Roald Dahl was born in Wales in September 1916. He suffered tragedy early in his life when both his father and older sister died, Roald as only three at the time. His mother was left to raise the family on her own, this included two step children as well as four of her own. The children all attended the local kindergarten.

Roald's early life is described in the novel "Boy", including the time he spent at the local school before being sent to a boarding school in Weston-super-Mare two years later. The accounts of his time here indicate that it was not the most pleasant of experiences for a young boy to have in the pre-teen years, and he absorbed himself in reading. He remained there until he was thirteen.

At this time his family relocated from their home in Wales to Kent on the South-East coast of England and Dahl was then sent to attend Repton Public School. The account presented to us in "Boy" indicate that this was even worse than his prior school.

Once his education had finished Roald decided that he wanted a life filled with adventure, which would allow him to see the distant shores that he had read about in the likes of Kipling so in 1934 he obtained a position with Shell Oil in London, and after training was posted to Tanzania in 1938.