Boy: Tales of Childhood

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At eighteen, opting out of university, Roald begins prosperous career at The Shell Company in England. Two years later, the company reassigns him to a post in East Africa, to his delight. Unfortunately, a few short years later, in 1939, World War II dawns, relocating Roald again, this time to Nairobi, then all over The Mediterranean, serving as a Royal Air Force pilot. Alas, as the author promises, that is another story (later published as Going Solo). Going Solo Harald Dahl had two children by his first wife, Marie, who died shortly after the birth of their second child. He then married Sofie Magdalene Hesselberg, Roald's mother. Harald was more than 20 years older than Sofie; he was born in 1863 and she was born in 1885. By the time Roald Dahl was born in 1916, his father was 53 years old. Dahl, Roald (1977). The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (2013ed.). Puffin Books. p.207.

At nine years old, boarding school was understandable a lonely, intimidating experience. From his memories of the Headmaster and Floor Matron, readers are given the undeniable inspiration for what became the novel Matilda. Narrated by the book's author, Roald Dahl, Boy: Tales of Childhoodbegins with Dahl explaining his ancestry. His father, Harald, while living in Norway in the 1800s, has his arm unnecessarily amputated by a drunk country doctor. Harald moves to France and starts a shipbrokers business with another Norwegian, moving it to a port in Wales. After Harald's first wife, Marie, dies following the birth of their second child, Harald marries Sofie, a fellow Norwegian. They have four more children, one of whom is Roald Dahl. Mrs Pratchett, who sat in the headmaster's office to watch the canings, was not satisfied after the first stroke was delivered and insisted the headmaster should cane much harder which he did: six of the hardest strokes he could muster while Mrs Pratchett beamed with great delight as each boy suffered his punishment. Dahl’s mother was outraged when she discovered that her son had been caned, and went to confront the school’s headmaster, who advised her to transfer Roald to another school if she disapproved of his methods.

An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details. This is not an autobiography. … throughout my young days at school and just afterwards a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten. … Some are funny. Some are painful. … All are true. Dahl is telling stories from his childhood. He would holiday in the summer in Norway with his family every year. He also went to boarding school. You can see how this is the seeds for almost all his stories. All the horror of adults he tells come from his experience at school. I can't believe some stuff he had to live through. It was abusive. Charming were also some of his harder experiences - the joys of growing up in a time where there was no such thing as anaesthetic and so getting your tonsils out was a lot more painful.Mrs. Pratchett is the despicable and grubby owner of the candy shop near Dahl's elementary school. As revenge for her unpleasantness toward him and his friends, Dahl devises a plan to put a dead mouse in her gobstoppers jar. Afterward, she goes to the boys' school and talks the Headmaster into punishing the boys by hitting them with a cane. Mr. Coombes Roald Dahl's father Harald Dahl and mother Sofie Hesselberg were Norwegians who emigrated to Wales before World War I, and settled in Cardiff. Families can talk about the harsh realities of the author's boyhood experiences and how the subject of school punishment is handled differently when it comes to today's kids. When he graduated, instead of going to Oxford or Cambridge, he wanted to see the world and have adventures, so he spent the summer of 1934 exploring Newfoundland and joined the Shell Company at age 18. His first placement was to East Africa for three years; soon afterwards he would become a fighter pilot in the Second World War. In the short years he spent as a London commuter, he realized how easy a 9-to-5 office job is compared to making a living as a writer. (I could sympathize.) Me and Mama Radyr ones, despite the fact that he lived in Wales and had his business there. He maintained that there was some kind of magic about English schooling and that the education it provided had caused the inhabitants of a small island to become a great nation and a great Empire and to produce the world’s greatest literature. ‘No child of mine’, he kept saying, ‘is going to school anywhere else but in England.’ My mother was determined to carry out the wishes of her dead husband. To accomplish this, she would have to move house from Wales to England, but she wasn’t ready for that yet. She must stay here in Wales for a while longer, where she knew people who could help and advise her, especially her husband’s great friend and partner, Mr Aadnesen. But even if she wasn’t leaving Wales quite yet, it was essential that she move to a smaller and more manageable house. She had enough children to look after without having to bother about a farm as well. So as soon as her fifth child (another daughter) was born, she sold the big house and moved to a smaller one a few miles away in Llandaff. It was called Cumberland Lodge and it was nothing more than a pleasant medium-sized suburban villa. So it was in Llandaff two years later, when I was six years old, that I went to my first school.