Storyteller

by Donald Sturrock

  134. Felicity Dahl, Conversation with the author, 10/22/08.

  135. Treglown, p. 79.

  136. Roald Dahl, What I would do if I were him and had to give a speech—RDMSC RD 15/5/92/1–2.

  137. Dahl cited in Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry Wallace, p. 343.

  138. As early as February 1944, William Stephenson had reported to London that the president was going to “jettison” Wallace—H. Montgomery Hyde, The Quiet Canadian (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962), p. 192.

  139. Cited in Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, p. 373. Wallace eventually got the Commerce Department portfolio previously held by Jesse Jones; he was fired in 1946. In 1948, Wallace unsuccessfully stood for the presidency as an Independent Progressive.

  140. Diaries of Henry Agard Wallace, 1935–46, University of Iowa, Special Collections, Iowa City, Iowa.

  141. Conant, The Irregulars, p. 267.

  142. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 08/09/44—RDMSC RD 14/5/3/17.

  143. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 08/18/44—RDMSC RD 14/5/3/18.

  144. Roald Dahl, Letter to George van Riper, 09/04/44—RDMSC RD 15/5/33.

  145. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 09/16/44—RDMSC RD 14/5/3/21.

  146. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 10/24/44—RDMSC RD 14/5/3/26.

  147. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 10/23/44—RDMSC RD 1/1/1/144.

  148. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 11/10/44—RDMSC RD 14/5/3/28.

  149. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 11/18/44—RDMSC RD 14/5/3/29.

  150. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 01/08/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/1.

  151. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 03/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/9.

  152. Roald Dahl, Letter to Claudia Haines, undated—CMP.

  153. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 03/26/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/13.

  154. Ibid.

  155. Roald Dahl, Letter to Claudia Haines, undated—CMP.

  156. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 04/18/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/20.

  157. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 05/21/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/26.

  158. Charles Marsh, How Truman Came Through, 07/28/44—Papers of Henry Agard Wallace, University of Iowa, Special Collections, Iowa City, Iowa.

  159. Cave Brown, “C,” p. 486.

  160. Hyde, The Quiet Canadian, pp. 227–28.

  161. David Stafford, Camp X (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1986), pp. 253–54.

  162. Dahl, Airgraph to his mother, 07/06/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/35.

  163. Evelyn Davis, Interview with Norm Killian, 03/07.

  164. Dahl, Airgraph to his mother, 08/10/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/40.

  165. Dahl, Airgraph to his mother, 08/01/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/37.

  166. Roald Dahl, Letter to David Stafford cited in Stafford, Camp X, p. 253.

  167. Macdonald, The True Intrepid, p. 243.

  168. Liz Drake, Letter to Ophelia Dahl, 04/02/93.

  169. West, ed., British Security Co-ordination, p. xi.

  170. Alfhild Hansen, Interview with the author, 08/07/92.

  171. Bill Stevenson, Letter to David Ogilvy, University of Regina 83–7, Box 9 801.4.

  172. Macdonald, The True Intrepid, p. 238.

  173. William Stephenson, Letter to Roald Dahl, 06/20/45—RDMSC RD 15/5/2.

  174. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 09/08/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/44.

  175. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 09/15/45—RDMSC RD 14/5/4/45.

  176. Dahl, Someone Like You, in Collected Stories, p. 76.

  177. Diaries of Henry Agard Wallace, 17/10/45—University of Iowa, Special Collections, Iowa City, Iowa.

  178. Macdonald, The True Intrepid, p. 246.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN : The Scholar-Gypsy

  1. John Lehmann, The Ample Proposition (London: Eyre & Spottiswood, 1966), pp. 30, 70.

  2. Artemis Cooper, Writing at the Kitchen Table (New York: Ecco Press, 1999), pp. 131–32.

  3. Christopher Isherwood, London Magazine (August 1956), pp. 45–47. See also David Kynaston, Austerity Britain (London: Bloomsbury, 2007).

  4. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 02/20/46—CMP.

  5. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 01/10/41—RDMSC RD 14/4/43.

  6. Wintle and Fisher, The Pied Pipers, p. 104.

  7. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 02/20/46—WLC Box 22.

  8. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/02/46—WLC Box 22.

  9. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/10/46—WLC Box 22.

  10. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 03/30/46—WLC Box 22.

  11. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 02/20/46—CMP.

  12. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/10/46—WLC Box 22.

  13. Charles Marsh, Letter to Roald Dahl, undated (probably January 1946)—CMP.

  14. New York Times Book Review, Feb. 10, 1946.

  15. The New Yorker, Feb. 2, 1946.

  16. Orville Prescott, New York Times Book Review—undated cutting in Charles Marsh Papers.

  17. Roald Dahl, Speech for Sunday Express Book Award, 11/29/89—RDMSC RD 6/1/2/35.

  18. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 09/14/45—WLC Box 22.

