Page 20 - Great Elizabethans

Have you ever dreamed of eating a Wonka Bar, moving things with your mind, or making a potion that sent your grandma through the roof? Roald Dahl’s amazing stories have been thrilling children – and grown-ups! – since James and the Giant Peach was published in 1961.
PRANKS AND CHOCOLATE
Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, South Wales, in 1916, but his parents, Sofie and Harald, were Norwegian. Named after the famous polar explorer Roald Amundsen, Roald would also grow up to travel far and wide, especially in his imagination. In the summer holidays, he loved visiting his grandparents in Norway, where he ate fish pudding and special many-layered cake, and listened to his mother telling stories of trolls, giants and witches.
But Roald’s childhood was marked by sadness, as well as joy and adventure. When he was only four, his sister Astri died of appendicitis, and
not long after, his father died too. His mother was left with six children to bring up alone.
Roald was quite a mischievous little boy. He wrote about his experiences at school in Llandaff, and later at boarding school in
Repton, in his autobiography, Boy. One of his most outrageous pranks was when he and a group of friends put a dead mouse
in a bottle of gobstoppers! When the owner of the sweet shop complained, the headmaster punished the boys so harshly that
Sofie took Roald away and sent him to another school.
At boarding school in Repton, Roald hated the teachers’ cruelty and having to run errands for older boys – but he
loved being asked to test new chocolates for Cadbury and write down what he thought of them. This would inspire
one of his most famous and best-loved books: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
18