Swallows and Amazons writer was a double agent for who fell in love with Trotsky’s secretary and risked his life to save her – Mirror
Arthur Ransome is one of Britain’s best-loved authors of children’s books – but he hid a very dramatic secret. Fact is certainly stranger than fiction in the secret life of Arthur Ransome, one of Britain’s best-loved writers of children’s books.
To his relatives, Ransome was the kindly, quiet old man whose cosy, golden tales about plucky children would enchant generations of readers. The charm and appeal of his 1930 classic Swallows and Amazons still shines brightly enough now to inspire a new film version of the Lake District adventure.
Yet given what Ransome had been through it was little short of miraculous that he survived to write any of his 13 children’s books…