Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / 81. Roald Dahl - Soldier, Writer, Cheater, Spy

Transcript

81. Roald Dahl - Soldier, Writer, Cheater, Spy · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

0:00
Speaker 1: You're listening to an Airwave media podcast. Hi everybody, and
0:19
Speaker 1: welcome to Who Did What Now? The history podcast that's
0:21
Speaker 1: not your history class with me your host Kerry Charlwood,
0:25
Speaker 1: History Arlotte and reader of books. Now, before we get
0:29
Speaker 1: into anything else, I want to say thank you so
0:31
Speaker 1: much to everybody who has been reading and reviewing, like
0:34
Speaker 1: on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Like I know on Apple podcasts,
0:38
Speaker 1: if you write something in the review, it doesn't matter
0:41
Speaker 1: what it is, It doesn't matter at all, Like the
0:44
Speaker 1: content itself is irrelevant. But like just by writing something,
0:48
Speaker 1: it like pushes you up the algorithm somehow. I don't
0:52
Speaker 1: know it's Apple podcasts magic. But if anyone would like
0:57
Speaker 1: to wait in a review five staries, that would be
0:59
Speaker 1: to it's amazing. I can't believe I just used the
1:01
Speaker 1: phrase tot it's amazing. But we're just gonna we're gonna
1:04
Speaker 1: look slide. I think, yeah, cool, But like you can
1:08
Speaker 1: see anything, you can see your favorite figure from history,
1:12
Speaker 1: you can tell me your favorite color, it doesn't matter,
1:15
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter.
1:16
Speaker 2: It's all good.
1:17
Speaker 1: But yeah, I've been putting stuff together anyway, sidebar for October,
1:22
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to get like spooky stuff sorted and
1:25
Speaker 1: my first live show in Dublin is going to be
1:28
Speaker 1: next month. I'm just getting the details always sorted out
1:32
Speaker 1: for it. And my mouth is so sore right now.
1:36
Speaker 1: I've just jumped three conversations in less than a minute.
1:39
Speaker 1: But yeah, my jaw is really sore because I was
1:44
Speaker 1: reading a bedtime story and we're actually reading roll Dal
1:47
Speaker 1: right now, Danny Champion of the World. And before this,
1:50
Speaker 1: I was reading David Williams Codeney Bananas. And I keep
1:55
Speaker 1: doing it to myself. I keep giving characters that talk
1:59
Speaker 1: a lot really strain straining voices because, like Uncle said
2:05
Speaker 1: in Coney Bananas, I might have told Lot this not
2:11
Speaker 1: really really gruff because he's meant to be like a coconaie,
2:14
Speaker 1: And I was like my dad when he used to
2:16
Speaker 1: smoke too much. What? And then I was like, okay,
2:20
Speaker 1: I'll make something different, you know, because usually I would
2:23
Speaker 1: do a gruffalo voice, and the grufflo is always really Scottish,
2:26
Speaker 1: which is basically the same as the English voice. I
2:28
Speaker 1: just did a bit Scottish, like it's all from the
2:31
Speaker 1: same part, and I was like, I'll do something different
2:34
Speaker 1: this time for Danny Champion of the world. And I'm
2:37
Speaker 1: doing Danny's dad voice and I'm not doing an impression
2:42
Speaker 1: of a Yorkshire person. No, no, no, no, I am
2:45
Speaker 1: doing an impression of Michael Palin from Monty Python as
2:50
Speaker 1: a Yorkshire person. Aop choke. There's trouble up, mel Oh.
2:56
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
3:01
Speaker 1: But the the it's the Michael Pale, like what's wrong
3:06
Speaker 1: with She's got you old trucks a land? But like
3:10
Speaker 1: it's really awkward to hold my mouth in that position,
3:13
Speaker 1: especially when I have to do like pages of speech,
3:17
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh no, And I was like doing
3:20
Speaker 1: this voice and then suddenly it became Welsh.
3:23
Speaker 2: Like what's happening here?
3:25
Speaker 1: And then it's kind of skousy, like the accent just
3:27
Speaker 1: was not flowing, and the kids were like, why is
3:30
Speaker 1: there voice changing? I'm sorry, but my jaw is so sore,
3:38
Speaker 1: but I shall power through because I care about you
3:41
Speaker 1: and I want you to.
3:42
Speaker 2: Know this story.
3:44
Speaker 1: So because I was reading Rodal, I was like, I'm
3:46
Speaker 1: going to cover roll down because from October I want
3:50
Speaker 1: to cover lots of sort of like spooky and creepy
3:55
Speaker 1: macabre even I want to like keeping that sort of vain.
3:59
Speaker 1: I just want to do look spooky stuff, Rocktober because
4:02
Speaker 1: why the fuck not. Let's have a theme because I can.
4:07
Speaker 1: And then some people want some reduxes of old stuff
4:10
Speaker 1: I did. That has absolutely shock an audio by the way,
4:15
Speaker 1: but I am going to do that. It's going to
4:17
Speaker 1: be fine. I will make it work better. Know what
4:21
Speaker 1: you're thinking. You're thinking, quit your jibber jabber in fact me,
4:24
Speaker 1: in fact you, I will. But first we've got to
4:27
Speaker 1: get our source on.
4:28
Speaker 2: Our sources are.
4:32
Speaker 1: Meet roll Dal by Francis E. Ruffin, Roll Dale, The
4:39
Speaker 1: Champion Storyteller by Andrea Shavick, The Irregulars Roll Dal and
4:47
Speaker 1: The British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jeannette Connant Boy,
4:54
Speaker 1: Tales of Childhood by Roll Dal, Roll Dal a Biography
5:00
Speaker 1: by Jeremy trig Loan Storyteller, The Authorized Biography of Rodale
5:08
Speaker 1: by Donald Sturk, And of course we have our favorites
5:14
Speaker 1: Biography dot com and History dot com.
5:19
Speaker 2: Iose it incomfortably good. Then let's begin.
5:24
Speaker 1: Rodale was born on the thirteenth of September nineteen sixteen
5:27
Speaker 1: in clandalph in Cardiff, in the country of Wales. I
5:31
Speaker 1: almost said County Wales, because I live in Ireland and
5:35
Speaker 1: my habit is to just be like County Donegal, County Fermana. No,
5:39
Speaker 1: no Wales, the country, the country. So he is the
5:43
Speaker 1: child of two Norwegian immigrants. Now his father, Howard Dale,
5:50
Speaker 1: he was a self made man and quite wealthy shipbroker.
5:55
Speaker 1: So he had emigrated from Norway and moved to Wales
5:58
Speaker 1: with his first wife, Marie Boulan Cresse, and they have
6:03
Speaker 1: two children together, Ellen, Marguerite and Louis. Now Marie passes
6:08
Speaker 1: away in nineteen oh seven. I'm not sure from what,
6:11
Speaker 1: but she does, so his dad is widowed with two children,
6:16
Speaker 1: and surprisingly enough doesn't actually get married for another four years.
6:21
Speaker 1: Like he doesn't get remarried. And this is a time
6:23
Speaker 1: where blended families were very much a thing, and him,
6:28
Speaker 1: being well a wealthy man, a man of prospect, remarrying
6:33
Speaker 1: would have been like very much the thing to do,
6:36
Speaker 1: but he waited to do so, and he ended up
6:38
Speaker 1: marrying Sophie Magdalene, who was a daughter of just a
6:45
Speaker 1: lot of rich Norwegian people effectively, and so they get
6:49
Speaker 1: married in nineteen eleven. She emigrates to the UK, and
6:55
Speaker 1: they go on to have five children together. Astre, I
6:59
Speaker 1: feel asta Elsa and rolled. Nope, that's my mistake. Ellen
7:07
Speaker 1: Marguerite is also known as Elsa. So that's one person.
7:10
Speaker 1: So yeah, he has four sisters.
7:11
Speaker 2: And one brother.
7:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, no correction, I'll corrected myself. It's all good.
