Stuart Jeffries (Backwards to the future, G2, 26 July) makes the point that the new production of Swallows and Amazons harks back to a “kinder, better-dressed, and simpler” world of 1935, “celebrating a past that never existed”, and a “time before multicultural Britain”. In fact, the real life story of the Altounyan children, on whom Arthur Ransome based the Walker children, would have been so much more interesting and “true” to today’s young audiences. They were from a mixed-race British, Irish and Armenian background, and spent chunks of their childhood in the Lake District as refugees from war in Aleppo, Syria. What a truly fascinating, relevant, and diverse production that would have been.
Dr Cathy Johnson
Penrith, Cumbria
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
