The Altounyans were an Anglo-Armenian family who lived in Syria, but visited their maternal grandparents the Collingwoods at Lanehead on Coniston. The father, Ernest Altounyan, was the son of an Armenian father and an Irish mother and had been educated in England at Rugby, Ransome's own school. He then studied medicine before returning to his father's hospital in Aleppo to work as a doctor. He had married Dora Collingwood, who had been a friend of Arthur Ransome's, Ransome had proposed to both her and her sister Barbara earlier.