  19. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 04/02/46—CMP.

  20. Someone Like You in Collected Stories, pp. 76–77.

  21. Ann Watkins, Letter to Roald Dahl, 02/45—RDMSC RD 1/1/1/174. Dahl replied antagonistically that if his stories seemed to be “melodramatic and bloody” that was because “life itself happens to be that way”—02/07/45—RDMSC RD 1/1/1/175.

  22. Roald Dahl, Some Time Never (New York: Scribner’s, 1948), pp. 8, 57–58.

  23. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 02/20/46—WLC Box 22.

  24. Some Time Never, p. 145.

  25. “My God I wish I had gone to Hiroshima to do what Hersey did,” Roald wrote to Ann Watkins, 11/17/46—WLC Box 22.

  26. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/10/46—WLC Box 22.

  27. Roald Dahl, World Leaders, unpublished (c. 1945)—RDMSC RD 5/15.

  28. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 10/31—RDMSC RD 13/1/7/9.

  29. It was the Lord Chancellor, John Sankey, who the young Dahl erroneously dismissed as “something to do with the exchequer”—Letter to his mother, 05/30—RDMSC RD 13/1/5/39.

  30. Post War Air Lines—RDMSC RD 15/5.

  31. Lesley O’Malley, Conversation with the author, 1992.

  32. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 11/09/47—CMP.

  33. Roald Dahl, Letter to Claudia Haines, 04/20/46—CMP.

  34. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 07/19/46—CMP.

  35. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 09/05/46—CMP.

  36. Charles Marsh, Letter to Roald Dahl, 09/10/46—RDMSC RD 16/1/1.

  37. Roald Dahl, Letter to Claudia Haines, undated—CMP.

  38. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh and Claudia Haines, 09/26/46—CMP.

  39. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh and Claudia Haines, 04/17/47—CMP.

  40. Roald Dahl, Letters to Charles Marsh, 07/22/47—CMP.

  41. Roald Dahl, Nineteen Fifty What?, unpublished story—RDMSC RD 5/7.

  42. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 11/09/47—CMP.

  43. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 09/28/46—CMP.

  44. Some Time Never, pp. 8, 44–45.

  45. Ibid.

  46. Ibid., p. 46.

  47. Ibid., pp. 29, 129.

  48. Roald Dahl, Letter to Roger Burlingame, 04/28/45—RDMSC RD 1/1/1/200.

  49. Some Time Never, pp. 129, 29.

  50. Ibid., p. 125.

  51. Ibid., pp. 112, 160, 167.

  52. Ibid., pp. 103–4.

  53. Ibid., pp. v, 221.

  54. Ibid., 243–44, 204.

  55. Ophelia Dahl, Conversation with the author, 03/17/08.

  56. Roald Dahl, Letters to Ann Watkins, 03/30/46, 05/16/46—WLC Box 22.

  57. Roald Dahl, Letter to Nancy in Ann Watkins’s office, 06/25/46—WLC Box 22.

  58. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 10/01/46—WLC Box 22.

  59.
Some Time Never, p. 79.

  60. Asta Anderson, Conversation with the author, 01/03/98.

  61. Some Time Never, p. 79.

  62. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, undated—probably 11/47—CMP.

  63. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 12/03/46—WLC Box 22.

  64. Alfhild Hansen, Conversation with the author, 08/92.

  65. Roald Dahl, Fifty Thousand Frogskins, pp. 87, 111, 121—RDMSC RD 3/2/2.

  66. Roald Dahl, Letters to Claudia Haines, undated, presumably December 1946—CMP.

  67. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 12/23/46—WLC Box 22.

  68. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 12/26/46—WLC Box 22.

  69. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 09/05/46—CMP.

  70. Roald Dahl, Preface to The Mildenhall Treasure in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Other Stories.

  71. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 11/27/46—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/18/1–2.

  72. Ann Watkins, Letter to Roald Dahl, 12/04/46—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/19.

  73. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 12/45—WLC Box 22.

  74. Maxwell Perkins, Letter to Roald Dahl, 01/20/47—RDMSC RD1/1/2/27.

  75. Ann Watkins, Letter to Roald Dahl, 06/02/47—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/52.

  76. John Hall Wheelock, Letter to Roald Dahl, 06/09/47—RDMSC RD1/1/2/53.

  77. John Hall Wheelock, Letter to Roald Dahl, 06/24/47—RDMSC RD1/1/2/55.

  78. John Hall Wheelock, Letter to Roald Dahl, 07/21/47—RDMSC RD1/1/2/65.

  79. John Hall Wheelock, Letter to Roald Dahl, 11/06/47—RDMSC RD1/1/2/94.

  80. Jamie (Hamish) Hamilton, Letter to Roald Dahl, 08/26/47—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/73.

  81. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 03/30/46—WLC Box 22.

