Dahl’s daughter tells of magical childhood
THE youngest daughter of Cardiffborn author Roald Dahl has told of her “magical” childhood. Lucy Dahl was speaking after celebrating the premiere of Steven Spielberg’s The BFG this week by heading to the casino. Something, she says, her dad would have approved of.
In an interview with The Telegraph she said: “He loved gambling, though he wasn’t an addict. Every Saturday night, he had a ‘tickle on the tables.’
“He taught us all how to play blackjack as soon as we could count. One of my favourite memories was when he snuck me into the Ritz casino aged 16 and we won. It was magical.”
Lucy also recalled night-time visits, wrapped in blankets and armed with mugs of hot chocolate, to the woods to see “Mr Badger and Mr Mole” feasting on BFG (duck) eggs and red cabbage they were told had been sent by the Queen.
“We believed all of this stuff,” says Lucy. “I never stopped believing in it.
“When I was young, I was close to him because he was always there. He would write in his hut at the bottom of the garden, and disappear into the world of his characters.
“The only time he was a bit grumpy was if ever he lost at the horse racing.
“He’d also be annoyed (if he was interrupted) in his hut. It was his dream world – he used to call it a nest. If we ever interrupted him, it was that same reaction: ‘What do you want? You’ve just woken me from a dream’.”
She thinks he would be “secretly very chuffed” with the fuss being made around the centenary of his birth. The legendary Llandaff-born author – one of the world’s most celebrated storytellers – is to have his work brought to life courtesy of Wales Millennium Centre and National Theatre Wales, who are promising all manner of wondrous events, including a huge pyjama picnic in the city’s Bute Park.
On September 17 and 18, audiences, wherever they might find themselves, will be making some extraordinary discoveries, all thanks to a cast of thousands who’ll be staging impromptu performances, pop-ups and spectacles all around the streets, in buildings and many more unusual locations.
Other celebrations will be held across the country.
Lucy tried to give her own daughters a similar upbringing.
“I did the same things, but the American version,” she explained.
“I’d wake them up with a big midnight feast and surprised them one day by taking them to Disneyland instead of school.
“I think about my father every day – and my mother. I talk to them both all the time. I feel they’re around me at different times. If I need courage, I call upon my mother. If I need creativity, I call upon my father. If I’m scared, I call them both. I hope one day I hang around my children, too.”