Roald Dahl's writing hut

It's Roald Dahl Day today so there's all sorts of Dahl-related events around the country. Naturally, it's his writing hut and garden office that we've been most interested in here on Shedworking over the years so here's a quick guide to some of the most interesting posts about him and his shedworking lifestyle:

Roald Dahl shows how to procrastinate in your garden office

 

Up close and personal inside Roald Dahl's shed

 

Roald Dahl on his writing shed (plus sausages and snooker)

 

Moving the writing hut

 

Conservation work in Roald Dahl's writing hut

 

Roald Dahl's writing shed was inspired by Dylan Thomas's writing shed

 

Roald Dahl's writing hut by Quentin Blake

 

There was a lot of fuss about moving the shed in 2011 which caused a huge rumpus and our reporting of it was noted in the Guardian by Mark Lawson. Here it is day-by-day if you want to follow it:

Controversy rages over restoration of Roald Dahl's writing shed: UPDATED

 

Dahl's shed: Day 2

 

Dahl's shed: Day 3

 

Dahl's Shed: Day 4

 

Dahl's Shed: the media U-turn 

 

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Controversy rages over restoration of Roald Dahl's writing shed: UPDATED

The famous shed where Roald Dahl wrote many of his books is in urgent need of repair and may not survive the winter (see BBC video report here which calls it "dilapidated and dangerous" and features footage of Dahl inside the shed, and their radio report here along similar lines or download a podcast of the interview on Radio 4 this morning here). A fundraising campaign has been launched to save and conserve it, aiming to raise a total of around £1m (two stages of £500,000 with £250,000 already in the bag). Details of exactly what needs doing and why are still a little sketchy and we'll be bringing you more on this story throughout the day and updating this post - the news has already been heavily (and arguably unfairly) criticised on Twitter this morning (where it was a trending topic), by the Daily Telegraph and on the Facebook page of Radio 4's Today programme which carried the item although it doesn't seem as if, at this stage, the public are being asked to fund the work. The Dahl Museum's director Amelia Foster told the BBC that the Dahl family had already given generously to save the writing shed and that Trusts and Foundations would be approached for funding.

Here's what the Roald Dahl Museum says about the issue:

"The hut was built in Roald Dahl’s garden at Gipsy House in the late 1950s. It was constructed with a single layer of bricks insulated with polystyrene and was never intended to last. It’s now in a very fragile state and there’s a strong chance that the structure won’t survive another winter to shelter its precious contents which range from Roald Dahl’s famous chair, to his eclectic collection of objects, including his own hip bone!"

They say the hut - which is featured in the Shedworking book - is in "a state of accelerating decay" and the £500,000 is needed to carry out the "first phase of this exciting and important project, which involves acquiring, conserving and displaying the interior of the iconic Writing Hut and its contents in the Museum". £250,000 has already been raised but the second phase requires an additional £500,000 which "will enable us to make exciting changes to our education spaces and to develop inspirational resources for use both on-site and through our expanding work going out to schools, hospitals and the wider community". Uncle Wilco makes an interesting comparison on Twitter that Dylan Thomas's writing shed cost £20,000 to restore in 2003.

The plan - devised by Dahl’s grandson Luke Kelly following the successful relocation of Francis Bacon’s studio to Dublin's Hugh Lane gallery - appears to be to move the interior of the hut into the main museum where it could be enjoyed by all visitors (at the moment it is on private property and cannot be viewed by the public). A new interactive element would also be introduced into it. Here's his granddaughter Sophie Dahl's view:

“When my grandfather died, he left in his wake an aching gap, but also a palpable magic and limitless imagination which is not exclusive to my family. It is now time for us to save the hut, but even more importantly, to share it.”

This morning Sophie Dahl told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "You can small the decay, it's like stepping into a sacred tomb, but there are still many memories here...it would be selfish to keep it here, it's time for it be seen by the public." For further information on the fundraising campaign and/or to make a donation, you can email the museum’s director Amelia Foster at savethehut@roalddahlmuseum.org

Roald Dahl would have been 95 today.
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Roald Dahl’s Writing Hut opens its doors to the public

Roald Dahl’s original Writing Hut will be fully open to the public in its new home in the Museum’s Solo Gallery from March 20.