  82. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 01/25/48—WLC Box 22.

  83. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 11/04/46—WLC Box 22.

  84. Anna Corrie, Conversation with the author, 10/08/07.

  85. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 03/30/46—WLC Box 22.

  86. Roald Dahl, Letter to Miss Hazard (Saturday Review), 9/11/45—RDMSC RD 1/1/1/252.

  87. Tessa Dahl, Conversation with the author, 01/17/09.

  88. Saturday Evening Post, Sept. 13, 1947—WLC Box 22.

  89. Sir David Weatherall, Conversation with the author, 10/07/09.

  90. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/12/48—WLC Box 22.

  91. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 05/01/48—WLC Box 22.

  92. New York Times Book Review, June 24, 1948; Saturday Review, April 3, 1948.

  93. Peter Wyld, Letter to Roald Dahl, 05/26/48—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/123. In the typescript that survives in the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, there is no trace of these “acrid comments.”

  94. Roald Dahl, Letter to Sheila St. Lawrence, 06/24/60—WLC Box 24.

  95. Ophelia Dahl, Conversation with the author, 03/17/08.

  96. Roald Dahl, Letter to Mrs. J. Goldstein, 10/11/71—RDMSC RD 1/1/7/180.

  97. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 01/02/45—RDMSC RD 1/1/1/159.

  98. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/18/48—WLC Box 22.

  99. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 10/04/49—WLC Box 22.

  100. Roald Dahl, “The Amazing Eyes of Kuda Bux,” 07/48, Argosy (July 1952)—RDMSC RD 4/24/1.

  101. Roald Dahl, Unpublished article on Burgess and Maclean, 07/51—RDMSC RD 5/6.

  102. Ibid.

  103. Roald Dahl, Foreign Intelligence, unpublished story, 1947—RDMSC RD 5/5.

  104. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 05/01/48—WLC Box 22.

  105. Peter Watt, Letter to Roald Dahl, 02/13/48—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/109.

  106. Ann Watkins, Letter to Roald Dahl, 01/30/48—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/107.

  107. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 01/15/48—WLC Box 22.

  108. Alfhild Hansen, Conversation with the author, 08/92.

  109. Louise (Lou) Pearl, Conversation with the author, 05/09/08.

  110. Anna Corrie, Conversation with the author, 10/08/07.

  111. Louise Pearl, Conversation with the author, 05/09/08.

  112. Lucy Dahl, Conversation with the author, 10/09/08.

  113. Roald Dahl, The Soldier, in Collected Stories, pp. 200, 192, 199.

  114. Ann Watkins, Letter to Roald Dahl, 03/02/48—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/112.

  115. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 02/26/48—RDMSC RD 14/5/5/2.

  116. Lemina Lawson Johnson, Letter to the author, 11/30/09.

  117. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 02/10/48—RDMSC RD 14/5/5/1.

  118. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 07/26/48—WLC Box 22.

  119. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 05/25/48—WLC Box 22.

  120. The story, called Meet My Sister, was eventually published as Girl Without a Name by Today’s Woman in November 1951 and by Woman’s Journal in December 1951—RDMSC RD 4/21.

  121. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 06/08/48—WLC Box 22.

  122. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 01/15/48—WLC Box 22.

  123. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 07/21/48—WLC Box 22.

  124. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 11/16/48—WLC Box 22.

  125. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 07/15/46—WLC Box 22.

  126. Alfhild Hansen, Conversation with the author, 08/07/92.

  127. Alexandra Anderson, Conversation with the author, 10/14/07.

  CHAPTER TWELVE : The Poacher

  1. Roald Dahl, Speech to Boys at Repton, Nov. 21, 1975—RDMSC RD 6/1/1/25.

  2. Charles Marsh, Letter to Roald Dahl, 02/18/46—RDMSC RD 16/1/1.

  3. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 04/06/48—CMP.

  4. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 05/01/48—WLC Box 22.

  5. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/28/50—WLC Box 22.

  6. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh and Claudia Haines, 10/29/49—CMP.

  7. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/28/50—WLC Box 22.

  8. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh and Claudia Haines, 01/25/49—CMP.

  9. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 04/06/48—CMP.

  10. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 09/20/48—CMP.

  11. Nicholas Logsdail, Conversation with the author, 04/24/08.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Tessa Dahl, Conversation with the author, 01/17/09.