7:18
Speaker 1: You know they have siblings. Fuck off, No, right, they're
7:22
Speaker 1: just siblings. You don't have to make this weird devibe
7:25
Speaker 1: being like, oh they have this and have that. No,
7:28
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, right, They're still siblings. Get over it. Okay, okay,
7:33
Speaker 1: so roll. Now he's bilingual. He speaks Norwegian growing up,
7:36
Speaker 1: speaks it with his siblings, and he speaks it all
7:38
Speaker 1: through his life. So he's gotten a region and English.
7:42
Speaker 2: Did he ever learn Welsh? I don't fucking know.
7:44
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, I'm not sure he did.
7:48
Speaker 1: I mean, he probably could have picked it up fairly
7:49
Speaker 1: easily because he was already bilingual, and generally when you
7:54
Speaker 1: have more than one language, it's easier to pick up
7:57
Speaker 1: more just because of your brain does a thing. Oh
8:03
Speaker 1: that was really intelligent, really really insightful. There, your brain
8:06
Speaker 1: does a thing. Yes, it's like pattern recognition or something
8:10
Speaker 1: like that there is a term for it. I just
8:13
Speaker 1: don't know what it is.
8:15
Speaker 2: But Dall and his.
8:16
Speaker 1: Siblings they're all raised in like the Norwegian Lutheran Church
8:20
Speaker 1: and they're all like baptized at the Norwegian church in Cardiff.
8:25
Speaker 1: I don't know how many Norwegians ended up in Cardiff
8:29
Speaker 1: that there was a Norwegian church, Like how many people
8:33
Speaker 1: don't need to emigrate from like a country before like
8:36
Speaker 1: a church gets established, because there must be a lot,
8:40
Speaker 1: right it's going to be there has to be. So
8:46
Speaker 1: Dall's childhood is just fucking marred with tragedy like throughout.
8:52
Speaker 1: So in nineteen twenty, when dal is just three years old,
8:57
Speaker 1: his sister Astri eyes from appendicitis and she's only seven,
9:05
Speaker 1: And then a few weeks later again he's only three.
9:08
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, Harold Dald dies of pneumonia. He's
9:13
Speaker 1: fifty seven years old and he's gone. He's caput, which
9:18
Speaker 1: must have been a really fucking stressful time for his
9:20
Speaker 1: mum because she's pregnant at this point with the youngest
9:24
Speaker 1: sister Asta. So she loses a child, she loses her husband,
9:31
Speaker 1: she's got all these kids to deal with, and then
9:34
Speaker 1: she gives birth to her youngest child, who's never gonna
9:37
Speaker 1: know her father and roads so young, it's unlikely that
9:40
Speaker 1: he'll have any memories of him because three is a
9:44
Speaker 1: really young age, Like it's like it's massive developmentally, but
9:51
Speaker 1: memory bit.
9:54
Speaker 2: Thin there, we bit thin.
9:56
Speaker 1: So when Harold passes away, he leaves in his state.
9:59
Speaker 1: Oh was it one hundred and fifty eighty nine hundred
10:04
Speaker 1: and seventeen pounds and ten shillings, which in today's money
10:12
Speaker 1: is about seven million pounds, Like it was a fair chunk,
10:19
Speaker 1: you know, pretty decent. Now, Sophie Magdalene Dahl, she decides
10:27
Speaker 1: that she's going to stay in the UK. She's not
10:29
Speaker 1: gonna like buger off back to Norway because Harold he
10:34
Speaker 1: always wanted his kids to have a UK education because
10:38
Speaker 1: at the time it was one of the better educations
10:41
Speaker 1: like available in the world.
10:43
Speaker 2: And so the Dall's stay in the UK. But it's
10:47
Speaker 2: not all.
10:47
Speaker 1: Tragedy for Daal. When he's six years old, he gets
10:50
Speaker 1: to meet the Beatrix Potter. He adored Patricks Potter, and
10:56
Speaker 1: that's the author of Peter Rabbit. And I think she
11:00
Speaker 1: actually ended up writing Peter a Rabbit because she wanted
11:02
Speaker 1: to paint like fields and shit. I think what it
11:08
Speaker 1: was from not mistaken, like she was sent to the
11:10
Speaker 1: countryside like for her health, because you know Victorians, they
11:16
Speaker 1: were sending you to the countryside or the seaside for
11:19
Speaker 1: your maladies. And so she would paint these little watercolors
11:23
Speaker 1: of of like field mice and rabbits and things. And
11:28
Speaker 1: that's how the concept of the little little, cheeky, little
11:33
Speaker 1: mischievous Peter Rabbit was created. And I think was Peter
11:38
Speaker 1: Rabbit the first license character. And someone tweet me and
11:42
Speaker 1: dm me let me know the information one of you
11:44
Speaker 1: will know. So dal was educated in the UK. He
11:49
Speaker 1: went to the Cathedral School in Clandaff and things didn't
11:55
Speaker 1: go well for him there. I mean, you know, academically fine,
12:00
Speaker 1: but he really wasn't calein corporal punishment, which you know,
12:04
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties was just how they did things.
12:07
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's right. I think it's fucking awful,
12:10
Speaker 1: but it's just what they did. So he gets he
12:18
Speaker 1: gets caned in nineteen twenty four for what he calls
12:23
Speaker 1: the Great Mouse Plot of nineteen twenty four, like him
12:27
Speaker 1: and Foreig and his friends, because they get a dead
12:30
Speaker 1: mouse and they put it in a jar of gobstopperls
12:34
Speaker 1: and Missus Pratchett's sweet Shop. Now, I'm not condoning putting
12:38
Speaker 1: rodent cadavils into anybody's candy jars. However, in nineteen twenty four,
12:45
Speaker 1: it does seem like the hew to excitement a bunch
12:47
Speaker 1: of eight year olds can get up to. Like if
12:49
Speaker 1: you ever read old boarding School in private school books
12:54
Speaker 1: like Saint Clair's Maley Terrors by Enid Blyton and things
12:59
Speaker 1: like that, pranks are very much just a way of
13:03
Speaker 1: being and they're usually kind of sully and funny, and
13:06
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of malice behind it, whereas a
13:10
Speaker 1: lot of modern pranks there's just just yeah, it's kind
13:15
Speaker 1: of malevolent. It's kind of cruel, whereas these ones are
13:19
Speaker 1: just kind of less cruel, I think because of the
13:22
Speaker 1: era in which they exist. But yeah, I'm fairly certain
13:25
Speaker 1: this school was like Doll's inspiration for the school in Matilda.
13:31
Speaker 1: But anyway, he goes from one private school to another
13:33
Speaker 1: private school. Now they're called public schools. I don't know
13:37
Speaker 1: why specifically, there's probably a reason for that. Again, DM
13:42
Speaker 1: me or tweet at me. It's fine, but he ends
13:46
Speaker 1: up being transferred to Saint Peter's in Western super Mare,
13:51
Speaker 1: and so he has to go by Fairy, which is
13:55
Speaker 1: like just across the Bristol Channel, so it's like really close.
13:58
Speaker 1: Like the distance between like Bristol and Cardiff is pretty
14:02
Speaker 1: close because if you're flying into Wales, it's actually usually
14:08
Speaker 1: easier to just fly into Bristol and get the bus over.
14:13
Speaker 1: But yeah, at this point he would have used the ferry.
14:15
Speaker 1: And he was in this boarding school and he absolutely
14:20
Speaker 1: hated it. He despised this place, and he would write
14:24
Speaker 1: letters home to his mom right but like he wouldn't
14:28
Speaker 1: let her know that he absolutely detested this school. And
14:34
Speaker 1: he only found out like after she passes away that
14:38
Speaker 1: she kept like every single one of their letters. That's
14:41
Speaker 1: like momm my mom keeps like every single card I
14:44
Speaker 1: have ever gotten her, like every single one. There's boxes
14:50
Speaker 1: of them, which is rubbed off with me a wee bit.
14:53
Speaker 1: I love cards, like I got this amazing side bar.
