After establishing himself as a writer for adults, Roald Dahl began writing children’s stories in 1960 while living in England with his family. His first stories were written as entertainment for his own children, to whom many of his books are dedicated. Roald Dahl is now considered one of the most beloved storytellers of our time. Although he passed away in 1990, his popularity continues to increase as his fantastic novels, including James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The BFG, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, delight an ever-growing legion of fans. but it is probably what got me in for a lifelong lukewarm interest in WWII that is responsible for 54% of what i have in common with my father, so. i should be grateful.

Roald Dahl | Going Solo | The Battle of Athens - Slightly Foxed Roald Dahl | Going Solo | The Battle of Athens - Slightly Foxed

Only, before Roald could finish his time with the Shell company... the Great War broke out. And that was quite a story in itself. Roald joined the airforce and was trained as a pilot. As in, he was give 7 and a half hours of in-flight training before being declared fit for service along with fifteen other new pilots. Then, they were given fighter planes and told to get up in the air. Unsurprisingly, this happened: From the bestselling author Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG comes an autobiographical account of his exploits as a World War II pilot! His account of life as a fighter pilot in the Western Desert and in Greece has the thrilling intensity and the occasional grotesqueness of his fiction Sunday TimesI'm giving this book 5 stars without having actually read it, but ya know what it's my review so I can do whatever I want (don't try and stop me)! The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it's more like having a well-read friend than a subscription to a literary review.

Going Solo by Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake | Waterstones Going Solo by Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake | Waterstones

Like all the others, I was always sent up alone. I wished I could sometimes have had a friendly wing-tip alongside me, and more importantly, a second pair of eyes to help me watch the sky behind and above. But we didn’t have enough aircraft for luxuries of that sort. We’ve been doing some pretty intensive flying just lately – you may have heard about it a little on the wireless. [...] We’ve lost 4 pilots killed in the Squadron in the last 2 weeks, shot down by the French. Otherwise this country is great fun and definitely flowing with milk and honey …” Going Solo' tells of how, when he grew up, Roald Dahl left England for Africa and a series of daring and dangerous adventures began. From tales of plane crashes to surviving snake bites, read all about Roald Dahl's life before becoming the world's number-one storyteller.

Anyway, this book is one of my favorites of all time, partly because of the personal sentimental value that I've found in it over the years. It's been my trusty companion for whenever I'm Going Solo or getting lonely. It's quite interesting to hear an unfiltered account of that time. For example, all the men at the Shell company had a "boy." Now, this "boy" was actually a full grown man. He had a wife (sometimes wives) to support and essentially acted as a butler. He spoke Swahili and so did Roald (it was not considered right to force the "boys" to learn English). Roald taught his boy how to read and write, and his boy tended Roald's every need. It was strange to read about.

Going Solo by Roald Dahl - Audiobooks on Google Play Going Solo by Roald Dahl - Audiobooks on Google Play

His flying lessons and time as a fighter pilot, in the doomed and ill-advised British effort to defend Greece. Dahl learned on the job and survived. Most of his comrades-in-arms didn't. The pitifully small British air detachment was largely destroyed. Following on from Boy, Going Solo was another tremendously important book to me as a child. Where I could relate to his boyhood tales in some way, the next part of his life was a complete window to another world. Read then it was extraordinary and magical; read now I appreciate it on different levels entirely. Very nearly as grotesque as his fiction. The same compulsive blend of wide-eyed innocence and fascination with danger and horror' Evening Standard Throughout, Dahl comes across as a genuinely nice man, from the nightly hour spent teaching his servant to read and write English and Swahili through his struggles with the necessity of killing the enemy in war. Round and round Athens we went, and I was so busy trying to prevent my starboard wing-tip from scraping against the plane next to me that this time I was in no mood to admire the grand view of the Parthenon or any of the other famous relics below me. Our formation was being led by Flight-Lieutenant Pat Pattle. Now Pat Pattle was a legend in the RAF. At least he was a legend around Egypt and the Western Desert and in the mountains of Greece. He was far and away the greatest fighter ace the Middle East was ever to see, with an astronomical number of victories to his credit. It was even said that he had shot down more planes than any of the famous and glamorized Battle of Britain aces, and this was probably true. I myself had never spoken to him and I am sure he hadn’t the faintest idea who I was. I wasn’t anybody. I was just a new face in a squadron whose pilots took very little notice of each other anyway. But I had observed the famous Flight-Lieutenant Pattle in the mess tent several times. He was a very small man and very soft-spoken, and he possessed the deeply wrinkled doleful face of a cat who knew that all nine of its lives had already been used up.Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Norwegian descent, who rose to prominence in the 1940's with works for both children and adults, and became one of the world's bestselling authors. A wonderful, harrowing and yet somehow light-hearted account of Dahl's time during the Second World War as a RAF pilot. Most fascinating, which one finds with the war poets, is, though it is obviously horrid and despicable, they all seem to bloody love war. Not nice when you nearly die, but jolly good fun otherwise. Camaraderie has a lot to do with it, but I think it's also just what you need to do when faced with such senseless, mindless stupidity. It is a continuation of his autobiography describing his childhood, Boy and detailed his travel to Africa and exploits as a World War II pilot.

Going solo : Dahl, Roald, author : Free Download, Borrow, and Going solo : Dahl, Roald, author : Free Download, Borrow, and

It is a fact, and I verified it carefully later, that out of those sixteen, no less than thirteen were killed in the air within the next two years However, this book left me with a ton of unanswered questions. Like, what happened when he went home after the war? What did he do for work? How did he start writing, etc? I felt it was only an autobiography about a tiny bit of his life. It was probably the most tragic part of his life, but still only a little bit of it. It made me feel like there was still a lot missing or that there should have been another book after Going Solo. A great sense of peace and serenity seemed to surround these massive, slow-moving, gentle beasts. Their skin hung loose over their bodies like suits they had inherited from larger ancestors, with the trousers ridiculously baggy.” Anyway, besides that, I really enjoyed this book! It took me 5 or so chapters to really be interested in it, but after that I was hooked. Dahl's slightly humerous and fascinating accounts of a RAF pilot were so interesting. It also portrayed a side of WWII that you don't hear a lot about: the fighting in the Middle East, which was were Dahl was stationed.

Wow, Roald was in some series air battles during World War II. I mean he could have easily died. It might not be true, but I think he came through all that mess so he could write these children's stories for the world. He should have died many times during the Battle for Athens and all the other times he went up in the air. In 1938 Roald Dahl was fresh out of school and bound for his first job in Africa, hoping to find adventure far from home. However, he got far more excitement than he bargained for when the outbreak of the Second World War led him to join the RAF. His account of his experiences in Africa, crashing a plane in the Western Desert, rescue and recovery from his horrific injuries in Alexandria, flying a Hurricane as Greece fell to the Germans, and many other daring deeds, recreates a world as bizarre and unnerving as any he wrote about in his fiction. There would be no question of me being allowed to have somebody to help me. I shall have to do everything for myself, including the washing and ironing of my shirts.' pg. 85 except for the war scenes that were boring, that was actually a good memoir, I don't know if I read this book because of dahl or because of his mother? I kinda loved the letters he was sending to his mother <3