The contents and furnishings of the Hut were meticulously transported from Roald Dahl’s garden at Gipsy House (where they were beginning to decay) and will now form the centrepiece of a completely refurbished gallery. This birthplace of all Roald Dahl’s children’s stories will be accessible to the public for the first time.

Visitors will be able to see Roald Dahl’s “little nest” as he called it exactly as he had it set up, with all the extraordinary and fascinating objects he kept at hand for contemplation and inspiration. An array of new interactive exhibits and displays surrounding the Writing Hut aim to throw light on the creative process: how Roald Dahl became a writer, the real-life experiences that inspired him – the stories behind the stories – and the sources of his ideas.

Amongst the new exhibits will be a replica World War II Gladiator cockpit to explore and discover fascinating facts about Roald Dahl’s RAF experiences; a writing and drawing activity, where visitors can play the parts of Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake; and an interactive ‘Ideas Aviary’ which challenges visitors to help turn Roald Dahl’s story idea seeds into ripe fruit.

Museum Director Amelia Foster said: “We are so pleased to have the Writing Hut and the brilliant new displays. Solo gallery is now bursting with activities and information aimed to engage adults as well as children. It will expand the potential for our visiting school groups and outreach work and I am confident it will provide a richer experience for all our visitors. We are very grateful to the many people who have helped this project come to fruition”

Felicity Dahl added: “I am delighted and relieved that Roald’s writing hut has found a safe and perfect home and I am thrilled that everybody will now be able to see the room in the hut where Roald weaved his magical books, so loved by children worldwide.”
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Dahl's shed: Day 3

The Dahl shed story has been reported (and frankly often misreported) all around the world now including by the Sydney Morning Herald, the New Yorker, and the Los Angeles Times so it's good to see that The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre has responded, politely, to the rumpus. Here are the key points:

1) The £500,000 relocation figure will cover not just the detailed move of the interior to the museum but also the construction of a major new interactive exhibition gallery for visitor and school groups

2)No financial support for the project was ever expected to come from the public. Instead, the Museum is looking for help from organisations which "support museums, literacy and creative education, as well as companies involved in the publishing and other licensing of Roald Dahl’s work".

3) The plan is for the interior of the hut to be installed in the Museum and open to the public by March 2012.

Amelia Foster, Museum Director said: “The way things have been understood has diminished Sophie Dahl’s wonderful contribution and made people wrongly assume that the Dahl family were not contributing and that we were hoping for public donations. This is a great, great shame as neither is true.”
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Dahl's shed: Day 2

The dust has far from settled on what some people are already calling Shedgate, the proposal announced yesterday to restore and move Roald Dahl's writing shed to his museum in Great Missenden. However, an initial hostile media and Twitter reaction seems to be gradually changing its position.

We noticed several tweets today and yesterday suggesting that moving the shed to educate a wider audience, thus preserving it and conserving it for all was essentially a good idea. In terms of national press reaction, the Daily Mail ran a long piece looking at the importance of the shed and allowing Amelia Foster, the director of the Roald Dahl Museum, the chance to explain the issues. Here's a snippet:

"We have to send everything to a special museum freezer facility just to kill off any pests," she points out. "And then we have to rebuild an entire gallery to accommodate this room exactly as it is." While the brick exterior will remain in the garden, the interior will have to be extracted by experts to prevent the cracked, nicotine-stained polystyrene walls from falling apart.

Perhaps most importantly she emphasises that the museum is not "asking hard-pressed people to dip into their pockets and we are not seeking public money" but rather is talking to grant-giving foundations and trusts. She said the same to The Independent and told the Telegraph (where Andrew Brown was rather less enthusiastic) that the point of the announcement was not to ask the public for money but to tell the world that soon the shed will be open to the public.

It's maybe worth looking at a similar situation, the move in 1998 of Francis Bacon's studio in London to Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin: archaeologists helped to catalogue the 7,000 items and the project cost around £4m, partly funded by the National Millennium Committee, a state-funded body. There was controversy over the money and some artistic objections, but the exhibit has been extremely popular over the last decade and, like Dahl's shed, does provide a unique insite into his work.

Perhaps the most intelligent piece was written by The Guardian's Mark Lawson who examined the whole question of 'the worship of writers' rooms' and makes an interesting point:

"The huge sum needed to shift the wooden room apparently comes from planning "an interactive exhibit to set the hut in context for visitors". For me, this goes against the spirit of studying writers' studies. My preference is for the desk to be exactly as it was left, because the writer's presence (if there is any) lies in the final scribbled notes, the optimistically uncapped fountain pen."

