Roald Dahl children include "James and the Giant Peach", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "Matilda", "The Witches", "Fantastic Mr Fox", "The BFG", "The Twits" and "George's Marvellous Medicine". His adult works include "Tales of the Unexpected". Roald Dahl was born in 1916 at Villa Marie, Fairwater Road, in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales, to Norwegian parents, Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl ("née" Hesselberg). Dahl's father had emigrated to the UK from Sarpsborg in Norway, and settled in Cardiff in the 1880s. His mother came over and married his father in 1911. Dahl was named after the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen. His first
Roald Dahl substantive flying officer. After being invalided home, Dahl was posted to an RAF training camp in Uxbridge. He attempted to recover his health enough to become an instructor. In late March 1942, while in London, he met the Under-Secretary of State for Air, Major Harold Balfour (later Lord Balfour), at his club. Impressed by Dahl's war record and conversational abilities, Balfour appointed the young man as assistant air attaché at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. Initially resistant, Dahl was finally persuaded by Balfour to accept, and took passage on the SS "Batori" from Glasgow a few days later. He