I had come, all unknowing, to Bannerdale, about which, in the years to come, I was going to write. ... Bannermere will not be found on any map. There is a Banner Dale, scarcely more than a mile long, just east of Saddleback and Bannerdale Crags looking down on it, but I have never seen them. My own Bannerdale, with its lake and forbidden islet and its sombre mountain Black Banner lowering over it is one of those private fantasy regions that authors, and especially children's authors love to create. It is a pastiche, three parts Wasdale, one part Eskdale, with bits and pieces from elsewhere. The 'Gates of Bannerdale' were taken from the Jaws of Borrowdale, 'Black Banner' was suggested by the real mountain, Black Sails, and my little town of 'Winthwaite' is Cockermouth, shifted southwards for literary convenience ... Nowadays ... it does not 'exist merely in my own mind' but exists also in the minds of a lot of people who, in childhood or later, have read the stories I laid there. Not only British children, but - oddly and gratifyingly - Japanese, Swedes, Brazilians and others equally remote.