The Life of Mr. Dahl:
From Beginning to End

Here are some fun and Interesting Facts about Roald Dahl and the life he lived! Take a look:


·         Born in Llandaff, Wales on September 13, 1916

·         Parents Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl

·         named after the explorer Roald Amundsen, a national hero in Norway

·         At age 9, Roald was sent to St. Peter's Preparatory school (1923-1929)

·         At 8 years old Roald and four of his friends were caned by the headmaster after putting a dead mouse in a jar of sweets at the local sweet shop

·         After this experience, he was sent to several other boarding schools

·         When Roald was 13 years old, his 7 year old sister Astri Dahl died from appendicitis

·         A few weeks later his father died of pneumonia (he was 57)

·         Roald first attended Llandaff Cathedral School

·         At 13, From 13 he was educated at Repton School and became a fag for a prefect

·         He was also the captain of the school Fives team and at this time he first developed his interest in photography

·         While attending Repton, Cadbury (chocolate company) would send boxes of new chocolates to the school to be tested by the students. Dahl used to dream of inventing a new chocolate bar that would catch the attention of Mr. Cadbury himself—this was the inspiration for him to write his second book for children, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

·         spent his summer holidays in his parents' native Norway

·         Childhood is the subject of his autobiographical work, Boy: Tales of Childhood.

·         After finishing his schooling, he spent three weeks hiking through Newfoundland with a group called the Public Schools' Exploring Society

·         July 1934 he joined the Shell Petroleum Company. Following two years of training in the UK he was transferred to Dar-es-Salaam, Tanganyika. Here he lived in luxury in the Shell House outside Dar-es-Salaam, with a cook and personal servants.

·         While working, Dahl came into contact with many mambas and lions (amongst other wildlife)

·         In August 1939 plans were made to round up the hundreds of Germans in Dar-es-Salaam. The fifteen or so British citizens in Dar-es-Salaam, including Dahl, were made officers each commanding a platoon of askaris of the King's African Rifles

·         November 1939 he joined the Royal Air Force

·         On September 19, 1940 Dahl attempted to land his plane in the desert when he hit a boulder and the plane crashed, fracturing his skull, smashing his nose in, and blinding him. He managed to drag himself away from the blazing wreckage and passed out.

·         He later wrote about his crash for his first published work in the August 1, 1942 issue of the Saturday Evening Post (Shot Down Over Libya—describing the crash of his Gloster Gladiator, bought for $1,000)( originally was supposed to be named A Piece of Cake)

·         He was soon after rescued and taken to a first aid post in Mersah Matruh where he regained consciousness but not sight—he was then taken by train to the Royal Navy hospital in Alexandria. It was here that he fell in love with a nurse, Mary Welland (the first person he saw after not being able to see for 8 weeks)

·         Roald experiences his first action over Chalcis, where shipping was being bombed. With just his lone Hurricane plane against the six bombers, he shot one down. He writes about all these incidents in his autobiography Going Solo—He ended the war as a Wing Commander

·         Roald began writing when in 1942 he transferred to Washington as Assistant Air Attaché

·         Roald was married for 30 years (1953-83) to American actress Patricia Neal (Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

·         He had five children—Author Tessa Dahl, Olivia Twenty Dahl (died of measles encephalitis at the age of 7 in 1962), Theo [(his only so), was involved in an accident as an infant and developed hydrocephalus], Ophelia Dahl [director and cofounder (with doctor Paul Farmer)] of Partners in Health (a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing health care to some of the most impoverished communities in the world) and Sophie Dahl (model and author)

·         In 1983 he married Felicity Ann d'Abreu Crosland, his former wife's former best friend

·         Roald died of leukemia on November 23, 1990, at his home, Gipsy House, in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire (74)

·         He is buried in the cemetery at the parish church of St Peter

·         In Roald’s remembrance, the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery was opened at Bucks County Museum in nearby Aylesbury

·         Roald's charitable commitments in the fields of neurology, hematology and literacy have continued after his death by his literary estate (through the Roald Dahl Foundation)

·         June 2005—The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Center opened in Great Missenden

·         His first children's book was The Gremlins

·         had a successful parallel career as the writer of macabre adult short stories

·         Dahl wrote more than 60 short stories that have appeared in numerous collections

·         For a short period in the 1960s Dahl wrote screenplays to make money


And that's Roald Dahl's life in a nutshell!