Buried Friendly Giant

WITH his 6ft 5in frame, large “wiggly” ears and huge hands it’s easy to see how Wally Saunders was the inspiration for Roald Dahl’s Big Friendly Giant.

But the author’s builder was much more than that – he also became his great friend and the man who would later dig his grave.

It was a poignant final act of devotion from the gentle man, dubbed the real BFG, who spent many years by Dahl and his family’s side. Wally posed for illustrator Quentin Blake’s drawings of the 24ft-tall kind-hearted ogre for the writer’s 1982 book.

Snooker

And Dahl’s children, Tessa, Theo, Ophelia and Lucy, viewed him as a second dad. So it was only fitting that they should ask the man who built their father’s famous writing shed to dig his resting place after his death in 1990, aged 74..

Following Friday’s release of Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of BFG, which stars Mark Rylance, Wally’s daughter Anthea Saunders, 68, describes the close bond her father shared with the Dahl family.

She said: “When Mr Dahl died his children wanted dad to go up and dig the grave. They said no one else could do it. They adored my dad, especially Theo. He used to treat him as another dad. Dad was around more when Mr Dahl was writing. He watched those children grow up.

“The Dahls had a snooker room and dad used to go on a Wednesday and Sunday to play with Mr Dahl. But if Theo rang and said, ‘Wally, will you come down and have a game?’ if he got a bit lonely, dad would say, ‘Oh, all right then.’He would take the children to school and pick them up and he would bring them home for dinner. Dad could bend pipework over his knee, but he was so kind, he did anything for everyone.” Anthea, the only child of Wally and wife Phillis, told how her father met Dahl and his first wife, Hollywood actress Patricia Neale, after he was asked to help prepare their home in Great Missenden, Bucks, when they moved to the UK. The builder