14:56
Speaker 1: I got this amazing card from like Salem. It was
15:01
Speaker 1: actually somebody's first ever piece of fan mail of it
15:05
Speaker 1: in anybody, and I loved it. I think it was
15:09
Speaker 1: one of, if not the first piece of fan mail
15:11
Speaker 1: I ever received. And it was this card from Salem,
15:16
Speaker 1: and it had this wonderful, beautiful handwriting by the way,
15:20
Speaker 1: wonderful cursive all the way.
15:22
Speaker 2: Through it, and it was amazing.
15:23
Speaker 1: I love it, and it's it's going up in pride
15:25
Speaker 1: and place when I actually eventually pilled my pod loft
15:29
Speaker 1: and started doing things there instead of passed the recording
15:33
Speaker 1: things in the bedroom with a broken window. So if
15:36
Speaker 1: you hear the wind in the background, I'm sorry, it's
15:38
Speaker 1: very stormy and I've padded it up the best I can.
15:41
Speaker 1: The duk type haint down the job these days. But anyway,
15:44
Speaker 1: when Dallas thirteen, he ends up going to Repton School
15:47
Speaker 1: in Derbyshire, and it is just as bad as you
15:52
Speaker 1: can expect a secondary school for rich people to be.
15:58
Speaker 2: Because there's like hey, and just.
16:03
Speaker 1: All that kind of nonsense, and it's very much like
16:08
Speaker 1: hierarchical and there's corporal punishment and dal again absolutely detests
16:14
Speaker 1: this kind of thing and he completely hates the mistreatment.
16:19
Speaker 1: And again this sort of serves for inspiration for a
16:23
Speaker 1: few things later on, but like he just can't stand
16:26
Speaker 1: corporal punishment. Now academically he's okay, like things are fine,
16:33
Speaker 1: Like he's not standing out in any capacity, and like
16:36
Speaker 1: even his teachers are like mad at the fact that
16:38
Speaker 1: when he writes things down they don't quite make sense
16:42
Speaker 1: because the words he's using don't align with what he's
16:46
Speaker 1: trying to say. But I think that's just his mind.
16:50
Speaker 1: But while he's there anyway, he just starts growing to
16:57
Speaker 1: the point where he actually gets it's he gets to
17:03
Speaker 1: six foot six inches. He's six and a half feet tall.
17:09
Speaker 2: That is that is.
17:10
Speaker 1: I know of someone who is six foot seven and
17:13
Speaker 1: every time I'm walking beside him, I'm like at chihuahua
17:18
Speaker 1: walking next to a horse, like my whee legs are
17:21
Speaker 1: trying to keep up. So Dahl is massive. Maybe that's
17:26
Speaker 1: why he kept trying to make huge things in his book,
17:29
Speaker 1: like let me tell you about this peach, what about it?
17:32
Speaker 1: It's fucking huge.
17:34
Speaker 2: So he's just so.
17:37
Speaker 1: Tall and so generally quite good for the old sports
17:43
Speaker 1: to have a massive fellow there. So he's playing like
17:46
Speaker 1: like squash and golf and football and cricket, and he's
17:52
Speaker 1: just kind of delving into everything. I'm not surprised cricket
17:57
Speaker 1: was involved, because you know, rich white people in cricket
18:01
Speaker 1: just seems to be a thing. I mean, I know,
18:04
Speaker 1: like India plays cricket, but that's just because they were colonized. So,
18:09
Speaker 1: but they do keep beating England at it, which is
18:11
Speaker 1: really really funny. You know that game you forced us
18:13
Speaker 1: to play. Yeah, well now we're kicking your ass at it.
18:16
Speaker 2: So you're welcome. So while he's.
18:22
Speaker 1: At this school in Reptum, he ends up being sent
18:28
Speaker 1: chocolate to tests, Like Cadbury's would send chocolate to this
18:32
Speaker 1: school full of rich boys, not too like you know,
18:37
Speaker 1: schools some people who aren't rich. Maybe we'd be nice
18:40
Speaker 1: to get them to test the chocolate. No, okay, but again,
18:46
Speaker 1: being like sent onto chocolate seems to me, you know,
18:49
Speaker 1: in an era where it wasn't so.
18:52
Speaker 2: Available, seems like a little bit of inspiration.
18:55
Speaker 1: I'm just saying. I'm just saying. So he would spend
19:02
Speaker 1: all of the academic year at school, and then his
19:06
Speaker 1: summers he would spend in Norway with his mother's family.
19:13
Speaker 1: Don't know much about his father's side, if there was
19:16
Speaker 1: any connection there, but definitely definitely with his mom's side.
19:22
Speaker 1: And he's like really really close to his mom, Like
19:25
Speaker 1: I mean, it'd be hard not to considering, you know,
19:30
Speaker 1: like the sudden loss of his father and the loss
19:32
Speaker 1: of his sister. It would have made his mum more
19:36
Speaker 1: connected to him. He probably reminded her of his.
19:40
Speaker 2: Dad, you know.
19:42
Speaker 1: So in nineteen thirty four he finishes school and he
19:45
Speaker 1: joins the public schools exploring society and he ends up
19:52
Speaker 1: going to Nova Scotia and I can through Newfoundland in
19:55
Speaker 1: Canada like with his grip. And after he does that,
20:00
Speaker 1: he gets a job with the Shell Petroleum Company. So
20:04
Speaker 1: he gets trained in the UK and then heads over
20:06
Speaker 1: to Mombassa and Kenya, and then he ends up in
20:10
Speaker 1: Daris Salam, which is basically this British colony in Tanzania.
20:19
Speaker 1: So there's him and then two other English fellas who
20:21
Speaker 1: are working in Darisalam and they're living just like just
20:26
Speaker 1: outside it in this house owned by Shell, and they've
20:31
Speaker 1: got a cook and personal servants like they have servants
20:39
Speaker 1: like cool, This is fun. And so he's working there
20:45
Speaker 1: for the next five years, at which.
20:49
Speaker 2: The Second World War, you know, it's coming up on
20:54
Speaker 2: the horizon.
20:56
Speaker 1: And there's a fucked on a German people living in Salam.
21:02
Speaker 1: So Rodal gets commissioned as a lieutenant into the King's
21:05
Speaker 1: African Rifles. So within the King's African rifles. There are
21:10
Speaker 1: like indigenous people like part of that, the Askari I
21:14
Speaker 1: think it is, and Dalla ends up with a platoon
21:18
Speaker 1: of Askari. They're all part of this colonial army and
21:22
Speaker 1: it's up to them to sort of round up all
21:24
Speaker 1: of these German people in Darius Salam. I think one
21:27
Speaker 1: of the reasons he ended up with this gig specifically
21:30
Speaker 1: is because he learned Swahili while.
21:32
Speaker 2: He was in Africa.
21:34
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's with this East African regiment for like
21:37
Speaker 1: a couple of months, and then in November that year
21:40
Speaker 1: he decides he's going to join the RAF and he
21:43
Speaker 1: drives was it.
21:44
Speaker 2: Six hundred miles?
21:47
Speaker 1: Was it nine hundred and seventy kilometers math? So, yeah,
21:54
Speaker 1: he drives from Dar Salam to Nairobi. And so he
21:57
Speaker 1: goes gets excepted for flight training, becomes an aircraft man
22:04
Speaker 1: aircraftman why did I say it like that? I don't know,
22:08
Speaker 1: an aircraftman, and he ends up flying effectively obsolete gladiators,
22:19
Speaker 1: the Glocester gladiators. They're they're not they're not the most
22:23
Speaker 1: tip top of you know, aircraft, but that's what he
22:27
Speaker 1: gets to and so he didn't really get any like
22:33
Speaker 1: special training and like aerial combat, like he had flight
22:36
Speaker 1: airs and stuff like he had flown over sort of
22:40
Speaker 1: like Iraq and Kenya and all this kind of stuff,
22:45
Speaker 1: Like he trained on what was at Hawker Hearts. I
22:49
Speaker 1: want to say Hogger Hearts because I'm not I'm not
22:52
Speaker 1: too up on aircraft or machinery that was used in
22:54
Speaker 1: Wars because I find them quite boring. And I just say,
22:59
Speaker 1: the pan a comflagon. You want to talk about, the
23:01
Speaker 1: pants are Comflagon. I don't care a fuck about the
23:05
Speaker 1: pants are Conflagon, my friend, unless we're talking about the
23:08
Speaker 1: manual featuring Elvira. That is, that is what we're talking about.
