by Roald Dahl
This was Dr Arnold Ashley Miles, always known to the family as Ashley. He and Ellen married in 1930.
* * *
Romance was floating in the air like moondust and the two lovers, for some reason we younger ones could never understand, did not seem to be very keen on us tagging along with them. They went out in the boat alone. They climbed the rocks alone. They even had breakfast alone. We resented this. As a family we had always done everything together and we didn’t see why the ancient half-sister should suddenly decide to do things differently even if she had become engaged. We were inclined to blame the male lover for disrupting the calm of our family life, and it was inevitable that he would have to suffer for it sooner or later.
The male lover was a great pipe-smoker. The disgusting smelly pipe was never out of his mouth except when he was eating or swimming. We even began to wonder whether he removed it when he was kissing his betrothed. He gripped the stem of the pipe in the most manly fashion between his strong white teeth and kept it there while talking to you. This annoyed us. Surely it was more polite to take it out and speak properly.
One day, we all went in our little motor-boat to an island we had never been to before, and for once the ancient half-sister and the manly lover decided to come with us. We chose this particular island because we saw some goats on it. They were climbing about on the rocks and we thought it would be fun to go and visit them. But when we landed, we found that the goats were totally wild and we couldn’t get near them. So we gave up trying to make friends with them and simply sat around on the smooth rocks in our bathing costumes, enjoying the lovely sun.
The manly lover was filling his pipe. I happened to be watching him as he very carefully packed the tobacco into the bowl from a yellow oilskin pouch. He had just finished doing this and was about to light up when the ancient half-sister called on him to come swimming. So he put down the pipe and off he went.
* * *
People used to think that smoking was beneficial to health. We all now know that it’s completely the opposite.
* * *
I stared at the pipe that was lying there on the rocks. About twelve inches away from it, I saw a little heap of dried goat’s droppings, each one small and round like a pale brown berry, and at that point, an interesting idea began to sprout in my mind. I picked up the pipe and knocked all the tobacco out of it. I then took the goat’s droppings and teased them with my fingers until they were nicely shredded. Very gently I poured these shredded droppings into the bowl of the pipe, packing them down with my thumb just as the manly lover always did it. When that was done, I placed a thin layer of real tobacco over the top. The entire family was watching me as I did this. Nobody said a word, but I could sense a glow of approval all round. I replaced the pipe on the rock, and all of us sat back to await the return of the victim. The whole lot of us were in this together now, even my mother. I had drawn them into the plot simply by letting them see what I was doing. It was a silent, rather dangerous family conspiracy.
Back came the manly lover, dripping wet from the sea, chest out, strong and virile, healthy and sunburnt. ‘Great swim!’ he announced to the world. ‘Splendid water! Terrific stuff!’ He towelled himself vigorously, making the muscles of his biceps ripple, then he sat down on the rocks and reached for his pipe.
Nine pairs of eyes watched him intently. Nobody giggled to give the game away. We were trembling with anticipation, and a good deal of the suspense was caused by the fact that none of us knew just what was going to happen.
The manly lover put the pipe between his strong white teeth and struck a match. He held the flame over the bowl and sucked. The tobacco ignited and glowed, and the lover’s head was enveloped in clouds of blue smoke. ‘Ah-h-h,’ he said, blowing smoke through his nostrils. ‘There’s nothing like a good pipe after a bracing swim.’
* * *
Roald Dahl liked to smoke when he wrote. His writing hut – which remains exactly as he left it – has a ceiling stained yellow by nicotine. And his ashtray is still overflowing with cigarette butts. You can see a replica of his writing hut at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden.
* * *
Still we waited. We could hardly bear the suspense. The sister who was seven couldn’t bear it at all. ‘What sort of tobacco do you put in that thing?’ she asked with superb innocence.
‘Navy Cut,’ the male lover answered. ‘Player’s Navy Cut. It’s the best there is. These Norwegians use all sorts of disgusting scented tobacco, but I wouldn’t touch them.’
‘I didn’t know they had different tastes,’ the small sister went on.
‘Of course they do,’ the manly lover said. ‘All tobaccos are different to the discriminating pipe-smoker. Navy Cut is clean and unadulterated. It’s a man’s smoke.’ The man seemed to go out of his way to use long words like discriminating and unadulterated. We hadn’t the foggiest what they meant.
* * *
Photograph © Robert Opie
* * *
The ancient half-sister, fresh from her swim and now clothed in a towel bathrobe, came and sat herself close to her manly lover. Then the two of them started giving each other those silly little glances and soppy smiles that made us all feel sick. They were far too occupied with one another to notice the awful tension that had settled over our group. They didn’t even notice that every face in the crowd was turned towards them. They had sunk once again into their lovers’ world where little children did not exist.
The sea was calm, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.
