Roald Dahl

Marriage and being a Dad

In New York July 1953 Patricia Neal a Hollywood actress married Roald Dahl at Trinity Church . They bought a small white house in Great Missenden it stood among fruit trees a peaceful place to write. The house was extended and in 1963 Dahl called it Gipsy House he lived there with his family for the rest of his life.

Dahl and Patricia were married for 30 years had five children Olivia 1955 died age 7.Tessa 1957, Theo 1960, Ophelia 1964 and Lucy 1965. They divorced in 1983.

Felicity (Liccy) was Dahl’s second wife, they married in 1983. She worked for a fashion magazine and in television. She had three children Neisha, Charlotte and Lorna they were all friends. After Roald’s death, Liccy set up the Roald Dahl Foundation, which raises money for charities close to his heart.

Dahl was a Special Dad delighting in the company of his children. "You will learn as you get older,...that no father is perfect. Grown-ups are Complicated creatures full of quirks and secrets. What a child wants and deserves is a parent that is SPARKY". Don’t you agree ? Dahl really enjoyed making up charming stories to entertain his children. "Every evening after my sister Lucy and I had gone to bed, my father would walk slowly upstairs, his bones creaking louder than the staircase, to tell us a story. I can see him now, leaning against the wall of our bedroom with his pockets looking into the distance , reaching into his imagination. It was here, in our bedroom, that he began telling many of the stories that later became books you know". (by Ophelia Dahl).

Parenting can also be sad. When Olivia died age 7 Dahl nearly went out of his mind with grief. Writing was the last thing on his mind.