being Nick’s
favourite, the naturally fi lmic Peter Duck; another reason
to go to the movies on 19 August.