Swallows and Armenians: Arthur Ransome’s forgotten inspirations revealed

A new art project is exploring how the characters in the English children’s classic were modelled on a family from Aleppo

Arthur Ransome’s fictional Walker children – John, Susan, Titty and Roger – are quintessentially English, enjoying summers sailing in the Lake District with bread and marmalade for tea, and peppering their talk with regular “jolly good”s. But the Anglo-Armenian family who inspired the Walkers deserves to be more widely acknowledged, says artist Karen Babayan, who hopes to re-establish the connection through an Arts Council England-funded project spanning stories, dance, theatre and art.

The Altounyan children – Taqui, Susan, Mavis (known to her family as Titty), Roger and Brigit – lived in Aleppo, Syria. Their father, the half-Armenian, half-Irish Ernest Altounyan, had known Ransome since their school days at Rugby, and Ransome had unsuccessfully proposed to their mother, Dora Collingwood. Altounyan married Collingwood in 1915, and their friendship with Ransome was renewed when the Altounyan family took a summer trip to the Lake District in 1928. Ernest and Ransome bought two boats, named Swallow and Mavis, for the children and the group spent months sailing, fishing and walking together.

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