'Swallows and Amazons'

Whenever I think of 'Swallows and Amazons' or any of Arthur Ransome's other books, the chances are that memories of one of three periods in my life will spring to mind.

There's the first time I read the books when we lived in Hong Kong. I would borrow them over and over again from the library of the Helena May club to which my mother belonged. The books filled me with a nostalgia for an England that I'd never known but which became the home I longed for.

The second period was in the very early eighties when, every Easter, my mum, dad, brother and I would go for a week's holiday in the Lake District. Despite the first book in the series being set fifty years earlier, in the summer of 1929, the atmosphere that I'd ached for while living in Hong Kong was still there. I loved it.

And finally, in the late nineties, while I was working freelance, I had a two year contract working in Kendal. During that time the 'Swallows and Amazons' series was re-issued in hardback, with the same covers that had been on the books that I read in Hong Kong. I ordered the new editions through Henry Roberts' bookshop on Stramongate and each week I'd walk up and pay for another couple of the books. That was the last time I read the whole series.

A few years ago, via Twitter, I made friends with a screenwriter called Andrea Gibb and she told me that she was working on a new screenplay for the film. Much as I loved the 1974 film, I was very excited to hear this and over the last three or four years I have been getting more and more excited as the film morphed from possibility to reality, especially when shots of the filming began to appear on social media and then when the trailer came out earlier this year.

Today, finally, was the day I was able to see the new film, going along with the Minx and miniMinx. It was bloody brilliant. The story has been updated *entirely* sympathetically, refashioning Uncle Jim as a spy, which is perfectly appropriate given that the character was based on Ransome himself, who was also a spy. Ultimately, it was a new arc to the story, wrapped comfortably in the one that I have loved for over forty years. Thank you, Andrea!