Arthur Ransome, where are you?

Once upon a time there was a boy who lived on the wild streets of London with all his friends.  They ate eggs because they cost a penny and you could cook them on the one burner hot plates in your shabby rooms.  Some of them built or bought caravans and took their families on the road to the countryside of Europe.  Some of them ran away to join the circuses of Italy and France.  But they painted and sang and discussed big ideas with all their days.  The women as well as the men, though when the babies started coming it was harder on them, these wild free lives could not comport with their families' chains.   Well this boy wrote stories for a living, stories about children going on adventures, to deserted island, on boats, the stuff of dreams.  And one day he decided to write the real stories of himself and all his friends.  And this too became the stuff of dreams.  Dreams that as the years passed, were forgotten.