Roald Dahl Biography: How and Where Roald Dahl Wrote

In 1960, Roald and his family settled in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, England at Gipsy House. It was here, in a small hut at the bottom of the garden, that he would write most of his unforgettable stories for young and old.

The hut was, by all accounts, a dingy little place but one that Roald viewed as a cosy refuge. Christopher Simon Sykes in Harpers & Queen recalls “A dirty plastic curtain covered the window. In the centre stood a faded wing-back armchair, inherited from his mother, and it was here that Dahl sat, his feet propped up on a chest, his legs covered by a tartan rug, supporting on his knees a thick roll of corrugated paper upon which was propped his writing board. Photographs, drawings and other mementoes were pinned to the walls, while a table on his right was covered with a collection of favourite curiosities such as one of his own arthritic hip bones, and a remarkably heavy ball made from the discarded silver paper of numerous chocolate bars consumed during his youth.”

Roald couldn’t type and always used a pencil to write. For much of his career, his working day began at around 9:30, when he his secretary would work through his fanmail. At around 10:30, he’d fill a thermos with coffee and head off to the hut. He’d write until about midday when it was time for lunch and a gin and tonic. After an afternoon read, at about 4 p.m., he’d return to the hut for another couple of hours of writing. “I am a disciplined writer,” he once said, “I don’t think any writer works particularly long hours because he can’t – he becomes inefficient.” He wrote several drafts of his work “because I never get anything right first time.”