Sophie Neville appeared on CBBC TV's new series 'Cinemaniacs', talking about her first film 'Swallows & Amazons' - as described in her memoir Funnily Enough.
We were driving home when the car radio came on - by itself, which was rather surprising. I thought it was a traffic alert but the BBC was playing Carly Simon singing You're so vain, bet you think this song is about you. My husband changed the channel to listen to the 8 O'clock News but I changed it back as I rather like singing along to, I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee.
When the song ended I found we were listening to the Mark Forrest Evening Show. He was talking about Laurie Lee, the British author and poet born in Gloucestershire 100 years ago. I couldn't believe what I was hearing: it was not exactly about me but described a scene I'd been involved in forty-three years ago.
Sophie Neville, aged 10, outside Slad Village School in 1971
A chap called Dave had rung in from Milton Keynes to say that he had been in the BBC play 'Cider with Rose' directed by Claude Whatham back in 1971, when Rosemary Leach played Mrs Lee. It was filmed on location at Slad, the village where Laurie Lee grew up near Stroud in the Cotswolds. Although his character was not given a name he played a big boy at the village school who was slapped around the face by his teacher. He didn't mind because the director slipped him 50p 'Danger Money' after each take, but she drew blood. Later he was seen in the school playground being given an offer he couldn't refuse by a buxom girl who took him behind the bike sheds.
When we reached home, a few minutes later, I rushed inside and rang up the BBC.
'I was there, in that classroom!' I explained. 'I played the little girl called Eileen Brown who was sitting at the desk next to Laurie Lee.' The producer checked the International Movie Data Base, rang me back and put me on the air.
I explained that I had been cast in the part of Eileen Brown because I could play the piano. Later in the story Laurie Lee played his violin at the parochial village tea. I accompanied him, tripping over the complicated cords.
The author Laurie Lee, who was around at the time, explained that he quite fell for Eileen as they walked off stage. 'She was the first girl I fell in love with.'
'It was Oh, Danny Boy, the tune that always made Mrs Lee cry.'
I told him that Dave had been terribly brave because the small lady who had the role of the teacher really slapped him very hard. 'In the book, as well as in the BBC play, the boy simply picked the teacher up, put her on the window sill and walked out.' Claude Whatham who was directing the drama didn't tell us children what was going to happen. We were genuinely shocked. It was quite violent.
In Slad with director Claude Whatham
What made this all the more poignant was that we were sitting in the real school that Laurie Lee went to as a child. It was a true story. I read the book again recently. The boy Dave played walked off and never to returned to school again.
Claude Whatham ended up receiving a BAFTA nomination for Cider with Rosie, which was widely regarded as an avant garde, ground-breaking drama. Two years later he cast Sten Grendon, who played Little Laurie Lee, as Roger Walker in the Theatre Projects/EMI movie 'Swallows & Amazons'. He chose me to play Titty, his elder sister. The film score was composed by Wilfred Josephs who also wrote the theme music for Cider with Rosie (1971), which you can listen to here:
Wilfred Joseph's music for 'Cider with Rosie'
The actors John Frankly-Robbins and Mike Pratt also appeared in both dramas. I later worked with Rosemary Leach and met up with the set designer Michael Howells who had a small part as one of Laurie Lee's elder brothers.
The version that Dave and I appeared in was special in that Laurie Lee was in it, as himself - right at the end.
Why our car radio came on when it did, I do not know but listening to Dave speak about Claude Whatham was extraordinary, a piece of my own history. It seemed apt that we had just returned from The Chalke Valley History Festival. I am hoping to give a talk there next year on growing up in the 1920s and 1930s - which is exactly what Laurie Lee did.
You can read more about Claude Whatham and 'Cider with Rosie' (1971) in 'The Making of Swallows & Amazons'please click here and find a free sample of the first chapters.
To read about the real Rosie, as profiled in Cotswold Life magazine please click here
To listen to the Thursday Mark Forrest Evening Show - slide the cursor to 02:12:20 please click here
I start speaking about Swallows & Amazons at 02:14:20
Dave is on before the News at 01:53:00
Forty years after she enchanted film-goers as Titty in Swallows And Amazons, Sophie Neville has found a new audience with an ebook telling the behind-the-scenes secrets of the film of Arthur Ransome classic children’s novel.
‘After all these years, I’ve gently lifted the lid on the antics of the adult cast and crew,’ she tells me.
‘And I’m thrilled because it has outsold Julian Clary and Stephen Fry in Amazon’s bestsellers list!’
The Secrets Of Filming Swallows And Amazons is based on diaries, letters and old photographs which Sophie has turned into a heart-warming account of making the movie
The Secrets Of Filming Swallows & Amazons is based on diaries, letters and old photographs which Sophie has turned into a heart-warming account of making the movie, which starred Virginia McKenna and Ronald Fraser and was set in the Lake District.
‘Looking back, it was an interesting experience promoting a major film as a child star, adds Sophie, now 53.
‘There were also some funny experiences, too, such as being with Ronald Fraser, who played the pirate and was a truly drunken sailor!’ To read more please click here:
For someone who is never ever ill, and hates even the idea of hospital, it is rather surprising to digest the fact that Mum loves playing a patient.
Daphne Neville with Roy Dotrice
She doesn't seem to mind what she looks like on the screen. Here she is playing Louise, an A&E patient in 'Casualty', the long-running hospital drama made by BBC TV.
Playing a patient called Louise in 'Casualty'
The call now is for old ladies in need of comfort. This was a short WWII mystery movie called Lost Hearts shot on location near Malvern in Worcestershire in 2011.