Then all of a sudden, the manly lover let out a piercing scream and his whole body shot four feet into the air. His pipe flew out of his mouth and went clattering over the rocks, and the second scream he gave was so shrill and loud that all the seagulls on the island rose up in alarm. His features were twisted like those of a person undergoing severe torture, and his skin had turned the colour of snow. He began spluttering and choking and spewing and hawking and acting generally like a man with some serious internal injury. He was completely speechless.
We stared at him, enthralled.
The ancient half-sister, who must have thought she was about to lose her future husband for ever, was pawing at him and thumping him on the back and crying, ‘Darling! Darling! What’s happening to you? Where does it hurt? Get the boat! Start the engine! We must rush him to a hospital quickly!’ She seemed to have forgotten that there wasn’t a hospital within fifty miles.
‘I’ve been poisoned!’ spluttered the manly lover. ‘It’s got into my lungs! It’s in my chest! My chest is on fire! My stomach’s going up in flames!’
‘Help me get him into the boat! Quick!’ cried the ancient half-sister, gripping him under the armpits. ‘Don’t just sit there staring! Come and help!’
‘No, no, no!’ cried the now not-so-manly lover. ‘Leave me alone! I need air! Give me air!’ He lay back and breathed in deep draughts of splendid Norwegian ocean air, and in another minute or so, he was sitting up again and was on the way to recovery.
‘What in the world came over you?’ asked the ancient half-sister, clasping his hands tenderly in hers.
‘I can’t imagine,’ he murmured. ‘I simply can’t imagine.’ His face was as still and white as virgin snow and his hands were trembling. ‘There must be a reason for it,’ he added. ‘There’s got to be a reason.’
‘I know the reason!’ shouted the seven-year-old sister, screaming with laughter. ‘I know what it was!’
‘What was it?’ snapped the ancient one. ‘What have you been up to? Tell me at once!’
‘It’s his pipe!’ shouted the small sister, still convulsed with laughter.
‘What’s wrong with my pipe?’ said the manly lover.
‘You’ve been smoking goat’s tobacco!’ cried the small sister.
It took a few moments for the full meaning of these words to dawn upon the two lovers, but when it did, and when the terrible anger began to show itself on the manly lover’s face, a
nd when he started to rise slowly and menacingly to his feet, we all sprang up and ran for our lives and jumped off the rocks into the deep water.
* * *
Roald Dahl liked to play tricks all his life. One of his favourite practical jokes was decanting cheap plonk into empty wine bottles of an excellent vintage. He loved to watch his guests’ reactions when they drank it.
* * *
* * *
Roald Dahl left St Peter’s in 1929, and started at Repton after the Christmas holidays – in January 1930.
* * *
Getting dressed for the big school
When I was twelve, my mother said to me, ‘I’ve entered you for Marlborough and Repton. Which would you like to go to?’
Both were famous Public Schools, but that was all I knew about them. ‘Repton,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to Repton.’ It was an easier word to say than Marlborough.
‘Very well,’ my mother said. ‘You shall go to Repton.’
We were living in Kent then, in a place called Bexley. Repton was up in the Midlands, near Derby, and some 140 miles away to the north. That was of no consequence. There were plenty of trains. Nobody was taken to school by car in those days. We were put on the train.
* * *
Repton had been educating pupils for quite some time before Roald Dahl arrived – 372 years, to be precise. And it’s still going strong.
* * *
I was exactly thirteen in September 1929 when the time came for me to go to Repton. On the day of my departure, I had first of all to get dressed for the part. I had been to London with my mother the week before to buy the school clothes, and I remember how shocked I was when I saw the outfit I was expected to wear.
‘I can’t possibly go about in those!’ I cried. ‘Nobody wears things like that!’
‘Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake?’ my mother said to the shop assistant.
‘If he’s going to Repton, madam, he must wear these clothes,’ the assistant said firmly.
And now this amazing fancy-dress was all laid out on my bed waiting to be put on. ‘Put it on,’ my mother said. ‘Hurry up or you’ll miss the train.’
‘I’ll look like a complete idiot,’ I said. My mother went out of the room and left me to it. With immense reluctance, I began to dress myself.
First there was a white shirt with a detachable white collar. This collar was unlike any other collar I had seen. It was as stiff as a piece of perspex. At the front, the stiff points of the collar were bent over to make a pair of wings, and the whole thing was so tall that the points of the wings, as I discovered later, rubbed against the underneath of my chin. It was known as a butterfly collar.
* * *
Roald Dahl wears his boater while at Repton School
* * *
To attach the butterfly collar to the shirt you needed a back stud and a front stud. I had never been through this rigmarole before. I must do this properly, I told myself. So first I put the back stud into the back of the collar-band of the shirt. Then I tried to attach the back of the collar to the back stud, but the collar was so stiff I couldn’t get the stud through the slit. I decided to soften it with spit. I put the edge of the collar into my mouth and sucked the starch away. It worked. The stud went through the slit and the back of the collar was now attached to the back of the shirt.
