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
Swallows and Amazons than go abroad as a foreign correspondent. He did continue to write part-time for the press, however. The book was inspired by a summer spent by Ransome teaching the children of his friends, the Altounyans, to sail. Three of the Altounyan children's names are adopted directly for the Walker family. Ransome and Ernest Altounyan bought two small dinghies called "Swallow" and "Mavis". Ransome kept "Swallow" until he sold it a number of years later, while "Mavis" remained in the Altounyan family and is now on permanent display in the Ruskin Museum. However, later in life Ransome tried to downplay the