Elsa Hammond is an athlete, rower, sailor and expeditionist. She is currently in training to row solo across the Pacific Ocean this summer to raise awareness about plastic pollution in our seas. To find out more, please go to: www.elsahammond.com.

Elsa writes:

"When I was younger, I would endlessly recreate the adventures of Swallows and Amazons. I was usually Titty, although sometimes with a streak of Nancy. I lived in Italy until the age of eight, and used to make a tent in the olive grove out of old sheets and tablecloths. Sometimes I was allowed to sleep in it.

At fourteen we had a family holiday in the Lakes, and spent many happy hours on Peel Island, splashing around in boats, and discovering the igloo on the shores of the lake. I swam around the island – happy that I could do it at least as well as Captain John – and this proved to be good training. One day we were very nearly marooned there (having arrived in a very un-Swallows and Amazons-like inflatable boat, which was then found to be punctured at the end of the day). Luckily a friendly kayaker took the bag and my younger brother back to shore, while Mum and I swam behind. Luckily we weren’t duffers.

I have re-read all the books countless times, and although some have always been firm favourites (Swallows and Amazons, Swallowdale, Winter Holiday, Peter Duck), others have become favourites with later re-readings (Pigeon Post, The Picts and the Martyrs). As a child I don’t remember noticing the humour in ‘Great Aunt Maria Faces Her Pursuers’ (The Picts and the Martyrs), but now I can’t read it without laughing out loud.

Some of my favourite literature is all the more special because of its Ransome association. The thrill I feel at Keats’ explorers staring across the sparkling blue Pacific, ‘silent, upon a peak in Darien’, has an extra depth to it because of the Darien of the books. It is both a safe place of childhood and somewhere full of the expectation of adventure: the series really begins with those days on the promontory, looking across the lake at the island and waiting for that telegram.

I sometimes wonder what the Swallows, Amazons and Ds would make of my ocean rowing escapades. As Titty says in Winter Holiday, “rowing boats don’t count,” and we all know that sailing is really the thing…

However, I think they might like the adventure."