Swallows and Amazons characters in Arthur Ransome books According to Ransome, every place in his book can be found in the Lake District, but he took different locations and placed them in different ways: the lake is a fictionalised version of Windermere but the surrounding countryside more closely resembles that around Coniston. Wild Cat Island, the location of the island camp, has elements from Peel Island in Coniston and Blake Holme (or Blakeholme) in Windermere. Holly Howe, the farmhouse where the Swallows stay, is based on Bank Ground Farm, which exists to this day. It was featured in the 1974 film. Reviewing the
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