Swallows & Amazons author Arthur Ransome was suspected of being a traitor by MI5 it has been revealed.

MI5 secret papers just released show that it was feared he was working as a propagandist for the Bolsheviks while holding down a job as a foreign correspondent for the Daily News in Petrograd.

He married Trotsky’s former secretary, Evgenia Shelepin. But although he was bugged and kept under surveillance, other papers on the file suggest he was in fact spying for MI6 against the new revolutionary leadership.