To mark the 90th birthday of Arthur Ransome’s yacht Nancy Blackett, her owner the Nancy Blackett Trust is offering free copies of Arthur Ransome’s We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea to local schools in Suffolk. The book, part of his Swallows and Amazons series, features the Goblin, identical to the Nancy Blackett, and is […]
Today the Nancy Blackett Trust’s Boat Manager, Neil Brooks, took more photos (below) of Nancy Blackett at Robertsons boatyard in Woodbridge, now on hard standing, having left the shed on Wednesday…
On Wednesday Nancy Blackett was taken out of the shed at Robertsons in Woodbridge, and put in the mobile slings. Boat manager Neil Brooks captured the moment in the brilliant early April sunshine, and later, so did our resident artist Claudia Myatt…
The good news is that, if the ‘Roadmap’ goes according to plan, Nancy Blackett will be able to provide her usual summer sailing… eventually. Meanwhile, though, pandemic-related restrictions on the winter work mean that Nancy’s relaunch date – and our celebrations of her 90th Birthday – are put back by a month from the usual […]
Woodbridge – Nancy Blackett’s winter home – has been named as the best place to live in the East of England by The Sunday Times in its newly-published Best Places to Live Guide – and the Shotley Peninsula, Nancy’s summer base, also features in the list. Woodbridge, described as “arty, creative and historic” contains several […]
Stephen Sykes, owner of Hill Top, looks at the legacy of the charcoal burners who lived and worked in Arthur Ransome’s own back yard… There are two farmhouses in the Lake District both called Hill Top and both once owned by famous children’s authors – and just a few miles apart. One, of course was […]
Sophie Neville, star of the original Swallows and Amazons film and author of The Making of Swallows and Amazons, reveals more memories and anecdotes that will appear in the 3rd edition of her e-book The Secrets of Filming Swallows and Amazons in time for the film’s 50th anniversary in 2024. Since the experts on BBC Antiques Roadshow have been taking […]
Work on Nancy Blackett’s winter refurbishment continues with both varnish and an experimental coating having been applied to different parts of her. Neil Brooks, volunteer boat manager and a Trustee of the Nancy Blackett Trust, took her fore-hatch cover home to give it a much-needed protective coating, using, as an experiment, Woodskin rather than conventional […]
Swallow, the dinghy from the 1974 Swallows and Amazons film, was part of the last Sunday’s episode of the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. Sail Ransome’s Rob Boden received a valuation for her from paintings expert Rupert Maas, as shown in the clip below: Swallow was purchased in 2010 with assistance from the Nancy Blackett Trust, when […]
Swallow from the original Swallows and Amazons film will be featured on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow this Sunday (21st February). Fiona Bruce (pictured above) and the Antiques Roadshow team will present the episode from the Windermere Jetty Museum. The episode will include a valuable collection of silver trophies awarded to a pioneering woman sailor, a James […]
Sophie Neville, star of the original Swallows and Amazons film and author of The Making of Swallows and Amazons, writes about the letters that she has received about how the film has changed people’s lives, and how some of these will appear in the 3rd edition of her e-book The Secrets of Filming Swallows and […]
In mid-January John Heath visited the Walton Backwaters, the location of “Secret Water” in Arthur Ransome’s book of the same name, and has shared the following photos that he took of the Wade, the Witches’ House and Quay, and Speedy Creek: If you are interested in finding out more about “Secret Water”, both the Arthur […]
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