Few stories have captured children’s imaginations as much as those written by Arthur Ransome who died on 3 June 1967 aged 83. Mr Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons stories recount the magical school holiday adventures led of a group of children who sailed, fished, camped and explored the waters and mountains of the author’s beloved Lake District . The enduring popularity of his stories continues to draw thousands of visitors to Lake Windemere and Coniston Water – which Mr Ransome used as the basis for his fictional North Country Lake . Yet Mr Ransome’s own life was far removed from the world depicted in his novels. He spent many years in Russia and it was revealed in 2005 that he had been a spy and quite possibly a double agent. Arthur Mitchell Ransome was born on 18 January, 1884, in Leeds where his father was a Professor of History. He was educated at Windemere and then Rugby School before studying chemistry at the Yorkshire College in Leeds, but after a year he moved to London to pursue a literary career. Working in a publisher’s office and editing a failing magazine, Mr Ransome soon became part of the capital’s bohemian scene – he married Ivy Constance Walker in 1904 with whom he had a daughter Tabitha. After writing Bohemians in London (1907), a subsequent biography of Oscar Wilde led to him becoming embroiled in a libel suit with Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. Although he won the libel suit, his relationship with his wife had broken down and in 1913 he went to Russia to study folklore. Following the outbreak of World War I, he became a reporter covering the Eastern Front on behalf of the radical Daily News and when the Revolution began in 1917 he was still there to witness the greatest political upheaval in history. Mr Ransome was sympathetic to the Bolshevik cause and began a relationship with Evgenia Shelepina who was Trotsky’s secretary and would became his second wife. He remained in Russia after the end of the war, working as a foreign correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, returning to England and his beloved Lake District with Evgenia in 1924. Mr Ransome began writing the Swallows and Amazons series in 1929 and in all completed 12 books that would make his reputation as one of the best-loved children’s writers of all time. Papers released by the National Archives in 2005 revealed that he was recruited by MI6 in 1918 to spy on the Russians. MI5 were also concerned that he may have been passing secrets to the Russians though nothing was ever proven. But it is for his writing that Mr Ransome will always be remembered. His simple tales of childhood adventure have proved their appeal around the world, even in Japan where the Arthur Ransome Club was founded in 1987. Mr Ransome became the first ever winner of the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children’s literature for Pigeon Post in 1936. http://www.lastingtribute.co.uk/tribute/ransome/2561814
