Wednesday I took the train to Greater Missenden to visit the Dahl Museum.
It was a bit awkward as again I was the only childless adult in the place, but it was fun. And it didn’t stop me from dressing up in Roald’s old school clothes.
I also got weird looks for sitting through a play of Revolting Rhymes and reciting the lines with more enthusiasm than the kids. But I did better on the sparkiness test than all the other grown ups! (Actually better than the kids too!)
The museum had a lot of the original drafts on display, so you could see how the stories evolved.
In one version, Willy Wonka developed a new candy called spotty powder, which looks and tastes like sugar so you can sprinkle it on your breakfast cereal. Then 5 minutes later you break out in spots like the chicken pox so that you can stay home from school. When a father complains, he says “In my factory I make things to please children. I don’t care about grown-ups.”
Matilda was probably inspired by this child-friendly poem by Hilaire Belloc:
Matilda Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death
Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to Believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not She
Discovered this Infirmity.
For once, towards the Close of Day,
Matilda, growing tired of play,
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe to the Telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid
Of London’s Noble Fire-Brigade.
Within an hour the Gallant Band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow.
With Courage high and Hearts a-glow,
They galloped, roaring through the Town,
‘Matilda’s House is Burning Down!’
Inspired by British Cheers and Loud
Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;
And took Peculiar Pains to Souse
The Pictures up and down the House,
Until Matilda’s Aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed;
And even then she had to pay
To get the Men to go away,
It happened that a few Weeks later
Her Aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that Interesting Play
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her Niece
To hear this Entertaining Piece:
A Deprivation Just and Wise
To Punish her for Telling Lies.
That Night a Fire did break out–
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street–
(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence) — but all in vain!
For every time she shouted ‘Fire!’
They only answered ‘Little Liar!’
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.
The first page of the first draft reads:
Some children are born to be angels. They are always loving and kind.
Some are born mischievous, and although these are often a bit of a nuisance, they can also be rather fun.
But what about the wicked ones, the ones who are born wicked? There aren’t too many of them around, thank goodness, but the few that there are can make life very unpleasant for the rest of us. Wicked children are happiest when they are making someone else miserable. To them, being wicked is a pleasure.
There is not doubt Matilda was one of these. She was born wicked, and she stayed wicked no matter how hard her parents tried to make her good. She was just about the most wicked child in the world.
As a baby she had driven her mother crazy with her screaming day and night. When she was old enough to toddle about and pick things up, she became a pest in the house. Every thing she could lay her hands on was smashed to pieces.
By the time Matilda was seven years old, she had become so wicked that everybody, children and grown-ups alike, would go into a state of alert when they saw her coming. And when she was nowhere to be seen, her mother would rush around the house calling out frantically, “Matilda! Matilda, where are you? What are you up to now?”
Matilda dies at the end of all of the early versions.
This is Roald Dahl’s cramped little writing shed:
The mess on the desk includes:
-
A 310 gram ball of Cadbury Dairy Milk bars (one a day every day), roughly the size of a billiard ball but twice as heavy.
-
The top of his femur, removed during hip replacement surgery. He kept it because his doctor said it was the biggest he had ever seen.
-
A glass bottle full of shavings from his spine.
The chair has a hole cut in the back to accommodate his war injury.
Roald Dahl was very tall. I am as tall as Mr. Twit.
This is the Greater Missendon library that probably inspired the library in Matilda. It is very small and almost entirely fiction. I always imagined that Matilda reading through all the books in the library meant a lot more books.
I walked out to the cemetery where Dahl is buried. The area was really thick green forest, which the town of Greater Missendon barely peeks out of.
At the cemetery the footprints of the BFG lead down to his grave.
