Why this movie may be the most inspirational British film ever made
The epic story – told brilliantly by a Scots scriptwriter – of innocent childhood and an unfettered spirit of adventure
IT was written almost nine decades ago in an age so far removed from our own that the author innocently called a key character Titty. Children’s summer holidays were, week after idyllic week, spent in boats on lakes out of sight and earshot of parents happy to trust to fate that no harm would come to them. A bit of a leap, then, for today’s Facebook generation of youngsters hovered over by ever-vigilant ‘helicopter’ parents.
That thought certainly occurred to Scottish screenwriter Andrea Gibb when she was first approached with the idea of adapting Arthur Ransome’s classic children’s novel Swallows and Amazons for the big screen.
Another slightly embarrassing thought was that she had not read the book which, for much of the last century, was a staple on British children’s reading lists. And so, in middle age, she picked up a copy – and was mesmerised. Eight years on, the same reaction is registering on the faces of youngsters watching the first screenings of the film starring Kelly Macdonald, Harry Enfield and Andrew Scott which goes on general release later this month. It is almost as if they are recalibrating in their heads what childhood is meant to be.
The novel tells the story of two families of children falling into adventure on their summer holidays in the Lake District in 1929. Their days are spent sailing, exploring and camping – all sanctioned by the Walker children’s absent father who telegrams them from Malta with permission to sail.
‘Better drowned than duffers,’ reads his infamous message. ‘If not duffers, won’t drown.’
Such an attitude may sound like the height of recklessness today. In fact, Miss Gibb is fairly certain it would have done in Ransome’s day too.
But it unleashed a spirit of adventure which she says may be too often absent among today’s youngsters.
She says: ‘One of the reasons I was so drawn to it is there’s a sense in this book of unfettered freedom.
‘These children are allowed to sail across a big lake by themselves in a dinghy and go and camp on an island on their own. I don’t know how many parents would allow that to happen nowadays – none, probably. It’s unconscionable really when you think about it like that and I’m not even sure if it happened in Ransome’s day either.
‘I think it was much more his imagined view of what the idyllic childhood would be, which is why it resonates so strongly across the decades because all of us dream of that idyll.’
The novel certainly took Miss Gibb back to her own childhood in Greenock – one in which the scenic riches of the Renfrewshire landscape contrasted sharply with the large pockets of urban deprivation.
‘I certainly had much more freedom as a child than most do now,’ she says. ‘Greenock was a very interesting town because you had the beauty of the Clyde, looking across it to the hills beyond but at the same time it was quite impoverished.
‘In our holidays we were just sent off out. We always went with cousins and extended family. I do have huge memories of going bramble picking and things without any adults and I just think it’s such a shame that there are more constraints on children nowadays, but I totally understand why.’
SHE was first approached by producer Nick Barton in 2008 to write a screenplay for Swallows and Amazons. He had seen one of her early films, Dear Frankie, which revolves around a nine-year-old deaf child, and believed she could help to bring Ransome’s children to life for modern audiences.
‘I went away and read the book and just loved it,’ says Miss Gibb. ‘I thought it was so charming and beautiful and it conjured up all kinds of images of childhood for me. It’s a wonderful evocation of childhood, so I was just sucked in.’
For much of the next seven years, she says, Swallows and Amazons was ‘a huge part of my life’.
An early decision was what to do about Titty Walker. Was it feasible for 2016 audiences to watch a film with such a character without fits of sniggers throughout? The film’s creative team decided it was not. She has become Tatty instead.
‘When Ransome wrote his book the name did not have the same connotations that it does now,’ says Miss Gibb. ‘I hope people will realise it was done with a great deal of care and with a lot of thought.’
Next came the challenges of reimagining the book as a cinema experience and making it more relevant for young audiences than a period piece about late 1920s summer holidays.
‘When you’re adapting a book you have a responsibility to the author to find the core essence of what the author wants to say. You also have a responsibility to the cinema audience to move that book from a novel into a film. They are two different beasts.’
She adds: ‘What was beautiful about what was already in Swallows and Amazons was Ransome’s amazing ability to get inside the child’s head.
HIS children move effortlessly from playing, the imagined world if you like, to reality and back again. They can be pirates one minute and having tea the next. It’s effortless, and children are like that. I wanted to try to retain that essence in the writing that we present, but at the same time we’re giving these children to a modern audience of children so we also wanted to make them relatable and identifiable to kids now.’
