INTRODUCTION
1. Roald Dahl, Boy, Jonathan Cape, 1984, pp.76–7.
2. Tessa Dahl, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 22 October 2007; Astri Newman, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 15 October 2007 and Else Logsdail, “Casseroled Ptarmigan” in Felicity and Roald Dahl, Memories with Food at Gipsy House, London, Viking, 1991, reprinted as The Roald Dahl Cookbook, Penguin, 1996, p.61.
3. J. Harry Williams, letter to Roald Dahl, 2 October 1976—Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre RD 16/1/2.
4. Alfhild Hansen, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 7 August 1992.
5. Sofie Magdalene Dahl, letter to Claudia Marsh, 16 January 1955—Andrew Haskell Collection.
6. Louise Pearl, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 9 May 2008.
7. Roald Dahl, Boy, p.21.
8. Ibid.
9. Asta Anderson, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 1997.
10. Roald Dahl, Boy, p.53.
11. Felicity and Roald Dahl, Memories with Food at Gipsy House, p.65.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Alfhild Hansen, interviewed in A Dose of Dahl’s Magic Medicine, 28 September 1986.
15. Valerie Kettley, internal memo to Tom Maschler—Jonathan Cape archive, “Boy” file, University of Reading.
16. Stephen Roxburgh, memo to Tom Maschleer—Jonathan Cape “Boy” file, University of Reading.
A NOTE ON SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION
17. Roald Dahl, letter to schoolchildren, 17 April 1984—RDMSC.
CHAPTER 1. 1925–1929
“Send me some conkers”
18. Roald Dahl, Boy, p.81.
19. Ibid., p.72.
20. Ibid., p.73.
21. Douglas Highton (1915–2013), interview with Donald Sturrock, 8 November 2007.
22. Roald Dahl, Boy, p.77.
23. Roald Dahl, Matilda, London, Jonathan Cape, 1988, p.106.
24. Ibid., p.109.
25. Ibid., p.117.
CHAPTER 2. 1930–1934
“Graggers on your eggs”
26. Air Marshal Sir Charles Pringle, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 5 December 2007.
27. Tim Fisher, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 17 September 2007.
28. Roald Dahl, Boy, p.128.
29. Roald Dahl, Boy (First Draft)—RDMSC RD 2/23/1/166.
30. Ibid.—RDMSC RD 2/23/1/159.
31. Sofie Magdalene Dahl, postcards to Else Dahl, 27 June 1930—RDMSC RD 20/9/2 and RD 20/9/3.
32. Air Marshal Sir Charles Pringle, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 5 December 2007.
33. Nancy Deuchar (née Jenkyns), conversation with Donald Sturrock, 4 December 2007.
34. Roald Dahl, letter to his mother, June 1931—RDMSC RD 13/1/6/43.
35. Alfhild Hansen, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 7 August 1992.
36. Nancy Deuchar, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 4 December 2007.
37. Roald Dahl, “Things I Wish I’d Known when I was Eighteen,” unpublished article for the Sunday Express Magazine—RDMSC RD 1/2/7/1.
38. Roald Dahl, letter to his mother, 4 February 1934—RDMSC RD 13/1/9/24.
CHAPTER 3. 1935–1939
“Another iced lager”
39. Else Logsdail, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 3 January 1998.
40. Roald Dahl, letter to his mother, 14 July 1936—RDMSC RD 14/2/2/8.
41. Dahl later relocated the story to wartime Greece and it was eventually published as “Yesterday was Beautiful.”
42. Alexandra Anderson, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 14 November 2007.
43. Letter from Emma to Sofie Magdalene Dahl, 4 October 1938—RDMSC RD 14/3/4/1.
44. Roald Dahl, Going Solo, London, Jonathan Cape, 1986, p.32.
45. Roald Dahl, speech to boys at Repton School, 21 November 1975—RDMSC RD 6/1/1/25.
46. Roald Dahl, Going Solo, p.87.
CHAPTER 4. 1939–1940
“Thoroughly good for the soul”
47. Roald Dahl, The Minpins, London, Jonathan Cape, 1991, p.41.
48. Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach, New York, Alfred Knopf, 1961, p.95.
49. Roald Dahl, Going Solo, p.96.
CHAPTER 5. 1940–1942
“Don’t worry”
50. PRO Air 27, 669.
51. Roald Dahl, Going Solo, p.105.
52. Roald Dahl, letter to his mother, 20 November 1940—RDMSC RD 14/4/38.
53. Roald Dahl, Going Solo, p.105.
54. Ophelia Dahl, Memories of My Father (unpublished manuscript).
55. Roald Dahl, letter to Barbara McDonald, 24 April 1953, now in the possession of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.
56. Roald Dahl, letter to Stephen Roxburgh, undated—Farrar, Straus and Giroux archive, New York.
57. ‘Jonah’ Jones, C.O. of 84 Squadron, cited in T.H. Wisdom, Wings over Olympus, The Story of the Royal Air Force in Libya and Greece, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1942, p.169.
58. Roald Dahl, “Katina” from Collected Stories, Everyman, pp.26–7.
59. Roald Dahl, “Searching for Mr. Smith,” Browse and Darby Catalogue, 1983.
CHAPTER 6. 1942–1943
“Teeth like piano keys”
60. Roald Dahl, The Gremlins, New York, Walt Disney/Random House, 1943.
61. Jeremy Treglown, Roald Dahl, Harcourt, Brace, 1994, p.56.
62. William Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid, Lyons Press, 1976, p.169.
63. Isaiah Berlin, interview with Jeremy Treglown, in Jeremy Treglown, Roald Dahl, p.69.
CHAPTER 7. 1943–1945
“A good time was had by all”
64. Bill Macdonald, The True Intrepid, Raincoast Books, p. 200.
65. Roald Dahl, Visit to Hyde Park—RDMSC RD 15/5/94/5.
66. Jonathan Cuneo, conversation with Donald Sturrock, 20 March 2007.
EPILOGUE
“I won’t write often”
67. Ernest Cuneo Papers Box 107, CIA file—Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park. Cited in Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception—British Covert Operations in the US 1939–44, Brassey’s, 1998.
68. Roald Dahl, Draft Author Biography for Reynall and Hitchcock, 4 July 1945—RDMSC RD 1/1/222.
69. Saturday Evening Post, Vol. 3, No. 39, 13 September 1947—WLC Box 22.
70. Patricia Neal, interview with Stephen Michael Shearer, June 2005. Cited in Shearer, Patricia Neal, An Unquiet Life, Louisville, University Press of Kentucky, 2006, p.261.
71. Felicity and Roald Dahl, Memories with Food at Gipsy House, Viking, 1991, reprinted as The Roald Dahl Cookbook, Penguin, 1996, p.66.