All Things Ransome Media Vault


Loomus is © by Steven Appleby; used by permission. www.stevenappleby.com.


The Media Vault was created to provide links to and information about video and audio clips and other programming of or related to Arthur Ransome and his works. It may also offer links to image and other sources which are not in themselves Ransome repositories of some sort. This section provides a place for links to such material to be organized in a single location and remain available to future enthusiasts and researchers.

Generally the Media Vault will offer links to other locations on the World Wide Web, either for further information or for the material itself. Where no such location exists, or if a location becomes unavailable, we will try to make the material available on All Things Ransome when possible.

Video Clips Movies Audio Still Images Cartoons


Video Clips from Films, Television, and Documentaries
Swallows and Amazons - Charcoal Burners
Courtesy of TarBoard
2 minute video. "I was recently in Bewdley museum in Worcestershire, and as part of their display on charcoal burning in the Wyre Forest, showed this short video of charcoal burners. I was struck as to how similar it was to the description by AR in S&A."
Windermere - The Big Freeze 1963
Eldred Curwen, September 13, 2010
6 minute video. Windermere, the largest lake in the Lake District froze for 3 months during the winter of 1963. Taken in the Bowness, Belle Isle, Cockshot point area – lots of skating, children on sledges and a snatch of hockey.
"Swallows and Amazons"
Ben Fogel - Country Tracks, 25 March 2012
7 minute video of a Country Tracks episode about the filming of the 1973 "Swallows & Amazons", posted by Sophie Neville.

"A clip from Country Tracks profiling 'Swallows and Amazons' - featuring Claude, Lucy Batty, Suzanna and me, with my father's original behind-the-scenes footage from 1973" - Sophie Neville
Roger Altounyan:
The Discovery of Sodium Chromoglycate
5.3 Meg Quicktime video of Roger Altounyan* discussing the discovery of Sodium Chromoglycate. Formerly archived at the U.S. National Institutes of Health "Breath of Life Interactives" website, this is a low-quality Youtube video.

*Roger Altounyan was one of the Altounyan children who were Ransome's inspiration for the Walkers (the Swallows), and by all accounts he was remarkably similar to Roger Walker. Formerly archived at the U.S. NIH as was the abaove, this is a low-quality Youtube video.
Roger Altounyan:
The Invention of the Spinhaler
2.9 Meg Quicktime video of Roger Altounyan discussing the invention of the Spinhaler. Archived at the U.S. National Institutes of Health "Breath of Life Interactives" website.
Inside the Gates of Soviet Russia British Pathe film clip from 1920-21. "George Ercole, Pathe News cameraman (right), is accompanied by Arthur Ransome, noted journalist, on his trip across the Latvian-Russian border. Only surviving film of Ransome." This may be the only surviving film of Arthur Ransome during his journalism years in Russia.
The Great Outdoors: Swallows and Amazons Taken from the Channel 4 TV program "The Great Outdoors", this Youtube clip explores the real places described in Arthur Ransome's book Swallows and Amazons, guided by Claire Kendall-Price.
Swallows & Amazons and Pauline Marshall 7.7 Meg RealAudio Local TV news story from 1998 containing short segments from the 1963 BBC Swallows & Amazons plus a short segment with Pauline Marshall about the Amazons and the Amazon. (Please note that you must have installed RealPlayer or another viewer which can handle the RealPlayer ".ram" format to play this clip.)
A video clip from Rod & Line A short YouTube video clip from an episode of Rod & Line, a TV production based on Ransome's book and Guardian columns.
Movies and TV Shows
Please note that the presence of an entry on this page or on the IMDb Internet Movie Database website does not necessarily mean that the movie is available. However the IMDb site will generally offer possible sources such as Amazon.com — which may (or may not) have the movie available.
Swallows and Amazons Link to the IMDb Movie Database entry for the September/October 1963 BBC Television Production of Swallows and Amazons. The entry includes the cast and the full list of episodes. Although the BBC has an archive copy, the quality has apparenbtly deteriorated too much to be copied.

A very short segment from this film is on this clip Swallows & Amazons and Pauline Marshall. (Please note that you must have installed RealPlayer or another viewer which can handle the RealAudio ".ram" format to play this clip.)
Swallows and Amazons Link to Youtube for the full 1974 Theatre Projects Film Productions Ltd. movie production of Swallows and Amazons, starring Ronald Frazer and Virgina McKenna.
Swallows and Amazons Link to the IMDb Movie Database entry for the 1974 Theatre Projects Film Productions Ltd. movie production of Swallows and Amazons, starring Ronald Frazer and Virgina McKenna.
Swallows and Amazons Forever! Coot Club
Swallows and Amazons Forever! The Big Six
Link to the IMDb Movie Database entries for the 1984 BBC Television Production Swallows and Amazons Forever! which actually consisted of separate productions of Coot Club and The Big Six.
Swallows and Amazons Forever! Coot Club
Swallows and Amazons Forever! The Big Six
Link to the Janson Media DVDs of the 1984 BBC Television Production Swallows and Amazons Forever! which actually consisted of separate productions of Coot Club and The Big Six. These DVDs are Region Encoded for North America.
Arthur Ransome's Rod & Line Link to the Amazon.co.uk entry for the DVD of Arthur Ransome's Rod & Line, a TV Series based on Ransome's book and Guardian column of the same name. (Please note that the DVD is undoubtedly in Region 2 (U.K.) format and will not play on United States DVD or other non-Regions-2 players unless you have a multi-region player).

