In this book Jeremy Collingwood has brought together the lives of the English and Armenian Collingwood family in the Lake District and Syria, with pen and ink and photographs, and great skill in the story-telling. To anyone interested in the Collingwoods as a family of painters and historians, philosophers and archaeologists, and to all lovers of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, based on the five children of Dora Collingwood and Ernest Altounyan, it is a fascinating read.
Teresa Collingwood Smith (daughter of Robin Collingwood and granddaughter of WG Collingwood)
It was the glorious summer of 1928. The five children of Ernest and Dora Altounyan came on leave from Syria to the Lake District. The children loved to sail down Coniston Water in the dinghies, Swallow and Mavis, and set up camp on Peel Island. Little did they know then that in a couple of years they would feature in the children's adventure, Swallows and Amazons, by the famous writer, Arthur Ransome.
WG was the assistant and biographer of John Ruskin, the art critic and social commentator. WG went on to carve a career for himself as the pre-eminent historian and antiquarian of the Lake District. His brilliant son, Robin, became known as an archaeologist and historian of Roman Britain as well as an Oxford philosopher.
It was Robin's sister, Dora, who shared the family's 'special virtue' with her gift for drawing and painting and artwork. Dora went out to Syria as the wife of the Armenian doctor, Ernest Altounyan. Ernest and Dora brought up their family in Aleppo, where they ran a hospital, played host to King Feisal, befriended TE Lawrence, and gave refuge to Armenian refugees fleeing the genocide in Turkey.
This story of a gifted and fascinating family brings together and throws light on the two quite different worlds of the Lake District and the Middle East.