23:12
Speaker 1: I don't care about tanks.
23:13
Speaker 2: They mean nothing to me. Your machines mean nothing.
23:18
Speaker 1: I don't even know types of cars, Like what kind
23:21
Speaker 1: of car is it? I'm like ant blue like gets
23:25
Speaker 1: me from A to B. Mate is high off the ground,
23:27
Speaker 1: off the ground, like, I'm like, it's in a state,
23:31
Speaker 1: and it's like not in a state. It's a people carrier.
23:34
Speaker 1: I don't know the difference. They both carry people. I
23:37
Speaker 1: don't know anyway, So yeah, when he finally gets to
23:44
Speaker 1: number eighty squadron, he's flying fucking biplanes, right, he's he's
23:54
Speaker 1: doesn't really get any like specialist aerial combat training. And
23:58
Speaker 1: also they're fucking biplanes. So he's flying to an airstrip.
24:07
Speaker 1: Was it just south of merce Maatra and he couldn't
24:13
Speaker 1: find the airstrip. He couldn't find it, and it's dark,
24:18
Speaker 1: you know, he's running out of fuel and he's trying
24:23
Speaker 1: to you know, land it, and that doesn't quite work
24:27
Speaker 1: in his favor because instead of landing it, he crashes it.
24:31
Speaker 2: He hits a bloody boulder.
24:33
Speaker 1: As it turns out, dal had been given the wrong coordinates.
24:37
Speaker 1: They sent him to the wrong place, so instead of
24:40
Speaker 1: going to the airstrip, they sent him to no man's
24:44
Speaker 1: land between like Italian and Allied forces. Like, he's lucky
24:51
Speaker 1: that he ended up where he ended up, but yeah,
24:54
Speaker 1: he crashes this bloody biplane and he ends up with
24:59
Speaker 1: a crushed skin, a broken nose, and he's temporarily blinded.
25:05
Speaker 1: And he crawls out of the burning wreckage of this
25:10
Speaker 1: tinfoil plane.
25:13
Speaker 2: And then darkness.
25:16
Speaker 1: I mean, he's already darkness because he's blind, but he
25:19
Speaker 1: just unconscious. He ended up in a coma. Luckily for him,
25:25
Speaker 1: he was rescued and he gets brought to this first
25:28
Speaker 1: aid post in Mercematra and so like he finally comes
25:32
Speaker 1: to based, I can't see shit, and they're like, this
25:36
Speaker 1: is worse than we expected. And he gets sent to
25:39
Speaker 1: the Royal Navy Hospital in Alexandria. So he gets sent
25:43
Speaker 1: there by train, and there's every possibility that he got
25:48
Speaker 1: like plastic surgery there because of his nose. It's a
25:52
Speaker 1: very maybe thing because it's a very polished nose.
25:56
Speaker 2: It's very.
25:59
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that was the work of
26:01
Speaker 1: his plastic surgeon, like he claims it was. But ro
26:04
Speaker 1: Dal is a storyteller. He's known for telling tall tales.
26:09
Speaker 1: So like he said that he was shot down over Libya,
26:13
Speaker 1: he was not. He crash landed like may No. So
26:19
Speaker 1: this entire crash it actually causes like so many issues
26:23
Speaker 1: throughout his life, Like he needs two spino surgeries. He
26:26
Speaker 1: needs both of his hips replaced. I think one happens
26:30
Speaker 1: earlier and the one happens like later on in his life,
26:34
Speaker 1: but he ends up with two like steel hips eventually.
26:38
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's at this this Royal Navy hospital and
26:43
Speaker 1: he is just infatuated with Mary Well and who's this
26:47
Speaker 1: nurse And he's falling in love with her and out
26:50
Speaker 1: of love with her, and like no, no, no, no, will
26:53
Speaker 1: they won't they spoiler alert they won't. But anyway, luckily
26:58
Speaker 1: for Dal, by nineteen forty one, February, nice and early,
27:03
Speaker 1: he is just discharge from hospital and is a okay,
27:09
Speaker 1: And by a okay, I mean they say you can
27:12
Speaker 1: get in a plane again, boy. So he is given
27:16
Speaker 1: them all clear, you are good to go. Get in
27:19
Speaker 1: that plane, buddy. So he's cleared, he's cleared for flying,
27:24
Speaker 1: and so he does. So the eighty squadron, the one
27:27
Speaker 1: that he was part of, they were no longer by Mersmatra.
27:31
Speaker 1: They're part of the Greek campaign, so they're close to Athens,
27:35
Speaker 1: I think. So instead of you know, the by planes,
27:41
Speaker 1: they're in Hawker Hurricanes, because so many of these have
27:46
Speaker 1: alliteration Hawker Hurricanes, Glocest, the Gladiators, so on and so forth.
27:53
Speaker 1: But yeah, Dallan's applying to Greece because they don't have
27:56
Speaker 1: enough like combat planes, like they've got less than twenty, right,
28:01
Speaker 1: they're not many at all. So he's flying planes out.
28:04
Speaker 1: So that's what he's doing. So he flies in his wheeplane.
28:08
Speaker 1: So Dal he ends up well getting rid of a
28:12
Speaker 1: few Axis bomb wells. He's doing his thing, and then
28:17
Speaker 1: later on in the air he takes part in the
28:19
Speaker 1: Battle of Athens, and this is just chaos. It's pure chaos,
28:26
Speaker 1: and twenty two German bombers like go down, but there's
28:30
Speaker 1: only like twelve hurbricanes and they lose five of them.
28:36
Speaker 2: One pilot survive, the other four.
28:37
Speaker 1: Just they're gone. But like because of this chaos, like
28:43
Speaker 1: they don't actually know if they've shot down one of
28:46
Speaker 1: their own or one of like the enemy. It's just
28:50
Speaker 1: just planes are just going past each other and they're
28:54
Speaker 1: just hoping for the best, right, they're just hoping they
28:56
Speaker 1: recognize the right one. And I think this is one
29:00
Speaker 1: of the last, if not the last, battle that Dalla
29:04
Speaker 1: is in, because he starts getting headaches, headaches that are
29:09
Speaker 1: so severe that he is blacking out. Clearly that initial
29:15
Speaker 1: crash did something dodgy to his head. Now there's there's
29:22
Speaker 1: a theory that like it affected the frontal lobe, which
29:25
Speaker 1: is the one which is for decision making. You know
29:27
Speaker 1: that the rational part of your brain. Now I feel
29:31
Speaker 1: like having a severe head injury and then going up
29:34
Speaker 1: to an area where there's massive pressure up in the sky,
29:39
Speaker 1: you know, when you're like moving really fast and it's
29:42
Speaker 1: doing like discombobulating things to your body, probably not conducive
29:48
Speaker 1: to like healthy brain shit, you know.
29:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.
29:54
Speaker 1: So Dall is uncleared for today and ends up being sent.
29:58
Speaker 2: Home to the UK.
30:01
Speaker 1: Back in England, he is posted to an RAF training
30:06
Speaker 1: camp in Uxbridge. Now he is trying to get to
30:11
Speaker 1: a level of health that he can be an instructor
30:14
Speaker 1: effectively no blacking out, you know, generally a good way
30:20
Speaker 1: to be. But he ends up meeting the Undersecretary of
30:26
Speaker 1: State for Air Major Harold Balfour, because you know, he's
30:32
Speaker 1: at one of his fancy man's clubs. And Harold Balfour
30:37
Speaker 1: he he likes Dal. He thinks he's clever, he's good
30:41
Speaker 1: at chatting, and he's got a fairly decent war record,
30:46
Speaker 1: and so he thinks, hmmm, this is just the ticket,
30:51
Speaker 1: and he appoints him as the Assistant Heir Atache at
30:55
Speaker 1: the British Embassy in Washington, and Dal is like, I
31:00
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. I want to I want
31:03
Speaker 1: to train people to fly planes to fight this war.
