Roald Dahl was born on the 13th September 1916. His hometown was Llandaff, Wales, he was the only child of the second marriage. His parent were Norwegian. His father Harald and older sister, Astri died when he was just 3 years of age. His mother, Sofie was left to raise 2 step children and 4 of her own, Roald was very close to his mother. She used to read him tales of trolls and fairytales, and Roald grew a connection with stories and books ever since then. When he was a teenager, he enjoyed reading adventure books, though this was all before he began to read Charles Dickens.
His school life was miserable; he was the naughtiest child in the whole school. From the age of 7-9 he attended Llandaff Cathedral School. Many stories of that he has written have been inspired by his school life, for example. Charlie and The Chocolate Factory was written based on Roald Dahl’s childhood when we used to walk past all of the shops with massive amounts of lollies. During 1925-1929 he attended St Peters Prep School. This was when he experienced the power of the headmaster, Master Hardcastle. This inspired his thoughts on Miss Trunchball in the children’s book Matilda, as Master Hardcastle disliked young children. When Roald was 13, he enrolled in Repton, one of England’s most famous public schools in the country. Other than being talented in the English category, he also excelled in sports, especially heavy-weight boxing and squash. He disliked school, which influenced his writing.
After he graduated, he attended Public School’s Exploring Society instead of going to university. He then started work at Shell as a salesman, though when World War 2 struck, he enlisted for the Royal Air Force in Nairobi. After the war, Dahl began to work for the Saturday Evening Post and had to write about his experiences of war. After this career, he was interested in writing children’s books, his first being The Gremlins. This all began from an invitation to Hollywood from Disney regarding discussion about a future movie for The Gremlins. Although this proposal was unable to proceed, the book was still published. His more serious career as an author only began in the 1960’s when he was a father.
Roald specialised in Children’s books and even said himself that they are more powerful than some of the adult books he has written. Most of the Children’s books he has written are seen through a child’s eye, and mostly portray adults as silly. His works have been translated into 34 different languages, he was so popular that he won many awards like the Children’s Book Award; for Matilda (1988), and the Whitebread award for The Witches (1983).
Roald used to write in a hut located in the rear of his garden. It was here where the most famous books of all time have been written. He worked with a pencil and couldn’t type.
Roald married twice. The first wife was named Patricia Neal who was an actress, and they had 5 children. Roald Dahl said ‘That if he had no children, he wouldn’t have any books’. After the birth of their first daughter, Olivia, a tragedy occurred. Olivia, the eldest daughter died after a bout of measles in her brain. Following this, his son had brain damage caused by a car accident. Roald’s wife at the time suffered from 3 strokes when she was pregnant with Lucy. Patricia and Roald divorced in 1953. After this divorce, Roald met a lady called Felicity Crosland in 1972 and married in 1983. A few months after Dahl’s death, his step daughter died of brain damage. In this present day, Patricia and Felicity are great friends
The bestselling book, Matilda broke all previous records for a work of children’s fiction with the UK sales over half a million paper back in 6 months. The popularity of this book has been so incredible, that a movie has been developed. At the peak of his career, Roald died on the 23rd November 1990 from a rare blood disorder at the age of 74.