The result is less perfect children than Ransome presents, children who bicker more and have to work harder to overcome personal challenges. But their underlying bond is as solid – and timeless – as in the novel.
‘Another thing we needed to add was peril and jeopardy and we needed to make sure that it was real because kids nowadays will not accept anything less. You can’t fool them, so it was really proper dangerous stuff.’
The irony, of course, is while children crave ever greater realism as cinema audiences their own lives lack the adventure of previous generations. The extent to which Swallows and Amazons encourages children to embrace the great outdoors again may be one measure of its success.
‘One of the things we hope is that children who watch it today will be inspired to go out more. It would be great for their children to say, “Let’s get them back into the great outdoors” and take them camping, let them look at the stars, let them build a den, let them gut fish and do all those things – yes, obviously with responsible supervision but even if you’re watching them from afar I think a little bit of letting out of the belt a few notches or being slightly less like helicopter parents, which has become more of a thing recently. I think that’s what we’re hoping the film will inspire.’
For Miss Gibb, the movie represents one of the longest journeys from page to screen in a remarkable career. Back in 2008, when she became involved in the project she was only just beginning to tell people she was a writer rather than an actress.
‘I had, I suppose, what you would call a good jobbing career as an actor and had no real ambition to be a screenwriter at all,’ she says.
For three series she played Deirdrie, girlfriend of Scottish vet Calum Buchanan in All Creatures Great and Small. There were frequent roles in BBC Scotland productions and, almost inevitably, in STV’s Taggart, but she says, ‘I was beginning to think I wasn’t using my brain enough, to be honest. I mean, you do as an actor, but not necessarily if you are just doing jobbing roles on the telly.’
Working with Peter Mullan at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre in the early 1990s she realised actors in Scotland did not have to ‘be in a little box’. Mullan had just written the screenplay for his short film Fridge. Film schemes such as Tartan Shorts and Prime Cuts were at their height. Returning to London, Miss Gibb sat down and wrote her first screenplay.
‘In fact it was the short version of
Dear Frankie and I just loved doing it – and actually that got shortlisted for the Tartan Shorts scheme but didn’t get made. Now I’m really grateful for that. At the time I was really disappointed but now it’s just thank goodness because if it had been made as a Tartan Short I would probably not have made it become a feature film, and that was a real turning point in my career.’
By now living in Glasgow’s Jordanhill with her then husband Paddy Cunneen and son Callum, Miss Gibb knew she had arrived as a writer the day she returned to her home town of Greenock as filming began there on two of her projects simultaneously.
Both were poignant, even heartrending ventures. While Dear Frankie told the story of a young boy, newly relocated in Greenock with his mother and maintaining a correspondence with a man he believes to be his father, AfterLife told the story of a dying mother, her Down’s syndrome daughter and newspaper journalist son. Miss Gibb’s own sister Sharon has Down’s, making the film an intensely personal one for her.
‘Coincidentally both started filming in the same week and both in Greenock, which was obviously my home town because they were both very personal stories. I needed to dart between the two sets in case I needed to rewrite anything or whathave-you so they gave me a unit car. I remember the first day I was going down onto set and I came to the roundabout at Port Glasgow and there were two unit signs there, one pink and one blue and both were for my films. I had to drive past the roundabout and pull into the layby and just have a wee cry. I couldn’t believe it. It felt incredible to me.’
Gradually, the acting jobs became fewer as writing commissions took up ever more of her time.
‘I began to think maybe, since I hadn’t acted for six months because I was so busy, maybe I really was a writer now,’ she says. ‘It was an interesting transition, but now I get cravings to go back on stage or do a film. If I had the time and the headspace to give it the proper care I’d definitely do something with the right people and in the right part.’
The problem, perhaps, is the heavy demands on her writing talents. She has not had a single day without commissioned work in 11 years.
AMONG the projects awaiting approval from ‘upstairs’ is an adaptation of Emma Healey’s 2014 novel about life at the other end of the age spectrum. Elizabeth is Missing concerns an elderly woman with dementia who has to write everything on Post-it notes as she tries to solve the mystery of her missing friend.
Now divorced and living primarily in London, Miss Gibb looks back on what she calls her ‘heyday’ with understandable pride. By day she was writing drama for BBC Scotland; by night she was appearing on stage at London’s Lyceum. Even if it is one she would not readily repeat, it was quite an adventure.
Who knows, perhaps that risktaking spirit will rub off on young viewers of Swallows and Amazons – perhaps even on some older ones.
Swallows and Amazons is released on August 19.