Swallows and Amazons (TV series)
1963 BBC series based on Arthur Ransome's novel.
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Swallows and Amazons is a 1963 BBC children's television series based on the 1930 novel of the same name by Arthur Ransome. The six-episode series depicts the holiday adventures of two groups of children, the Swallows (Walkers) and the Amazons (Blacketts), sailing on a lake and camping on an island in the Lake District in the 1930s. Shot on location on Coniston Water and Windermere, the series is notable for the strong disapproval of the author, Arthur Ransome, who lived at Hilltop near Haverthwaite.
Background
The series of 6 episodes was shot on location on Coniston Water and Windermere. Arthur Ransome, who lived at Hilltop near Haverthwaite, was not impressed: 'They began by proposing to blow up some of the rocks in the Peel Island harbour, and went on from there.' According to Arthur their child-actors were ugly, their Captain Flint was 'common', their script a travesty of his book, their rural characters were made to talk Cockney, and they introduced some Cockney villains. Genia (his wife, who was always discouraging about his books when he was writing them) missed no chance of telling him he was a fool ever to have consented to the project, and he sadly agreed with her.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Swallows and Amazons (TV series) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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