ROALD DAHL'S CHILDHOOD
Roald Dahl's Childhood
On September the 13th in 1916, in Llandaff, South Wales, Roald Dahl was born. His parents, both Norwegian were Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl. He regularly went to Oslo in Norway to visit his grandparents during the summers of his childhood. As a child, he was mischievous, full of energy and always finding himself in trouble. His earliest memory as a child, was pedaling to school on a tricycle, with his sisters far behind him. When his father died, Dahl was four years old. His mother sent him to English schools, as it was Dahl’s father’s last wish. Dahl attended Llandaff Cathedral School, where he found himself in trouble. Once, he placed a dead mouse in the storekeeper’s candy, resulting in a severe beating from the principal.
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His mother decided to move him to St. Peter’s Boarding School and then Repton. In these two schools he spent the rest of his education as a child. Dahl described his time there as “days of horrors” filled with “rules, rules and still more rules that had to be obeyed.” This inspired most of his fiction of angry and strict teachers/adults. Although Dahl was not a highly esteemed student, his mother gave him the option to attend Oxford or Cambridge University after he finished his schooling. Despite this being a wonderful opportunity to him, Dahl declined. In his book Boy: Tales of Childhood he replied with “No, thank you. I want to go straight from school to work for a company that will send me to wonderful faraway places like Africa or China.”
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