Swallows and Amazons (1974 film) Swallows and Amazons (1974 film) Swallows and Amazons is a 1974 British film adaption of the 1930 novel of the same name by Arthur Ransome. The film, which was directed by Claude Whatham and produced by Richard Pilbrow, starred Virginia McKenna and Ronald Fraser, and a young Zanna Hamilton. Its budget was provided by Nat Cohen of EMI Films who had funded the successful 1970 film "The Railway Children". During the school holidays, the Walker children (John, Susan, Titty and Roger) are staying at a farm near a lake in the Lake District of England. While sailing a borrowed dinghy
Arthur Ransome foreign affairs, and also writing the "Country Diary" column on fishing. On the Ransomes return to England, "Racundra" was sold to the yachting author Kaines Adlard Coles who sailed her back to England. By the late 1920s, Ransome had settled in the Lake District because he had decided not to accept a position as a full-time foreign correspondent with the "Guardian". Instead he wrote "Swallows and Amazons" in 1929—the first of the series that made his reputation as one of the best English writers of children's books. Ransome apparently based the Walker children (the "Swallows") in the book in part