Arthur Michell Ransome was an 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.
Cover of Ransome's autobiography
The Broads is a network of mostly navigable rivers and lakes in the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Although the terms "Norfolk Broads" and "Suffolk Broads" are correctly used to identify specific areas within the two counties respectively, the whole area is frequently referred to as the Norfolk Broads.
Ormesby Little Broad, part of the Norfolk Broads near Great Yarmouth
Drainage windmills on the Norfolk Broads
Muttons mill, one of the many historic drainage windpumps on the Norfolk Broads
The point at which the River Yare and the River Waveney merge into Breydon Water