  14. Roald Dahl, Introduction to Ah Sweet Mystery of Life (London: Michael Joseph, 1989), p. vii.

  15. Sue Elder (née Taylor), Conversation with the author, 02/12/09.

  16. Dahl, Introduction to Ah Sweet Mystery of Life, p. viii.

  17. Sue Elder and Jenny Taylor, Conversations with the author, 02/12/09 and 10/27/09.

  18. Jenny Taylor, Conversation with the author, 10/27/09.

  19. Dahl, Introduction to Ah Sweet Mystery of Life, p. viii.

  20. Jenny Taylor, Conversation with the author, 10/27/09. Brazil later became the model for Victor Hazel in Danny The Champion of the World.

  21. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 10/08/49—WLC Box 22.

  22. Nicholas Logsdail, Conversation with the author, 04/24/08.

  23. Dahl, Fifty Thousand Frogskins, pp. 157, 123, 28—RDMSC RD 3/2/2.

  24. Ibid., pp. 35, 31, 5.

  25. Ann Watkins, Letter to Roald Dahl, 02/27/51—WLC Box 22.

  26. Fifty Thousand Frogskins, p. 62.

  27. Dahl, Speech to Boys at Repton, Nov. 21, 1975—RDMSC RD 6/1/1/25.

  28. Dahl, Introduction to Ah Sweet Mystery of Life, pp. viii, ix.

  29. See Kynaston, Austerity Britain, 1945–51, p. 201.

  30. Roald Dahl, The Ratcatcher, from Claud’s Dog in Collected Stories, p. 314.

  31. Fifty Thousand Frogskins, pp. 172, 52–53, 51—RDMSC RD 3/2/2.

  32. Ralph Ingersoll, But in the Main It’s True (unpublished biography of Charles Marsh), 1975—Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

  33. Roald Dahl, The Kumbak II—RDMSC RD 5/4.

  34. Roald Dahl, Ideas Book No. 1—RDMSC RD 1
1/1.

  35. Ibid.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Roald Dahl, Letter to Harold Ross, 04/14/49—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/174.

  38. Ann Watkins, Letter to Roald Dahl, 04/19/49—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/175.

  39. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/14/49—WLC Box 22.

  40. Ann Watkins, Letter to Roald Dahl, 04/20/49—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/176.

  41. Peter Wyld, Letter to Roald Dahl, 04/20/49—RDMSC RD 1/1/2/177/1.

  42. Harry Maule, Letter to Ann Watkins, 08/09/49—WLC Box 22.

  43. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 04/29/49—WLC Box 22.

  44. Dahl, Introduction to Ah Sweet Mystery of Life, p. vii.

  45. Sofie Magdalene Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, 11/04/45—CMP.

  46. Alfhild Hansen, Conversation with the author, 08/07/92.

  47. Roald Dahl, Letter to Ann Watkins, 08/01/49—WLC Box 22.

  48. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh, undated, probably 1946—CMP.

  49. Searching for Mr. Smith (1979) in Browse & Darby catalogue, 1983.

  50. Alice Kadel, Conversation with the author, 08/14/09.

  51. Cited in Malcolm Yorke, Matthew Smith: His Life and Reputation (London: Faber & Faber, 1997), p. 179.

  52. Dahl, Letter to his mother, 09/23/44—RDMSC RD 14/5/3/22.

  53. Roald Dahl, Article for Architectural Digest (July 1980)—RDMSC RD 6/2.

  54. Roald Dahl, Speech to the Association of Master Carvers, Nov. 2, 1982—RDMSC RD 6/1/1.

  55. Alfhild Hansen, Conversation with the author, 08/07/92.

  56. Roald Dahl, Speech to the Association of Master Carvers, Nov. 2, 1982—RDMSC RD 6/1/1.

  57. Lesley O’Malley (née Pares), Conversation with the author, 1998.

  58. Alice Kadel, Conversation with the author, 08/14/09.

  59. Roald Dahl, Letter to Claudia Marsh, 06/09/57—CMP.

  60. Roald Dahl, Letter to Claudia Haines, 08/26/52—CMP.

  61. Roald Dahl, Letter to Charles Marsh and Claudia Haines, 05/22/50—CMP

  62. Alice Kadel, Conversation with the author, 08/14/09.

  63. Roald Dahl, Letter to Matthew Smith, undated (c. June 1950), Guildhall Art Gallery (No. 966).

  64. Ibid.

  65. Matthew Smith, Letter to Roald Dahl, 06/28/50—RDMSC RD 16/1/2.

  66. Roald Dahl, Nunc Dimittis (originally entitled Twenty Years Younger) in Collected Stories, p. 157.

  67. Roald Dahl, Skin (originally A Picture for Drioli) in ibid., pp. 177, 165.

  68. Payn and Morley, eds., The Noël Coward Diaries, May 22, 1951, p. 69.