I inserted the front stud into one side of the front of the shirt and slipped the shirt over my head. With the help of a mirror, I now set about pushing the top of the front stud through the first of the two slits in the front of the collar. It wouldn’t go. The slit was so small and stiff and starchy that nothing would go through it. I took the shirt off and put both the front slits of the collar into my mouth and chewed them until they were soft. The starch didn’t taste of anything. I put the shirt back on again and at last I was able to get the front stud through the collar-slits.
Around the collar but underneath the butterfly wings, I tied a black tie, using an ordinary tie-knot.
Then came the trousers and the braces. The trousers were black with thin pinstriped grey lines running down them. I buttoned the braces on to the trousers, six buttons in all, then I put on the trousers and adjusted the braces to the correct length by sliding two brass clips up and down.
I put on a brand new pair of black shoes and laced them up.
* * *
Today younger pupils at Repton wear a much simpler uniform: school blazer, dark grey trousers or skirt – the school now admits girls as well as boys – white shirt or blouse, V-neck pullover and black, polished, leather shoes.
* * *
Now for the waistcoat. This was also black and it had twelve buttons down the front and two little waistcoat pockets on either side, one above the other. I put it on and did up the buttons, starting at the top and working down. I was glad I didn’t have to chew each of those button-holes to get the buttons through them.
All this was bad enough for a boy who had never before worn anything more elaborate than a pair of shorts and a blazer. But the jacket put the lid on it. It wasn’t actually a jacket, it was a sort of tail-coat, and it was without a doubt the most ridiculous garment I had ever seen. Like the waistcoat, it was jet black and made of a heavy serge-like material. In the front it was cut away so that the two sides met only at one point, about halfway down the waistcoat. Here there was a single button and this had to be done up.
* * *
Repton was where Roald Dahl and other pupils were lucky enough to road-test chocolate bars for Cadbury. It was a truly delicious task and one that encouraged Roald’s lifelong love of chocolate.
* * *
From the button downwards, the lines of the coat separated and curved away behind the legs of the wearer and came together again at the backs of the knees, forming a pair of ‘tails’. These tails were separated by a slit and when you walked about they flapped against your legs. I put the thing on and did up the front button. Feeling like an undertaker’s apprentice in a funeral parlour, I crept downstairs.
My sisters shrieked with laughter when I appeared. ‘He can’t go out in those!’ they cried. ‘He’ll be arrested by the police!’
‘Put your hat on,’ my mother said, handing me a stiff wide-brimmed straw-hat with a blue and black band around it. I put it on and did my best to look dignified. The sisters fell all over the room laughing.
My mother got me out of the house before I lost my nerve completely and together we walked through the village to Bexley station. My mother was going to accompany me to London and see me on to the Derby train, but she had been told that on no account should she travel farther than that. I had only a small suitcase to carry. My trunk had been sent on ahead labelled ‘Luggage in Advance’.
‘Nobody’s taking the slightest notice of you,’ my mother said as we walked through Bexley High Street.
And curiously enough nobody was.
* * *
Bexley High Street.
* * *
‘I have learnt one thing about England,’ my mother went on. ‘It is a country where men love to wear uniforms and eccentric clothes. Two hundred years ago their clothes were even more eccentric then they are today. You can consider yourself lucky you don’t have to wear a wig on your head and ruffles on your sleeves.’
‘I still feel an ass,’ I said.
‘Everyone who looks at you,’ my mother said, ‘knows that you are going away to a Public School. All English Public Schools have their own different crazy uniforms. People will be thinking how lucky you are to be going to one of those famous places.’
We took the train from Bexley to Charing Cross and then went by taxi to Euston Station. At Euston, I was put on the train for Derby with a lot of other boys who all wore the same ridiculous clothes as me, and away I went.
* * *
Public school is anything but that. Although it might sound as if it’s open to the general public, ‘public’ refers to schools named in the Public Schools Act 1868. These schools receive all their funding fro
m private sources, rather than from the state or the government and now prefer to be called independent rather than public.
* * *
* * *
While at Repton, Roald Dahl lived in the Priory House. But a house was much more than a place to live – it was a team too. Everything you did at school was as part of that team.
* * *
Boazers
At Repton, prefects were never called prefects. They were called Boazers, and they had the power of life and death over us junior boys. They could summon us down in our pyjamas at night-time and thrash us for leaving just one football sock on the floor of the changing-room when it should have been hung up on a peg. A Boazer could thrash us for a hundred and one other piddling little misdemeanours – for burning his toast at tea-time, for failing to dust his study properly, for failing to get his study fire burning in spite of spending half your pocket money on firelighters, for being late at roll-call, for talking in evening Prep, for forgetting to change into house-shoes at six o’clock. The list was endless.
‘Four with the dressing-gown on or three with it off?’ the Boazer would say to you in the changing-room late at night.