Arthur Ransome

ARTHUR RANSOME d1967. English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the "Swallows and Amazons" series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. The entire series remains in print and Swallows and Amazons is the basis for a tourist industry around Windermere and Coniston Water, the two lakes Ransome adapted as his fictional North Country lake. He also wrote about the literary life of London and about Russia before during and after the revolutions of 1917. His connection with the leaders of the Revolution led to him providing information to the Secret Intelligence Service while he was also suspected by MI5 of being a Soviet spy. He died in Manchester aged 83 on June 3rd 1967