31:08
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, yeah, it takes me a bit of convincing,
31:13
Speaker 1: but he ends up going, So he ends up heading
31:18
Speaker 1: to Glasgow and then traveling over to Halifax in Canada,
31:22
Speaker 1: just basically going on a ship across the Atlantic Ocean,
31:27
Speaker 1: and then he gets there and gets on a sleeper.
31:29
Speaker 2: Train to Montreal.
31:32
Speaker 1: So when Dowley leaves the UK, it's rationing. So people
31:38
Speaker 1: would have a ration book and you would have an
31:41
Speaker 1: amount of stamps in it where you could get like
31:45
Speaker 1: the food that you were allocated.
31:47
Speaker 2: So everything was rationed out, which.
31:51
Speaker 1: Is why I might add that the reason that that
31:55
Speaker 1: we fell or sold his entire family out in the
31:58
Speaker 1: line watch in the wardrobe for a Turkish delight, which
32:02
Speaker 1: people are just like.
32:04
Speaker 2: They know they're good.
32:07
Speaker 1: Wartime rationing. They were making people eat carrots as a treat,
32:12
Speaker 1: oh cara on a stick, food propaganda, and this is
32:19
Speaker 1: sugar to a child who has been starving, you know,
32:26
Speaker 1: fucking yes, he's gonna celebrate out for some Turkish delight.
32:29
Speaker 1: Could you imagine if they gave him a biscuit, hey
32:32
Speaker 1: were able to have been Yep, there you go, bye bye.
32:36
Speaker 1: So in the UK there's food rationing. You know, people
32:40
Speaker 1: are eating relatively plainly, even the elites. It's relatively plain
32:44
Speaker 1: in comparison to what they're used to do. And so
32:48
Speaker 1: he gets to this.
32:49
Speaker 2: He gets to.
32:50
Speaker 1: America and there's food. There's an abundance of food and delicious, interesting,
33:00
Speaker 1: high class food, like and Dale gets to Washington, DC
33:05
Speaker 1: and he is not happy. Like he ends up sharing
33:11
Speaker 1: a house in Georgetown and he's there for like ten days,
33:16
Speaker 1: and he is mad, like he's telling people that like
33:20
Speaker 1: he's got the worst job. It's so unimportant. And you know,
33:24
Speaker 1: because he's just come from war. He was doing this,
33:27
Speaker 1: he was doing this, he was battling, he was doing
33:29
Speaker 1: important stuff and like just living horror because his life
33:34
Speaker 1: as if he doesn't have enough of it, Like do
33:36
Speaker 1: not think you've had.
33:37
Speaker 2: Enough horror in your life?
33:38
Speaker 1: Ruled no? All right then, and he's sharing.
33:43
Speaker 2: His house with another attache, right, and the.
33:45
Speaker 1: Two of them, I don't know if they get on,
33:47
Speaker 1: but I'm thinking headsquare butted because like Dall has arrived
33:54
Speaker 1: like not long after Pearl Harbor, Like there's like a
33:56
Speaker 1: couple of months I think in between. It's not it's
33:59
Speaker 1: not a huge amount. And he gets there and it's
34:03
Speaker 1: just a bit this like it's a different from a
34:08
Speaker 1: chaos because he's now sort of around all of these
34:12
Speaker 1: like higher society people in the States. He's going to
34:14
Speaker 1: cocktail parties and meetings, and he ends up integrating himself
34:19
Speaker 1: with society right or you know, high society and Dallien's
34:24
Speaker 1: have hobnobbing just the right people, and he gets recruited
34:29
Speaker 1: by British intelligence and a bunch of other sort of entertainers.
34:36
Speaker 1: They're all part of this, but they're nicknamed the Baker
34:40
Speaker 1: Street of Regulars after the Regulars, the sort of little
34:44
Speaker 1: spy network in Charlock Holmes. So effectively, they were already
34:50
Speaker 1: in the States, a lot of them. The whole purpose
34:52
Speaker 1: was to kind of like gently nudge the US to
34:55
Speaker 1: like join the war. It was less of an effort
34:58
Speaker 1: after Pearl Harbor, but they were still there and they
35:00
Speaker 1: wanted to create British propaganda, or at least war propaganda.
35:05
Speaker 1: And so I was at CS Forrester ends up recruiting
35:09
Speaker 1: Doll to write for the Sunday Post about you know,
35:12
Speaker 1: like his crash and his time in the Air Force.
35:15
Speaker 1: And so this is where he starts saying that he
35:17
Speaker 1: was shot down over Libya because he's trying to like
35:20
Speaker 1: garner sympathy and you know, all this stuff for the
35:22
Speaker 1: war effort.
35:25
Speaker 2: So he becomes a spy.
35:29
Speaker 1: Like this is madness because like they're spies, but not
35:33
Speaker 1: the kind of spies.
35:33
Speaker 2: That like stabvish dabby. No, no, no, no no.
35:37
Speaker 1: They're the kind of spies that are there to make friends,
35:41
Speaker 1: to charm and influence and you know shag.
35:47
Speaker 2: You know the spy who shagged me. That's a spy
35:50
Speaker 2: who shagged me, not me specifically.
35:53
Speaker 1: I mean I'm fairly certain, am I fairly certain I've
35:57
Speaker 1: never shagged a spy. Like they would have some pretty
36:01
Speaker 1: shitty covers if they did, like really like yeah, no,
36:08
Speaker 1: no no. So the regulars, they other regulars consist of
36:20
Speaker 1: Ian Fleming, yes, the dude who wrote James Bond, No Coward,
36:26
Speaker 1: Leslie Howard Ashley from Gone with the Wind, and Sir
36:34
Speaker 1: William Stevenson, who was like the actual inspiration for James Bond.
36:39
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're all they're all together.
36:42
Speaker 2: So the main.
36:44
Speaker 1: Mission was to like charm and influence and befriend all
36:49
Speaker 1: of these like influential and important people in the US
36:54
Speaker 1: and you know, convince them to invest, support and or
36:59
Speaker 1: join the war effort.
37:01
Speaker 2: Now, if that.
37:02
Speaker 1: Didn't work, if that didn't quite pan out for them,
37:08
Speaker 1: they were to garner enough sort of evidence to blackmail
37:17
Speaker 1: them into it effectively. They're like, like, we're gonna either
37:21
Speaker 1: like carrot or stick you fucking carrots back again.
37:24
Speaker 2: Oh the carrot of war.
37:27
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is where Roald Dahal's penis comes into it.
37:35
Speaker 1: I just yep, I don't. I don't know where he
37:37
Speaker 1: helse did like bring this up. He did it often enough.
37:41
Speaker 1: Now Dall was known as a ladies man anyway, right,
37:44
Speaker 1: and he ends up being the toy boy for Clear
37:51
Speaker 1: Birth Loos so Clear Birth Loss. She is a Republican
37:55
Speaker 1: congresswoman and more importantly, surprise, the wife of the owner
38:02
Speaker 1: of Time, Life and Fortune magazines. So yeah, she's married
38:09
Speaker 1: to Henry Liss.
38:11
Speaker 2: He's like this.
38:14
Speaker 1: Anti British isolationist really and and yeah, I mean considering
38:20
Speaker 1: considering that, considering he didn't want to be involved in this,
38:23
Speaker 1: and they didn't like Britain and would probably be against that,
38:29
Speaker 1: I guess poinking his wife was a very incredibly super
38:33
Speaker 1: important spy mission. However, my favorite part of the story
38:41
Speaker 1: is like this lasts a couple of days, like Dal
38:45
Speaker 1: is with clear boothless for a couple of days, and
38:52
Speaker 1: Dal cannot handle her libido like he just he just can't.
