Roald Dahl
The life and accomplishments of Roald Dahl
Ronald Dahl: The early years
Roald's parents, Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl, both left Norway and moved to Cardiff, Wales to start a new life. Dahl had a tough time when he was little. First, his 7-year-old sister died when he was three, and his father died a few weeks later during a fishing expedition. His Mom decided to stick it out and not go home to Norway so he and his sisters could get a good education in Britain. Roald's school years were also tough. He was sent to boarding school because he and some friends played a terrible trick on a teacher by putting a dead mouse into a jar of gobstoppers. People today now think of the gobstopper as something invented in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it was an actual candy.
The school that Roald went to seemed to think he was not a very good writer at all. He was also really tall and everyone wanted him to play their sport. He played rugby and other sports, but he also found time to write and was really interested in photography. While he was in school in Repton, a candy factory called Cadbury used to send chocolates to the school and ask the kids to try different flavors. Roald dreamed of becoming famous by inventing a new flavor and having the owner of Cadbury Chocolates, Mr. Cadbury himself, tell everyone how amazing he was. This was what inspired him to write Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, his third children's book.
Dahl had a very exciting early career as well. In 934, he went to work for the Shell Petroleum Company. For the first two years, he was trained in the United Kingdom. then transferred to Kenya then Tanzania. He was one of the only employees in Tanzania and he lived like a king, including having a cook and servants. During this adventure he saw a lot of amazing wildlife, including the deadly black mamba snake and real wild lions.