The Life of Roald Dahl
A little nonsense now and then is cherished by wise men
Early Life
Roald Dahl and his Siblings
Rolad Dahl's Father
Roald Dahl
Schooling
From September 1923 until 1925, Roald attends the local Llandaff Cathedral School, an all-boys Preparatory School. During his time at Llandaff, Roald and his friends stage “the great and daring Mouse Plot" involving a local sweet shop. Roald tells the story in detail in his later 1984 memoir Boy. From 1925 Roald left Llandalf and was sent to the boarding school St. Peters Weston-super-Mare. He attended to St. Peters for four years and left in 1929 ant the age of 13. Roald left St Peter's and moved to board at Repton, a British Public School near Derby. He documents some memorable events that happened during his time at Repton in Boy, including tales of eccentric school masters, Boazers, toilet-seat warming and chocolate tasting. Students at Repton were invited to try chocolate bars for a famous company, a memory that later inspired one of Roald's most memorable book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Early Careers
In 1939 when World War II broke out Roald left Shell and headed to Nairobi to enlist in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He was 23 at the time and learned to fly a Tiger Moth plane training alongside 15 other men his age. In Going Solo he writes: "It is a fact, and I verified it carefully later, that out of those sixteen, no fewer than thirteen were killed in the air within the next two years." he expressed how dangerous it truly was.
Shell Oil Company
Roald Dahl in the (RAF)
Going Solo
From Pilot to Writer
In 1940 Roald is posted to 80 Squadron, Libya to fly "Gloster Gladiators against the Italians in the Western Desert of Libya," as he says in Going Solo. In September 1940, Roald's Gladiator crashes in the Western Desert of North Africa and he receives severe injuries to his head, nose and back. He later writes about his experience in the story A Piece of Cake. After the crash, Roald is taken to the Anglo-Swiss Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, and spends about six months recovering from the injuries. However after his crash he then decides to rejoin the (RAF) in Athens, Greece and rejoined 80 Squadron at the Elevsis. This time he is flying a Mark 1 Hurricane. Roald describes arriving to join his Squadron in Going Solo and learning that his plane is one of only 15 Hurricanes left in Greece.
In the summer of 1941, Roald Dahl and the remaining members of his Squadron are in Haifa, northern Israel when Roald begins to suffer from severe debilitating headaches as a result of his earlier crash in the Libyan desert. Unable to fly any longer, Roald is invalided home to Great Britain. There, he returns to live with his mother and after a while his first piece of writing Piece of Cake and his first book Some Time Never is published.
Patricia Neal
Roald Dahl's Children's Books
In the 70's Roald Dahl's Charlie in the Chocolate Factory was made into a the beloved movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. This was the first time one of his works was turned into a movie and it is now a beloved and famous classic. Later in the 70's as well many more books were published including Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, The Enormous Crocodile, Switch Bitch, and My Uncle Oswald.