Interesting fact: Roald Dahl helped people be healthier: He had a son with a medical condition called hydrocephalus after getting a head injury in a car accident. (Hydrocephalus causes fluid that usually cushions the brain and spinal cord to build up in the brain which causes the brain to swell.) To help his son, Roald Dahl worked with a neurosurgeon and an engineer to create a device called a shunt which is a tube with a valve at one end that is used to get fluid out of the brain. As far as I know the type of shunt Dahl helped create is still used to help children and adults today. I was born with hydrocephalus and without the help of a shunt I could have died. The fact that Dahl created something that helps make it possible for people to live better lives, makes him all the more special to me. He'll always be a hero to me.
If Roald Dahl helped people to be healthier then why did he smoke? I've got Charlie and the chocolate factory on DVD and disc two they said he smoke in the hospital where he was being taken cared of. But otherwise Roald Dahl was a wonderful author. One of the very best. Please don't be offended. Thank you. From Virginia Clark. 🎵😀💜🐦🐷
He also had the most lyrical voice. This takes me right back to being small, curled up in front of the tape recorder, listening to him narrate James and the Giant Peach, Dirty Beasts, The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me...
Yep, they didn't patronize Kids. Some of the Books had dark overtones and backgrounds, but at the end the Kids were *always* the winners over the bad People.
@@soeffingwhat Yes, when he wrote The Witches the main character destroyed the English witches but the drawback was he only had nine more years to live in his mouse form.
The Twits exemplifies this. It is chocked full of disgusting, horrifying and inappropriate behaviour. Kids absolutely love it. I know that in the early 90's I absolutely adored reading that book as a child. Groups who want to censor books and prevent kids from reading such material justify it under the misapprehension that reading will encourage children to behave that way. Nothing could be further from the truth, kids find the Twits disgusting and gross. When it is read to a classroom they in concert go ewwwwwwwwwwww!!!!! It doesn't inspire kids to be like the Twits, it makes them care more about personal hygiene if anything. Learning about "adult" concepts lets them understand the world around them, instead of arriving as an adult steeped in ignorance and indoctrination.
@@kytim89 Oh do be quiet you tiresome, nasty little Yank. If you're going to smear a dead man - a great dead man - provide links to (reliable) sources. Otherwise, as you say so tenderly in your happy land: "shut the fuck up".
I spent my entire Primary School life idolizing this man. Read everything by him I could get my hands on. Probably explains why my sense of humor is quite dark and quirky lol
This man brought me a lot of happiness as a child, I remember buying my first ever book, ‘The Twits’, when I was seven, and one of my favourite memories was reading ‘The Witches’ with my father. You have to have a certain genius to be able to write children’s books and write them well.
This interview was approximately 5 months after I was born. I grew up reading charlie and the chocolate factory, charlie and the great glass elevator, and james and the giant peach. Rest in peace Roald Dahl and the interviewer Terry Wogan.
I remember when I met the marvelous Roald Dahl in 3rd grade. The teacher had a read-a-loud with Charlie and the chocolate factory. From then on I continued to read all of his books, and he’ll always be the worlds #1 storyteller. I hope you’re doing good up there in Heaven :’)
I read every single Dahl book when I was a kid, but never heard him speak before now. He has that old distinct style of talking that you hear in interviews with high profile individuals from the first half of the 1900's. Don't really hear that anymore unfortunately. Thankfully we still have the Brits and their wonderful accent heheh
Roald Dahl a fine and magical man. As a kid I read both his adult and childrens books, I loved Danny Champion of the world, and tales of the unexpected. He hed a very introspective & pyschological window onto the human frame of mind. - Go & read his books!
He did several appearances on Wogan during the 1980s - I believe. I read practically all of his book in my primary school years during the 1980s(although Matilda and Esio Trot came later on). He was something of a mega star during the 1980s, not just with his book but with "Tales of the Unexpected" and people remembering that he also adapted the Bond film "You Only Live Twice".
Wow I was two,but from age 7 spent every winter in a little red brick library across the road reading Roald Dahl,mad windy rainy bleak days engrossed in his books,fantastic children's writer
When I was about 9 yrs old my parents brought me to a broadcast being recorded of Roald Dahl at RTE in Dublin - I remember him as a bit of a curmudgeon: some of us were able to ask him questions and one little girl asked what advice he'd give to if she wanted to become a writer. I recall him suggesting that she not bother starting because so few writers succeed at all. 32 years later I still love his writing.
Roald Dahl is one of my favourite authors in the entire world. My favourite books by him are Billy and the Minpins The enormous crocodile The BFG Matilda Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
You must be the first person I've seen who thinks Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is better than Chocolate Factory. I have to respectfully disagree.
I have this book called ‘D is for Dahl’ and it’s tremendous because it lists so many quirky and interesting facts about Dahl and the frozen lamb story was in there
I loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, The Twits. I would had loved to had seen Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson do their own take on The Twits and call it The Twats.
As you said he was an anti-semite, though that was more common for the zeitgeist of the time, it still doesn't it excuse the bigotry. However that doesn't diminish the quality of his books, certainly it doesn't take away from the joy brought to millions of children and improved literacy. It is similar with J. K. Rowling, she is a rampant, disgustingly bigoted transphobe. However her Harry Potter books have brought an entire generation of kids into reading and providing a wondrous joy. The problem with her is that she is one of the most active and rabid bigots, she is spreading hate to the world and children everyday. I have no idea if Dahl would have behaved the same if social media existed during his life. But since he is dead the legacy to children are those fantastic books. Rowling continues to spread hate that takes away from the value her books have provided to society.
They were worried about the future of children reading books. I can imagine in 1984 that was the case, but little did they know in 13 years (which sadly Roald would not live to see) J K Rowling exploded on to the scene. It's fascinating listening to people's perspectives & how the world was years ago. Sometimes it does all work out. 🙂
His point of writing fine children books being exceptionally harder than writing for adults is borne out by how few fantastic and prolific child authors exist. Yes there are authors who write books for children, but how many authors can you name that wrote enormously successful books each based on entirely unique and fascinating concepts. Even for J. K. Rowling's vast success, it only stems from one universe. I struggle to think of anyone who wrote such disparate and successful novels that rival even a fraction of Dahl.
@@andyjlyon1 To be more accurate, he was an "Anglo." Not a proper Welshman, but someone who considered himself English. Same as the Duke of Wellington not considering himself Irish.
Matthew Laurence ikr both his parents were from norway, but what i meant was that he should have been able to speak norwegian, and probably moved back to norway
He did speak Norwegian, it was his first language before English with his parents and sisters, like my dad with Italian. He did have Scandinavian habits, and tales of magic with giants and the like, reveals this in him, he was even buried with things for the afterlife like the Vikings. He had grandparents he would visit in the fjords and spend Summer holidays there, so it did mean something to him. I get the impression that he did not really care about nationality, he seems to of just accepted the place he grew up in as home and didn't think about it too much. Probably preferred to write in English to reach a bigger audience. I get the impression that he did not much care for national identity. He was not outwardly British. Perhaps he felt he was in-between? Sort of too British for Norway and too Scandinavian to be British and just stuck with the land he grew up in? I can relate in some ways myself.
