Sophie Neville takes a further look back at the making of the original Swallows and Amazons film…

Sophie Neville playing Titty Walker in the 1974 movie

‘Titty from Swallows and Amazons’ often gets typed into the Google search engine but when I attempt to use it as a ‘tag’ a message pops up saying: ‘Sorry, you are not allowed to assign the provided terms.’ I can only conclude that Google lacks literary enlightenment but the BBC were happy for me to talk about Titty on BBC Antiques Roadshow earlier this year (below):

‘Memory picks and choses,’ as Arthur Ransome said in his autobiography (p33) but those who love his novels often wonder what would have happened to the characters when they grew up. It dawned on me that this might be one reason why people are interested to know what we all did with our lives.

I played Titty Walker in Richard Pilbrow’s 1974 movie of Swallows and Amazons (right).

In 1962, the film actress Susan George played the same character in the black and white BBC television serial of Swallows and Amazons with her hair in pigtails. She was called Kitty, apparently with Arthur Ransome’s approval. BBC Films decided to call the Able seaman ‘Tatty’ in the 2016 movie Swallows and Amazons, when she was brilliantly played by Teddy-Rose Malleson-Allen who went on to star in Four Kids and It (2020).

The character was inspired by a real little girl, Titty Altounyan, who stayed at Bank Ground Farm (or Holly Howe) when visiting her grandparents who lived above Coniston Water. In 1939, Miss Joyce Cartmell acquired a signed note from Arthur Ransome explaining 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’. It appears that Ransome was also asked for a photograph of himself, to which he responded, ‘Too ugly’.

Edward Thomas (1878-1917) described Arthur Ransome as ‘exuberant, rash and intelligent.’ In 1973, I can only assume the film director Claude Whatham was looking for the same spirit in us children. It was certainly captured by Wilfred Joseph’s nautical film score (below).

What constantly impacts me is the number of people who write in to say how much they wanted  Titty to become their best friend. In many ways the characters from Ransome’s books become friends for life.

You can easily gain others who have the same outlook on life by joining The Arthur Ransome Society, who offer activities and grants for young people as well as adults with a literary bent.

You can read more about making the movie in the multi-media ebook The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons, and also in the illustrated paperback on The Making of Swallows and Amazons by Sophie Neville available from the Nancy Blackett Shop.

The original version of this story was published by Sophie Neville in May 2021.