Peel Island, Cumbria with of woodland, in 1932. Peel Island is considered to be one of the origins of the fictional Wild Cat Island in the 1930 book "Swallows and Amazons" and its sequels, by Arthur Ransome. Taqui Altounyan, sister of Roger Altounyan and inspiration for one of the characters in "Swallows and Amazons", described Peel Island in her semi-biographical novel "In Aleppo Once" as "like a green tuffet, sitting in the water, the trees covering the rocks". The island also features in W. G. Collingwood's novel "Thorstein of the Mere, A Saga of the Northmen in Lakeland". Ransome, at the age of
Swallows and Amazons finds the trunk, which contains the memoirs on which Turner had been working, and is rewarded with Turner's green parrot. James Turner appears in some ways to be modelled on Ransome himself. The story, set in August 1929, includes a good deal of everyday Lakeland life from the farmers to charcoal burners working in the woods; corned beef, which the children fancifully refer to as pemmican, and ginger beer and lemonade, which they call grog, appear as regular food stuff for the campers; island life also allows for occasional references to the story of Robinson Crusoe. See also List of