Arthur Ransome (1884 - 1967) was born in Leeds but lived for summer holidays in the Lake District, when visiting them he would run down to the lake and put his fingers in to greet it, something my family have done for years (I can't trace any memory of this being inspired by him as I have only just found it out from The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature). As he got older he continued these trip to the Lakes as often as he could afford and met the Collingwood family there who he often stayed with and who taught him to sail in their boat Swallow. He lived in Russia for many years, often meeting Lenin and Trotsky and reporting on the Russian revolution. He spent much of the rest of his life sailing the Nancy Blackett.