38:56
Speaker 1: He ends up calling his superiors. He phones them up,
39:00
Speaker 1: and he is begging to abort the mission. He wants to,
39:04
Speaker 1: like get out of the project. He wants out of it,
39:06
Speaker 1: he wants to just he's no, He's like, fuck this
39:09
Speaker 1: for a game of soldiers.
39:11
Speaker 2: He wants out.
39:12
Speaker 1: Out of her and out of this whole plan. Like
39:17
Speaker 1: actual quote, actual quote from him.
39:21
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
39:21
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try and give him a posh English voice.
39:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do my best year. Okay, roll Dal, I
39:29
Speaker 1: am all fucked out. That goddamn woman has absolutely screwed
39:33
Speaker 1: me from one end of the room to the other
39:35
Speaker 1: for three goddamn nights. Now this may shock you, gentle listener,
39:40
Speaker 1: but roll Dale superiors were like, tough luck, ah, just
39:46
Speaker 1: just lie back. Think of England, you know what I mean, Like,
39:49
Speaker 1: you're literally doing this for your country. The Red Weight
39:52
Speaker 1: and the play.
39:54
Speaker 2: It's England who's asking, Uh.
40:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, Eddie, chance to throw a grease too leric in there,
40:05
Speaker 1: and I mean a paraphrase, but like it's a parody
40:09
Speaker 1: technically it's fine. So yeah, he's you know, he has
40:12
Speaker 1: to do it for his country, which is funny considering
40:15
Speaker 1: he's already a literal war hero. But yeah, so I
40:21
Speaker 1: don't know what happened.
40:22
Speaker 2: This man has had surgeries.
40:24
Speaker 1: He's had his face cave in, and you know, he's
40:28
Speaker 1: seen his friends die. What was this woman doing to him?
40:35
Speaker 1: Like like what? So he's doing this work for I
40:41
Speaker 1: six as part of the British security coordination and yeah,
40:49
Speaker 1: he ends up being sent back to Britain by the
40:52
Speaker 1: NBASA officials because of quote unquote misconduct. Now, although I
41:00
Speaker 1: feel whatever he did, he did it deliberately. He was
41:04
Speaker 1: just like my welly Wonka can't take it anymore, Captain,
41:07
Speaker 1: he doesn't have the power. Yes, So he ends up
41:10
Speaker 1: being sent back to Britain from the agency. They're just like, nah,
41:14
Speaker 1: we can't be dealing with him anymore. So he must
41:16
Speaker 1: have fucked something.
41:17
Speaker 2: Up royally, you know what I mean.
41:19
Speaker 1: And now I don't know if this was a petty
41:20
Speaker 1: move or not. But like he gets booted back to
41:24
Speaker 1: England and then one of the spymasters he sends him
41:29
Speaker 1: back to Washington, but he promotes him so he's now
41:33
Speaker 1: a wing commander. So after this, he's got this temporary
41:38
Speaker 1: wing commander role and ends up with squadron leader with
41:47
Speaker 1: five aurial victories, so he's technically a flying ace. But yeah,
41:52
Speaker 1: the war ends and he has some time, some time
41:56
Speaker 1: on his hands. Now he says that, you know, he
41:59
Speaker 1: goes like the air crash and it suddenly made him
42:03
Speaker 1: write things, which is one way of putting it. Or
42:08
Speaker 1: now you don't have a full time occupation distracting you,
42:13
Speaker 1: and you have more time to write things now. Somewhere
42:17
Speaker 1: along the way Ladies, Manue Dal meets Courts and Mary's
42:24
Speaker 1: Patricia O'Neill, who was an American actress, and they get
42:28
Speaker 1: married in nineteen fifty three and they end up having
42:31
Speaker 1: five children together. So there's Olivia twenty chant Al, Sophia, Theo, Matthew, Ophillia, Magdalena,
42:42
Speaker 1: and Lucy Neil. So they're married for seven years and
42:49
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty their four month old son Theo was
42:54
Speaker 1: incredibly injured when his baby carriage is that oh Pram
43:00
Speaker 1: gets hit by a taxi in New York. So because
43:05
Speaker 1: of this, he suffers from hydrocephallus, which is a build
43:09
Speaker 1: up of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. And so Dal
43:15
Speaker 1: ends up part of a team who designed this like
43:20
Speaker 1: valve right, So it's the wide Dal Till valve. So
43:27
Speaker 1: it's this sort of shunt which is used to like
43:31
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, reduce all of this fucking fluid
43:35
Speaker 1: in the brain, right, and so this extra valve just
43:38
Speaker 1: makes all the difference. So it's this like weird collaboration
43:43
Speaker 1: between Ormond Street Hospital where there's a new something there
43:49
Speaker 1: called Kenneth Till. There's a hydraulic engineer Stanley Wade, and
43:53
Speaker 1: then writer Roll Dal. So during this time Roll Dal
43:59
Speaker 1: was writing books. He starts telling his kids stories and
44:02
Speaker 1: he's writing books and he does this now. Dal is
44:06
Speaker 1: a sex verot six man and his attitudes in his personality,
44:13
Speaker 1: he's quite domineering. Is it because he's part Norwegian? Is
44:18
Speaker 1: it because he went to public school? Is it because
44:22
Speaker 1: he's a rich white dude? Whom's to say? Was it
44:25
Speaker 1: because of the accident?
44:26
Speaker 2: Also?
44:27
Speaker 1: Maybe or he could just be you know, I'm misogynist.
44:33
Speaker 1: Read the Witches, you know what I mean? Anyway, And
44:36
Speaker 1: this is from someone who actually.
44:37
Speaker 2: Quite enjoys road Dale books.
44:39
Speaker 1: I loved them growing up. My favorite is still George's
44:41
Speaker 1: Marvelous Medicine. Don't care if it's short, don't care if
44:44
Speaker 1: it's mainly a poem, I'll love it, right, love it.
44:48
Speaker 1: So basically, the shunt or this valve in the shunt
44:54
Speaker 1: is used like on like three thousand kids like across
44:58
Speaker 1: the world. It's pretty good. Now, Dal a bit of
45:03
Speaker 1: a control freak, likes to be in charge, likes to
45:06
Speaker 1: be in control, and so that's one of the reasons
45:09
Speaker 1: why he's involved in this. Like obviously he wants to
45:12
Speaker 1: care for his care at least we hope he does.
45:14
Speaker 1: He does, yeah, but he needs this control like he's
45:21
Speaker 1: he's a domineering figure. I mean he's also massive, which
45:25
Speaker 1: kind of exacerbates it a wee bit. But he has
45:28
Speaker 1: to be he has to lead the charge on this.
45:32
Speaker 1: So remember when I said earlier that his life was
45:36
Speaker 1: marred by tragedy, Well I'm not done. So his daughter, Olivia,
45:42
Speaker 1: who was born in nineteen fifty five, she is seven
45:46
Speaker 1: years old and she dies of measles, purely preventable disease.
45:57
Speaker 1: That's why we have a vaccine for vaccinate your fucking
46:00
Speaker 1: don't be cunts. I don't care, so yes, we're am I.
46:06
Speaker 1: Now Dal is fucking distraught because his daughter, his firstborn child,
46:19
Speaker 1: she's dead and she did at seven, just like his sister,
46:23
Speaker 1: like that's he's gonna make that connection, you know, And
46:28
Speaker 1: I mean they're not his fault and they're not really connected,
46:33
Speaker 1: but he won't make that connection on his brain because
46:36
Speaker 1: that's what we do as humans when create patterns, even
46:39
Speaker 1: when there are none. And so he is just wallowing
46:47
Speaker 1: in despair. But he has to do something because this
46:51
Speaker 1: is not a man who can sit down and do nothing.
46:53
Speaker 2: So he ends up.
46:56
Speaker 1: Becomes like a massive supporter for like vaccination and immunization,
47:03
Speaker 1: and he writes measles a dangerous illness, like he does
47:08
Speaker 1: this whole response for mes ol cases in the UK,
47:12
Speaker 1: like all through the eighties, and he is fighting to
47:16
Speaker 1: save lives like just through another medium now. So it's
47:24
Speaker 1: actually his daughter's death. Like everything else in his life,
47:26
Speaker 1: everything he's been through, he still had faith. And here
47:33
Speaker 1: is where he loses.
