Roald Dahl

My hero is Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl was born on 13th September 1916 in Llandaff, Wales. Roald was the only son of his father, Harald Dahl’s secondary marriage with Sofie Magdalene Hesselberg . Roald had 1 stepsister, 1 stepbrother, and 4 sisters. In 1920, when Roald was 3 years old, Astri, Roald's sister, died because of a disease. Not long after that, Harald got sick, but he refused to got some medicine because he was so depressed and he died when he was 57 years.

Roald Dahl with St.Peter uniform (http://www.theage.com.au/ ffximage/2005/08/11/roald_dahl,0.jpg)

Roahl spent his playgroup time in Elmtree House, his first school in Llandaff until his age was 6 years old. When he was 7 years old, he went to Llandaff Cathedral School. He had some very memorable moments when he was school there : he and his friends liked to stop in a candy shop and take a look into the candies. One day, he wanted to make Mrs. Pratchett, the candy shop’s owner shocked and it worked! But he also got some rattan’s lashes as the detention. When he was 9, he went to St. Peter’s School, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, and he lived in dormitory school. In St. Peter, he had to write a letter once a week to his family. This routine always he did until his mother’s death 32 years later. He had a bad memory of this school.

When he was 12 years, he went to Repton. Sometimes, Cadbury, one of some big chocolate factory would give some new tastes of chocolate to Repton’s students and then they had to give some comments about the new chocolate. Roald Dahl imagined if he was an employee in Cadbury’s factory and how he could find a new recipe. That was the idea of Roald’s book : Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. When he was 15, he became Fives’ captain, squash’s captain and gathered soccer teams. He also liked photography and he got much appreciation from it. Roald never went to the university.

Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal (http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3261319.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k= 2&d=10276273D480F6D8C80CC2282E2C1DE9A55A1E4F32AD3138)

When he was 18 years old, Roald joined the Public School Exploring Society’s expedition in Nairobi, Africa. After that, he started working in Shell as a salesman. He was so happy and got many experiences there. Then when he was 23 years old, he signed up in Royal Air Force in Nairobi, then he was accepted as a pilot officer and was trained on the Gloster Gladiator fighter plane near Iraq. After he ran out of fuel and crash landed one day, he was blinded but rescued. His sight returned and he went on more flight missions against the Germans.

Roald Dahl writing hut (http://static.flickr.com/24/52716155_b762b3741e.jpg)

He went home at 1942 to Washington. After that, CS Forester, author of Captain Hornblower, asked him to write down his experiences at war for the SATURDAY EVENING POST. From this time, he started his new life, his new career as a writer. And his writings had a very good response. After that, Roald Dahl wrote many short stories for adults. He wrote many kinds of stories, from mystery stories until war stories. He also still wrote articles for SATURDAY EVENING POST. His stories were published in many magazines, such as NEW YORKER, HARPERS, ATLANTIC MONTHLY. His stories became famous and some of them were televised and successful. Roald Dahl was writing short stories for adults for 15 years. Then one day he realized that his stories were got more fictional than realistic.

Roald got married with an actress named Patricia Neal in 1953. They had 5 children : Olivia, Theo, Tessa, Ophelia and Lucy. His first daughter, Olivia died because of brain disease and his son, Theo (4 months) got disease too: hydrocephalus after an accident. Roald very survived Theo to got him alive and Theo had a spectacular recovery. Then Roald divorced with Patricia and married with Felicity Crosland in 1983. But Roald and Patricia were still friends.

He became interested to writing children’s books when he made bedtime stories for his daughters, Olivia and Tessa. His first book was JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH. His second book was Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. After that, Roald Dahl wrote many other books, such as THE BFG, DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD, THE TWITS, THE WITCHES, MATILDA, BOY and GOING SOLO. His books have been translated into 34 languages and some of them won awards. Roald Dahl was more interested and more pleased to write children's books than adult's short stories. He thought that writing children’s books were harder than writing adult's short stories, because he had to think how to make children interested and have passion to became readers. Roald Dahl wrote his stories in a small hut he built at the bottom of his house in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire. Everyday, at 9:30 a.m. Roald sat on his mother's armchair, which was made of wood, and started writing his stories until 4 p.m.

Roald had many passions, like orchids, paintings, chocolate, conkers. In his lifetime, Roald gave his time and money to help people. He assisted, visited, and tried to made children happy. It named Felicity Dahl.

A few months before his death, Lorina, his stepsister died of brain tumour. Then in 1990, Roald was diagnosed with Myelo-dysplastic anemia (leukemia). He wrote on a newspaper for his fans that he always felt so sleepy and could not write books. Roald Dahl died on November 23rd 1994 at age 74. After his death, his books became more popular and made an incredible numbers of copy. After his death, Felicity Dahl changed its name into The Roald Dahl Foundation and help people in three things : literacy, neurology and haematology.

I like Roald Dahl’s stories, some of them that I read were Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Three words for him : awesome, incredible and great. His imagination is so different. His stories are full of humor and light for children. But, do you know why Roald Dahl is my hero? It is because he gives me motivation to be smart like Matilda, give me some lessons : don’t be so greedy, never give up, etc. For me, Roald Dahl is a man who really loves his family, specially his mother. The character grandmother in his book “The Witches” is based from his mother. He really admired his mother. One of Roald Dahl life’s motto that I like is:
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But ah my foes and oh my friends
It gives a lovely light