In 1984 Christina Hardyment had written an account of her own investigations into the real-life places and real-life people in Arthur Ransome's stories. As a direct result of this book, Arthur Ransome and Capt. Flint's Trunk, people interested in forming a society dedicated to Arthur Ransome had been leaving their contact details at Abbot Hall, where, following his death in 1967, his widow Evgenia had donated various articles, including his writing desk. In 1989 Christina followed up on these contact details by sending an appeal for funds to restore the dilapidated Mavis, the supposed prototype for Arthur Ransome's Amazon, The response to this appeal was overwhelming and in June 1990 The Arthur Ransome Society was formed.