The Sprout

Blue Plaque For Dahl

Posted by Sam (Sub-Editor) from Cardiff - Published on 15/09/2009 at 00:00
2 comments » - Tagged as Creative Writing, Culture, Education, History

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The finest writer Cardiff (if not all Wales) has ever produced received another special accolade yesterday.

Roald Dahl, the ever popular author, had a blue plaque unveiled in his honour in Llandaff. The plaque is situated at the Chinese takeaway on the High Street, but in Roald Dahl’s day it was a sweet shop. It left a lasting effect, appearing in Dahl’s childhood autobiography Boy, most notably in The Great Mouse Plot Of 1924, where Dahl, with a few accomplices, taught the monstrous owner a lesson by slipping a dead rodent into a jar of sweets.

The themes of sweets and beastly curmudgeons getting their comeuppance are common in Dahl’s children's books such as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Matilda.

The plaque was unveiled by his son Theo, who travelled from the USA to attend the ceremony. Roald Dahl’s widow Felicity and daughter Maddy were also present and expressed their delight in seeing so many people at the ceremony, including pupils from local schools, some of whom came dressed as characters from Dahl’s books.

The bi-lingual signs states “Roald Dahl, author born 1916 Llandaff, died 1990. Site of Mrs Pratchett’s sweet shop during his time at Cathedral School as recalled in his autobiography Boy.”

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2 Comments – Post a comment

CLICdan

Commented 32 months ago - 15th September 2009 - 13:58pm

Wow. I went to Bishop of Llandaff and know the takeaway well (we used to get curry and chips there during our frees), but never knew it was the building where the infamous 'dead mouse in the sweet jar' escapade took place!

If anyone at Bishop is reading this, I command you to go down there right away and order a dead mouse and chips.

- Dan