A short segment from an episode of Rod & Line is available at Clip from Rod & Line.
The Secret Life of Arthur Ransome Link to the IMDb Movie Database entry for the 2005 TV Documentary "The Secret Life of Arthur Ransome", presented by Griff Rhys Jones. This The drama documentary concentrates on AR's relationship with Ivy and his time in Russia during the revolution as a reporter.
Big Screen Britain Link to the IMDb Movie Database entry for the 2003 TV Documentary "Big Screen Britain" episode on Arthur Ransome. Ben Fogle takes a look around Coniston Water and Lake (sic) Windermere, meeting some of the people behind the popular Swallows & Amazons film. Includes interviews with Suzanna Hamilton and Sophie Neville.
An Awfully Big Adventure Link to the BBC programme database entry for the 1998 BBC4 Peter Pan TV Documentary "An Awfully Big Adventure" episode about the life of Arthur Ransome and how he came to write the Swallows & Amazons books. Taqui and Titti Altounyan are both interviewed, as are Dick & Desmond Kelsall. Unfortunately the entry states that the film cannot be viewed, and there is no information about other sources for it.
The Ransomes Remembered This video contains reminiscences of Arthur & Evgenia by some of those who knew them between 1924 and 1975, collected and edited by Brigit Sanders assisted by William Alderson and John Sanders. It also contains some footage of TARS' late president, Brigit Sanders. Under "TARS Shop" at the link, click on "Other" and then select DVDs and Videos.
A Voyage with Nancy Blackett Link to the Nancy Blackett Trust Online Shop entry for the short movie A Voyage with Nancy Blackett. Nancy Blackett revisits the East Coast locations made famous in "We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea" and "Secret Water". Available in VHS and PAL (U.K.) format only.
Britain's Lost Waterlands:
Escape to Swallows and Amazons Country
BBC Documentary 2016: Documentary which follows presenters Dick Strawbridge and Alice Roberts as they explore the spectacular British landscapes that inspired children's author Arthur Ransome to write his series Swallows and Amazons.
BBC - The Secret Life of Books Series 2 (2015)
Part 6: Swallows and Amazons
Former journalist and keen amateur sailor John Sergeant takes to the water in the wake of the plucky young heroes of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, and learns how a globe-trotting foreign correspondent and acquintance of Lenin and Trotsky came to perfect a new, more authentic kind of children's literature that featured real children doing real things in real places.
Audio Clips, Columns, Stories and Books
Voice Tapes: BBC Recordings
Vol 2001 Pg. 24
These CDs contain early 1950s BBC recordings of Arthur Ransome reading some of his short stories and fishing columns. Included are Two Russian Tale ("The Soldier and Death", and "The Stolen Turnips"), and five columns on fishing ("The 'V' on the Water", "Dressing Flies for Fun", "Flies in General", Fishing: In Books & In Fact", "The Benign Moment", "On Giving Advice To Visitors", "On Watching Fishermen".) Please note that items from the TARS Library are available for lending only to members in good standing of The Arthur Ransome Society, with no derivative right to make copies or publish elsewhere.
The Gabriel Woolf audio books These are the brilliantly abridged and delightfully read audio versions of the S&A books, read by Gabriel Woolf. They are available either as cassette tape sets or CD sets from Kirkland Books, and may also be found on Amazon.co.uk. The link is to the CD recordings curently available from Kirkland books.
Old Peter's Russian Tales Old Peter's Russian Tales is said to be the only piece of Ransome's fiction in the Public Domain in the United States. These are the LibriVox audio recordings, available in MP3, OGG, or M4B format. LibriVox recordings are Public Domain in the USA. If you are not in the USA, please verify the copyright status of these works in your own country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright laws
Still Images
Google Images search for Arthur Ransome A Google Images search for Arthur Ransome produces a surprising variety of images from a broad range of sources, and can be enjoyed as a voyage of discovery.
Cartoons
First Drafts: Arthur Ransome First Drafts is from the magazine Private Eye and is used by permission of Julia Jones.
Garth Hutton Garth Hutton is a Canadian cartoonist whose Ransome cartoons have been featured in Signals from TARSUS.
Steven Appleby's Loomus Loomus is © by Steven Appleby; used by permission. www.stevenappleby.com.


In all cases, copyright of material is to the original authors, creators and organizations. While in nearly all cases the Media Vault consists of links to other sources on the World Wide Web, All Things Ransome will remove any link if the copyright holder does not wish to have it linked from our website.

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