Roald Dahl was born on Wednesday 13th September 1916 in Llandaff, Wales, He was the son of wealthy Norwegian immigrants. He first attended school in Wales but later transferred to St Peter’s in Weston-super-Mare. In 1929 he transferred again to Repton School in Derby. During his time at Repton he was selected, along with other classmates to sample chocolate for the local Cadbury factory. This, it is thought was the inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
In 2006, on what would have been his 90th birthday Roald Dahl Day was instituted.
We all have memories of Roald Dahl stories; they are as popular now as they were when he penned his first children’s book, James and the Giant Peach back in 1943.
Roald wrote a total of 49 books and of them all, probably the most popular is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
We were delighted when we were told that we were going to be paying homage to this talented man by eating chocolate. It seemed a fitting tribute. We did have to earn our treats though.
We spent a glorious morning designing and decorating our own chocolate bars, they were then carefully wrapped in Wonka Bar wrappers. They looked great.
We chatted as we worked, sharing stories about our own memories of Roald Dahl. We debated our favourite books and characters and wondered what kind of man he was to have had so much creativity and imagination. A little later we were all gifted a Wonka Bar, there were two golden tickets hidden within them. I felt like Charlie himself, anxiously tearing at the wrapper to reveal if I was a lucky winner.
The day was so well thought out, it was quite magical to find ourselves immersed in the narrative, letting our creativity run wild and we ate so much chocolate, too much chocolate, I felt like Augustus Gloop.