Sophie Neville tells the tale of the tooth that went missing during the filming of the original Swallows and Amazons film, and how she got it back last year…

In May 2021 I spoke to Helen Millican on BBC Radio Cumbria about making the original film of Swallows and Amazons in the Lake District, back in the summer of 1973. We have had an amusing development.

I had been chatting away, telling Helen that people like hearing about all the disasters we had whilst filming on location. One odd thing that went wrong was that one of my milk-teeth fell out in the middle of shooting a scene with Virginia McKenna on Peel Island. At the time, I was somewhat distracted and self-conscious about this but could do no more than try to keep my mouth shut.

However, viewers often spot the fact that my tooth suddenly disappeared. They still talk about it nearly fifty years later. Helen assured me that the tooth fairy was bound to turn up with it, suggesting I could then take the small canine on BBC Antiques Roadshow, which was being recorded at Windermere Jetty museum in Cumbria at the time.

Amazingly, the missing tooth has been sent to me.

Robb-King, the make-up designer on Swallows and Amazons, rang to say that he had kept it safely in a metal film canister labelled ‘Titty’s tooth’. He promised to send it to me in the post so that I could add it to my bizarre collection of movie memorabilia – valued by Marc Allum at £4,000 to £6,000.

Helen was delighted to hear that the tooth had materialized after 48 years. “Wow, Sophie what a result, after we made such a joke of it as well! That might just take your valuation up to the next level!”

Peter explained that he took the milk tooth to a dentist in Ambleside to ask if a bridge could be made to temporarily replace it but I remember the director, Claude Whatham, saying that he would ‘have to live with it’ – it being something of a continuity problem as he was yet to shoot earlier scenes of us sailing to the island. As a result, film fans can now work out which sequences were shot right at the end of our time on location even though they come before the scene with Man Friday (played by Virginia McKenna) in the storyline.

Peter Robb-King went on to have an amazing career in film, working on The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Aliens, and a number of Indiana Jones, Batman and Star Wars movies. He told me that he originally found it difficult to break into make-up design as a man, but managed to win a post as a trainee on The Avengers in 1968. Swallows and Amazons (1974) was his first job as a make-up supervisor, proving a break-through for him and other members of the film crew. It was the first film made by the producer Richard Pilbrow and David Wood’s first screenplay. Suzanna Hamilton, who played Susan, went on to star in many movies including 1984 with John Hurt and Out of Africa opposite Meryl Streep. She has recently had a guest appearance on EastEnders.

Now retired, Peter and his wife live in Maidenhead but enjoy travelling around. We had a long chat about the green parrot as he later adopted a young one that was rescued while making an Indiana Jones film in Sri Lanka. Stephen Spielberg looked after another parrot from the clutch.

You can read more about the disasters that befell us whilst filming in The Making of Swallows and Amazons, signed copies of which are available from the Nancy Blackett Shop, in support of the work of the Nancy Blackett Trust.

If you enjoy e-books, The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons (1974) has links to behind-the-scenes cine footage and is very good value at £2.99 – available on Kobo, Smashwords, iTunes and on Kindle here

To read a little more about filming with Virginia McKenna on Peel Island, please click here.

A list of Peter’s film credits can be found here: Peter Robb-King – IMDB.com.

You can listen to the ten minute recording of my chat with Helen Millican of Radio Cumbria on the Nancy Blackett Trust website here.

The episode of BBC ‘Antiques Roadshow’ showing movie memorabilia from the 1974 film of Swallows and Amazons can be watched on BBCiPlayer here.

You can spot the missing tooth but the movie trailer can be seen here as we attack the houseboat. The clip is slightly out of sync.

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