Finally, some critics asked why the literary estate could not fund the project, though it is worth pointing out that the estate already funds the museum and the Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity for seriously ill children.

For those of you who missed it, here's the interview that first properly announced the shed move, on Radio 4's Today programme.

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Up close and personal inside Roald Dahl's shed

The inside of Roald Dahl's writing shed has been the subject of intense scrutiny over the last week but how many people have actually had a good look at the objects which surrounded the popular writer? The answer is very few indeed, so The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre were good enough to supply Shedworking with some detailed images of the contents. Pictured above are some of the objects on the table in his shed including his hip bone while below is his foil ball, made up of hundreds of his favourite chocolate bar wrappers.

Below is Dahl’s writing board that sat across his lap.

And here are two shots of the collection of objects on his table

All photos ©The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre
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Dahl's Shed: Day 4

The debate over the rescue plan for Roald Dahl's writing shed has encouraged a great deal of talk about shedworking in general in the media as well as getting people to share their stories of Dahl: among those who contacted Shedworking was a reader whose Aunt used to work for Dahl in Great Missenden.

My favourite piece this week was by publicist Mark Borkowski who wrote about the effects of visiting Dahl in his shed:

Young and impressionable as I was, I felt inspired to build my own similar work space, and for a long time I found it valuable. Cordoned off at the end of my garden with nobody in my face, I used my brand new outdoor nest for a number of years in coming up with some of the crazy stunts and campaign ideas I remain most proud of to this day, from clown auditions to elephant- accompanied alpine hikes.

Creativity needs space, whether it’s conjuring up PR gold or scribbling visions of gargantuan, insect ridden fruit reminiscent of a homeless former greengrocer’s terminal acid binge. As a result, these spaces take on a kind of sacred quality- they fascinate because they provide a visual and spatial signifier of the moment of genius.

The story doesn't have a happy ending - Mark left the garden office behind when he moved house and it was subsequently flattened by a falling tree.

One of the other positive things to have come out of the whole story is that various television crews have been inside the shed so that we can have a better look at it ourselves. Here's the team from ITV's London Tomight having a nose around.

Writers' rooms: Roald Dahl's shed

The Guardian's excellent Writers' Rooms series features one of the most famous shedworkers of recent times, Roald Dahl. Illustrator Quentin Blake describes his experiences of the writing hut at Gipsy House in Great Missenden which he points out he actually wasn't allowed into very often "because the whole point of it as far as Roald was concerned was that it was private, a sanctuary where he could work where no one interrupted him." He continues:

"He wrote in the shed as long as I knew him - we worked together for 15 years from 1975 to 1990 and I illustrated a dozen of his books. I would take my drawings down to Gipsy House for him to look at while sitting on the sofa in the dining room. I don't think he let anybody in the shed."

Well worth a browse.

I recently visited the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden with Mrs Shedworking and the three little Shedworkings. Not only is it a marvellous place for children, it has a recreation of Dahl's study, complete with slightly battered chair which you can sit in. The actual shed is at Gipsy House, a little further down the road. Gipsy House is only open a few times a year usually as part of the National Gardens Scheme charity. The next dates are 11 June and 17 July (2-5pm), and as well as the writing shed there is a small wild garden where you can see Danny The Champion of the World's caravan under a tree house.

Roald Dahl Day: Moving the writing hut

It's Roald Dahl Day today, arguably the most famous modern shedworker, so we thought we'd take a look at how his hut was transferred from his garden at Gypsy House to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden (if you can get along this afternoon, entrance is free).

The work was carried out by Outside Studios. Here's what they say about it:

We built a millimetre-perfect replica of the inner writing room and hinged a whole section of the structure; when the Museum is quiet, the hut can be closed for maximum, spine-tingling impact. The gallery couldn't hold the whole hut, but the 'magic' door and aquajet-cut lino patterns mark out the full area with quotes and stories... The hut’s contents were moved forensically, right down to the dirt on the floor and the tobacco-stained polystyrene wall insulation. Every photograph, paperclip and hip bone (yes, really) was carefully recorded, checked and conserved before the display was recreated in its new, museum-grade enclosure, covered with illustrated roses setting out Roald Dahl's writing process.