Katrina Norbury and Daphne Neville in 'Lost Hearts'
She absolutely adored being in 'Doctors' for BBC TV - you can tell from this photo.
Daphne Neville and Tony Adams in 'Doctors'
Things were once different. She always enjoyed being a medic, although appearing as Nurse Fisher in the film 'Diagnosis Murder' with Christopher Lee did not do much for her career in that area.
Daphne Neville as Nurse Fisher in 'Diagnois Murder'
I am sure she did something terrible to the poor man in the wheel chair. He didn't look very well at all.
Playing a mid-wife for BBC TV back in 1994
There even was a time when she played a doctor. That was alarming.She played Dr Machin in the ATV soap opera Crossroads. So many people though she was a real doctor she could hardly go to the supermarket.
Playing Dr Hilary Machin in 'Crossroads'
For a more comprehensive credit list please click here
It all started when Mum played Mad Mary in the She-Wolf of London. My sisters were mortified.
She then appeared as 'a lovely Babooska' in The Saintwith Val Kilmer for Paramount Pictures. He was dressed up as a babushka too, trying to escape from some baddie, you'll have to tell me who.
Things got worse. Here she is in The Ghost of Greville Lodge, but what shocked her friends recently was seeing her looking hideous as the Dowager Duchess in a TV movie Maggie Smith starred in called Capturing Mary. It was directed by Stephen Poliakoff. At least she was drenched in jewels.
Seeing Mum on Casualtywas somehow more appalling. She played a pathetic character called Doreen Oaken in one episode but said it was quite restful as she spent most to the time being pushed around on a gurney.
Her best part was playing Miriam in The Chasedirected by Sue Tully, who I worked with years ago when she was in Eastenders. The Chase is a BBC drama series about a veterinary practice in Yorkshire. Mum adopted the accent, and was given a terrible haircut, to play a resentful woman on community service who found fulfillment when she came across a baby otter trapped in rubbish and managed to rescue it. Needless to say it was her own tame otter. She must have spent days in a costume comprised of fisherman's waders over a red zoot suit but has never been happier.
Mum's lastest role was playing a nun for the BBC. I just hope my sisters do not see the result.
Click here for more photos of this mad life or read the true story - snatches of which are in Funnily Enough.
Readers of Funnily Enough often ask after my mother - worried that she might be offended by some of the stories recorded in my diary. What they do not know if that she actually asked if I could put a picture of her looking absurd on the front cover.
Mum used to make an effort to look pretty. She started working as a television presenter in about 1969 and was with HTV for years, reading the local news and presenting a children's programme called 'It's Time For Me', 'Women Only' with Jan Leeming and appearing on Christmas Specials.
At the same time, she worked for BBC Radio Bristol presenting a sports programme called 'Come Alive' and reading letters on 'Any Answers' before there were phone-ins.
Here she is interviewing the artist Kit Williams at the time he bought out his book Masquerade and sent all of England on a treasure hunt, looking for a golden hare.
By 1980 Mum was working as a continuity announcer for Border Television. We nearly moved up to the Lake District. I found this clip of her appearing on Grampian TV a few years later ~
Whilst in-vision announcers disappeared from television screens in the 1980s Mum did not. She began gaining small parts in period dramas, many of which were filmed on location in the West Country.
Appearing in 'Miss Marple' with Joan Hickson
She has always thrived in front of the camera, whatever the weather -
Daphne Neville with Diana Dors in 'The Two Ronnies' for BBC TV
readily admitting that she loves dressing up and grabbing any chance to appear in costume.
Daphne Neville in 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'
What she is not so keen on is wearing fur coats.
On location with Cheryl Campbell in 'Rain on the Roof'
She hates the idea of animals suffering for fashion,
As Lady Kroesig, mother to Anthony Head in 'Love in a Cold Climate'
but is happy to comply with the costume designer's wishes. Here she is playing Lady Kroesig, mother to Anthony Head in the LWT adaptation of Nancy Mitford's novel Love in a Cold Climate, in which her daughter Tamzin played the young Linda.
To see more photographs of Mum in action, click here!
Dan Stevens, Daphne Neville and Dominic Cooper
on location during the filming of 'Summer in February'
The movie 'Summer in February' opens with a scene on a Cornish cliff top that features my mother as a bird-watcher. She tells me that she looks just like her mother on screen.
The film is beautifully photographed by Andrew Dunn, who funnily enough was the lighting cameraman when I worked on the crew of the BBC drama serial 'My Family and Other Animals'made on location in Corfu. He had a house near ours in the Cotswolds and knows all about my mother's kitchen.
'Dominic Cooper is horrid,' she declared.
'Really horrid? Horrid in real life?'
'Oh, no. Horrid as the character. In real life he couldn't be sweeter. He has a lovely smile.'
You won't see Mum on the trailer but it is beautiful ~
The official trailer for DisneyNature's 'Chimpanzee' ~ a wildlife documentary
Coming out nationwide in the UK on Friday 3rd May
The latest DisneyNature feature-length epic movie Chimpanzee from wildlife writer/director Alastair Fothergill (one of my friends who appears in the book 'Funnily Enough') opened to great reviews in the United States this year, and is due to reach our cinema screens in the United Kingdom in spring 2013.
It is narrated by comedy actor and producer Tim Allen, the voice of 'Buzz Lightyear' in Toy Story, and star of the hit U.S. TV sitcom Home Improvement.