47:34
Speaker 2: His I'm gonna try and not get emotional. Oh no,
47:36
Speaker 2: I can't.
47:37
Speaker 1: I'm already emotional. So he goes to see just a
47:45
Speaker 1: member of the clergy. I don't know if it's like
47:46
Speaker 1: the Archbishop of Canterbury or some archbishop. And he goes
47:51
Speaker 1: to see him and he's informed that Olivia will get
47:57
Speaker 1: into heaven. But her beloved pet, her favorite thing in
48:02
Speaker 1: this world.
48:03
Speaker 2: Wouldn't join her. And we all know all dogs go
48:07
Speaker 2: to heaven.
48:09
Speaker 1: Imagine telling that to a grieving father that like, oh yeah, no, yeah,
48:13
Speaker 1: your daughter's gonna be in the afterlife, but not with
48:16
Speaker 1: anything that brings her joy.
48:17
Speaker 2: Like, oh, like that's gonna crush you. It's gonna crush you.
48:24
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Katie, stop feeling feelings. Ugh no, anyway,
48:31
Speaker 1: so he is did you think I was done with tragedy?
48:37
Speaker 1: Did you think I was done?
48:39
Speaker 2: Oh? No, my friends.
48:41
Speaker 1: Three years after he loses his daughter, his wife Patricia,
48:49
Speaker 1: she has a series of cerebral aneurysms. So she has
48:54
Speaker 1: these strokes. You know, well, she's pregnant with their fifth
49:00
Speaker 1: and final child, Lucy, and she just suffers these strokes,
49:05
Speaker 1: and dal being the man he is, he takes charge
49:10
Speaker 1: of care and rehabilitation and he just starts pushing her
49:16
Speaker 1: and he's really harsh about it. Now at this time,
49:22
Speaker 1: in this time period, like we were unaware that, or
49:26
Speaker 1: the general populace was unaware that the best thing you
49:29
Speaker 1: can do for a stroke victim is to sort of
49:32
Speaker 1: push them and try and get them to do things
49:36
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible in order to sort of refire
49:40
Speaker 1: that and get them moving again and do their little
49:45
Speaker 1: like squeezy handball stuff. So I'm trying to think of
49:48
Speaker 1: the stuff my mum did after her stroke, like all
49:50
Speaker 1: the the sort of things, the exercises and all the rehab.
49:57
Speaker 1: But he is like really forcing her and pushing her.
50:01
Speaker 1: But he didn't know that that was actually gonna help.
50:07
Speaker 1: Now that on its own, you know, doesn't really make
50:10
Speaker 1: you judge's character too much, Like maybe he had an
50:12
Speaker 1: idea or a theory and thought this was the.
50:14
Speaker 2: Right way to do it.
50:17
Speaker 1: But then but then as it turns out, like after
50:21
Speaker 1: she has the stroke, he starts talking to her like
50:27
Speaker 1: she's a child, like treats her like she's a child.
50:30
Speaker 1: He would make her repeat things in front of people.
50:34
Speaker 1: It would be really humiliating, Like if she said something wrong,
50:40
Speaker 1: he would make her redo it in front of everyone,
50:43
Speaker 1: not just on her own, not you know, not in
50:47
Speaker 1: a caring way, but it was quite aggressive and demanding.
50:54
Speaker 1: And he would talk about her like not like behind
50:57
Speaker 1: her back or anything, but as if she wasn't there.
51:01
Speaker 1: So he would talk about her as if she wasn't
51:03
Speaker 1: in the room. And again.
51:08
Speaker 2: Still thinking, well, you know it's in the olden days.
51:11
Speaker 2: It's not that bad.
51:14
Speaker 1: Well, well, seven years later, Dal is writing his books.
51:20
Speaker 1: He's doing very well for himself. Patricia, she's back acting.
51:26
Speaker 1: And there's was a costume designer, set designer, a set
51:31
Speaker 1: designer for a Maximum Coffee advert in Patricia's in it.
51:38
Speaker 2: And this is where.
51:41
Speaker 1: Dal meets Felicity the Blue Colssland and she is like
51:48
Speaker 1: vaguely related to the Queen Mother, I think. And so
51:51
Speaker 1: they start this eleven year affair like and he thinks
51:55
Speaker 1: they can like hide it from everybody. He's writing in
51:58
Speaker 1: his garden. Shep you know, he's doing stuff. He's publishing
52:04
Speaker 1: his books. She's doing I assume set designer things. Patricia's
52:08
Speaker 1: acting all the while Felicity was actually Patricia's friend or
52:15
Speaker 1: supposed friend. And to make matters worse, I think this
52:18
Speaker 1: is just just a sly thing to do. Is that
52:22
Speaker 1: the way the BFG speaks is based on Patricia O'Neill
52:29
Speaker 1: recovering from a stroke, Like I don't know how to
52:36
Speaker 1: put that. Like that is somehow petty and vindictive in
52:41
Speaker 1: a way that just arks me. I am arcd well
52:47
Speaker 1: and truly arked. So when Darl's daughter is fifteen, Like,
52:54
Speaker 1: she finds out about the affair, and Dal basically sits
53:00
Speaker 1: her down and tells her that she can, you know,
53:04
Speaker 1: destroy her mother, her mother who had strokes, her mother
53:08
Speaker 1: who barely survived. You can destroy her life and ruin
53:12
Speaker 1: her marriage and ruin this family, or you can keep
53:16
Speaker 1: your mouth shut, like what horrible Urshole emotionally blackmails his
53:26
Speaker 1: child into covering up for his horrific acts, like who
53:32
Speaker 1: does that? Like, I'm sorry, but that's that's reprehensible. I'm
53:39
Speaker 1: it's fucking bollocks. But anyway, surprise, surprise, the truth will out.
53:45
Speaker 1: It always does, and Patricia and Rodal end up divorcing.
53:51
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty three, they get divorced, and then Dale
53:55
Speaker 1: marries Felicity, like the same year, just out with the old,
53:59
Speaker 1: in with the news. So like after he's married to
54:03
Speaker 1: Felicity and like she moves into his house and Patricia's
54:07
Speaker 1: kicked out, he ends up being offered an obe right,
54:11
Speaker 1: and he denies that he doesn't want it, not for
54:15
Speaker 1: any other reason than he wants a knighthood, Like he
54:18
Speaker 1: wants to be knighted so that he can be you know, sir,
54:23
Speaker 1: and she can be you know, Lady Dow like, okay, okay,
54:32
Speaker 1: punching up a wee bit, mate, just a wee bit,
54:34
Speaker 1: and now, being the man he is, cannot stop being controversial,
54:39
Speaker 1: so he ends up making this very anti Israel statement
54:44
Speaker 1: and it's but it's very strange though, because like his
54:50
Speaker 1: editor was Jewish, his publisher was Jewish. I'm fairly hurting,
54:54
Speaker 1: Like he just had lots of Jewish people like within
54:58
Speaker 1: his business circle, and he was seeing this very a
55:03
Speaker 1: sort of anti Semitic anti zion Is. Like it's they're
55:10
Speaker 1: interlinked and interwoven. I don't think there's any way to
55:13
Speaker 1: separate them when it comes to Dall. But he says
55:16
Speaker 1: these things And is it because he's drunk and wants
55:19
Speaker 1: to cause a scene? Is it because this is what
55:23
Speaker 1: he really believes, Like it doesn't matter either way, because
55:26
Speaker 1: it's still an absolutely shitty thing to do. But he
55:29
Speaker 1: basically says these really anti Israel statements, like especially at
55:36
Speaker 1: the time, like it was just meanwhile, he's still writing.
55:41
Speaker 1: He's you know, he's really mad that he's known for
55:45
Speaker 1: being a children's author, even though that's like the majority
55:49
Speaker 1: of his appeal. But he writes like stuff for TV.
55:55
Speaker 1: Actually he does Tales of the Unexpected, which is listen fab,
56:02
Speaker 1: absolutely fab. I love tales unexpected, but I like old things.
56:06
Speaker 1: That's why I like history and my romantic partner. So
56:11
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this, hey honey, you're older the
56:17
Speaker 1: make it over it anyway, So there's uh a, oh yeah,
56:26
Speaker 1: like I always forget that. Roll Down wrote the screenplay
56:31
Speaker 1: for Cherry Cherry Bang Bang like I always remember Ian
56:34
Speaker 1: Fleming as part of it because it's like the guy
56:37
Speaker 1: who wrote James Bond.
56:39
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's.
56:40
Speaker 1: Wild, but he writes like so many things like what
56:45
Speaker 1: have I gotten now? Oh yeah, this screenplay for you
56:49
Speaker 1: only love twice the James Bond. Maybe he wrote the
56:54
Speaker 1: screenplay because of course he did.
56:57
Speaker 2: And so like Jack Norry and.
57:01
Speaker 1: The Bookture, I think a few of his stories ended
57:05
Speaker 1: up in Alpha. Hetchcock presents just lots, lots and lots
57:10
Speaker 1: of stuff. Well, they do say that what doesn't kill
57:13
Speaker 1: you gives you trauma, and trauma gives you inspiration to
57:17
Speaker 1: be either funny or talented. I'm not sure either of those.
57:23
Speaker 1: But yet he ends up well loving This very long
57:27
Speaker 1: life has a rather unpleasant end. Rhodeal ends up suffering
57:33
Speaker 1: from this very rare blood cancer. It's myloday splastic syndrome.
57:42
Speaker 1: That took me three attempts to try and say even
57:45
Speaker 1: that poorly. So it's this very rare blood cancer and
57:52
Speaker 1: it's actually relatively swift because it's the type of cancer
57:55
Speaker 1: it is. And at the age of seventy four years old,
58:00
Speaker 1: Roll Dal passes away on the twenty third of November
58:05
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety and when he's buried, like when his family
58:13
Speaker 1: lay him to the ground, he is buried with just
58:19
Speaker 1: things in life that are important to him or where
58:22
Speaker 1: important to him. It's sort of like a Viking for note,
58:25
Speaker 1: is what they said. And it's with the I think
58:27
Speaker 1: Sophie Dal said. So there's like wine and chocolate and
58:34
Speaker 1: a pool queue or a snooker cube. Are they the
58:39
Speaker 1: same cue, I mean a parasol as well. I don't
58:43
Speaker 1: know the relevance of the parasol, but yeah. And he
58:50
Speaker 1: is buried in the church of Saint Peter and Paul
58:56
Speaker 1: in buckingham Shire, and like even to this day, people
59:00
Speaker 1: leave things on his grave, so they would be like
59:04
Speaker 1: flowers and toys and all that kind of stuff just
59:08
Speaker 1: because Yeah, he inspired worlds. He created worlds that I
59:15
Speaker 1: think in a way prepared children for the harshness that's
59:19
Speaker 1: out there. Like my kids struggled initially with rod All books.
59:25
Speaker 1: I think you need to be a certain age to
59:27
Speaker 1: start reading them and listening to them, because there were
59:31
Speaker 1: so many cruel characters and there's just abuse in them.
59:35
Speaker 1: There's like lots of abuse and it can very easily
59:39
Speaker 1: affect like small children especially, So when I started reading
59:45
Speaker 1: to them, I kind of had to wait till they
59:48
Speaker 1: were older because they just didn't like the way people
59:51
Speaker 1: were being mistreated in.
59:52
Speaker 2: The books, and that was them.
59:54
Speaker 1: They were like, I don't like this, and I was
59:56
Speaker 1: like okay, because like I was desperate to read Matilda
59:58
Speaker 1: to them, and now I have them like really into
1:00:02
Speaker 1: it and they want to make like Bruce Brogtrotters like
1:00:05
Speaker 1: chocolate cake. But roll Dale is one of those I think,
1:00:11
Speaker 1: you know, when they talk about separating art from the artist,
1:00:15
Speaker 1: you kind of can, but kind of can't because of
1:00:19
Speaker 1: like all the trauma that's like built into Rodale's books
1:00:23
Speaker 1: comes from Rodale.
1:00:25
Speaker 2: And to completely contradict what I.
1:00:26
Speaker 1: Just said, I think it's fine to separate the art
1:00:30
Speaker 1: from the artist if that artist is dead and can
1:00:34
Speaker 1: no longer monetize it and can no longer make money
1:00:39
Speaker 1: or a living from their you know, horrible viewpoints and
1:00:45
Speaker 1: terrible things they did. And roll Dale has been dead
1:00:48
Speaker 1: for well over five years, so I am more than
1:00:52
Speaker 1: happy to continue reading his stories. But it does mean
1:00:59
Speaker 1: you have to bring in a lot of explanations to
1:01:01
Speaker 1: your children, and that's all new as a parent. If
1:01:03
Speaker 1: you're reading it, if you're not a parent, not really relevant.
1:01:06
Speaker 2: I don't know.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: Maybe you read it to yourself, Maybe you read it
1:01:10
Speaker 1: to your pet iguana. Maybe your iguana really likes children's stories.
1:01:15
Speaker 1: I'm not here to judge in iguana they do the
1:01:18
Speaker 1: wrong thing. But yes, that is the story of roll Dal,
1:01:24
Speaker 1: beloved children's author and the man whose portrait hangs in
1:01:28
Speaker 1: the gallery of all your faves are problematic, but yeah,
1:01:33
Speaker 1: that is this week's tale. Now. If you liked my retelling,
1:01:38
Speaker 1: feel free to rate and review five stars, especially considering
1:01:42
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm actually having much trouble speaking my
1:01:46
Speaker 1: tongue and my jaw is so sore. And also, if
1:01:49
Speaker 1: you'd like to vote for me in the Irish Podcast
1:01:51
Speaker 1: Awards Listener's Choice, you just clicking the leg down below.
1:01:55
Speaker 1: Look up hoo died. What now click on my logo,
1:01:58
Speaker 1: put in your email, and then like respond to that
1:02:01
Speaker 1: email with a week clicky button just to make sure
1:02:03
Speaker 1: it's more to make sure people aren't like multi voting
1:02:06
Speaker 1: and things. So if you would like to do that,
1:02:08
Speaker 1: that would be totally amazing, because I would like to
1:02:10
Speaker 1: just annoy annoy the hell out of like this sun
1:02:15
Speaker 1: by like doing well on it. And I am gonna
1:02:20
Speaker 1: go for recommendation time for.
1:02:25
Speaker 2: Listening.
1:02:26
Speaker 1: I am going to suggest the Busted Greatest Hits album
1:02:31
Speaker 1: on Spotify. All all of the feminism left my body
1:02:36
Speaker 1: listening to Busted because it's it's not some of the
1:02:40
Speaker 1: lyrics are downright dodgy, but I do like all the
1:02:42
Speaker 1: swears around there now, so I'm quite happy. And just
1:02:46
Speaker 1: the music's so good. And also there's a sort of
1:02:49
Speaker 1: a guest version where Bowling for Sip saying she wants
1:02:53
Speaker 1: to be me with them. It's still good, It's still perfect.
1:02:56
Speaker 1: It's perfect. I love it so much, and not just
1:02:58
Speaker 1: because I love Bowling for spit also for Sip on
1:03:03
Speaker 1: behalf of Sip.
1:03:06
Speaker 2: Or to gain soap.
1:03:07
Speaker 1: It's not it's not the point. That's a mid point
1:03:11
Speaker 1: for watching Wilderness watch Wilderness on Prime just delive you
1:03:17
Speaker 1: at all? Yes, watch to watch it, and and for reading,
1:03:26
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with a we who Done it? Richard
1:03:29
Speaker 1: Osmond's The Thursday Murder Club. Okay, now that that's sorted,
1:03:34
Speaker 1: I am going to wish.
1:03:35
Speaker 2: You good night.
1:03:37
Speaker 1: Adios. Au revoir is in my friends, Bye bye