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Inside Roald Dahl's Writing Hut - the book

If you like Roald Dahl's writing hut, then this is the paperback book for you. Produced by the Roald Dahl Museum in Great Missenden (just round the corner from Shedworking HQ), it is a 95-page breezy look at the building and history of the hut and how Dahl very much put his personal imprint on it. And at only £4 it's a snip.

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Conservation work in Roald Dahl's writing hut

The interior of Roald Dahl's writing hut and its contents were painstakingly transferred to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden in 2011 - the reconstruction was very careful indeed, including preserving the rubbish in his wastepaper bin and even the dust. To keep it in good nick, ongoing work is vital. Pictured above is the museum's archivist Rachel White, carrying out a bug inspection during a regular environmental monitoring session.

Dahl’s iconic wing-back writing chair was a Parker Knoll and thousands of people sitting in it takes its toll, so it was recently refurbished by the Parker Knoll team and  Richardsons Re-Upholstery in Chesham

And here it is, back in its usual spot.

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Roald Dahl Day

It's Roald Dahl Day today as it is every September 13 to mark his birthday. There's a huge amount of material about Roald Dahl on Shedworking as he is arguably the most famous shedworker of all time but we particularly like this photo essay about the inside of his garden office and the video below which sees him discussing the life of a shedworker.

This is wonderful. From 1982, Roald Dahl on his writing shed, work habits and loves (and snooker & sausages). pic.twitter.com/OWfBfnmpDx

— IanSanders (@IanSanders) October 18, 2017

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Building a replica of Roald Dahl's writing shed

A fabulously-realised project by office design and build specialists K2 Space saw them build a replica of Roald Dahl's famous writing hut for the London office of the Roald Dahl Family Company which looks after the writer's literary and creative legacy. It comes complete with a thatched roof and vintage typewriter, and is used as a meeting space within the larger office area. Do enjoy the short video below which shows how it was all done:

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Visit Roald Dahl's writing shed

Dahl's home at Gipsy House, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, is open to the public every summer as part of the National Gardens Scheme. There's still an opportunity to visit it on July13 (2-5pm, £4, children free, homemade teas available). The garden is delightful (there's also a maze) but the main draw for shedworkers will be the chance to get up close to Dahl's writing hut and the gypsy caravan featured in 'Danny Champion of the World' and find your way through the maze. Below is a clip of The Birmingham Stage Company's production of Danny.

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Roald Dahl's Tales From The Yellow Door (video)

My favourite find from this year's annual Roald Dahl Day yesterday was a charming animation by animation director/writer and storyboard artist (Pixar, Aardman, Netflix) Matt Jones which I'd not come across before. Here's what he says about it:

I found footage of Dahl talking about his writing hut and creative process and thought his wonderful voice would make him the perfect narrator for an animated version. All creatives need their own writing hut; a creative space whether it’s a corner in a cafe or a private studio- it’s a place to think and dream without distraction.

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Fantastic Mr Fox's writing hut

Many of you will have seen Wes Anderson's recent stop-motion version of Roald Dahl's story Fantastic Mr Fox. Empire has a very nice look at the creation of the sets on their online site and pictured above is Mr Fox chatting to possum (?) Kylie. "We took photos of Roald's old writing hut and literally recreated it, even down to the notes on the wall," producer Allison Abbate told Empire.

Dahl told his biographer Donald Sturrock that the hut helped him think like a child. "I can cut myself off there," Dahl said, "and within minutes become six and seven and eight again."
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Dahl's Shed: the media U-turn

While the world's media was quick to jump to (the wrong) conclusions about how the renovation of Roald Dahl's shed was to be funded, it has been rather slower to apologise for getting it all horribly wrong. However, there have been a few examples of positive coverage for the plans. Here's Tony Parsons for example in the Daily Mirror:

"A £500,000 bill to preserve the shed where Roald Dahl wrote all those classic books? A bargain. About half the cost of just one of the countless Tomahawk missiles we have been throwing around in Libya. I don’t know what all the whining is about. Better to preserve one great man’s shed than blow up the sheds of many."

Meanwhile, in the Daily Telegraph, Philip Hensher wrote a long and interesting piece looking at the subject of writers' sheds and writing habitats. Here's a snippet:

"A visit to a great writer’s habitat will demonstrate, like nothing else, a creative mind turned inside out, the preoccupations and obsessions turned into tchotchkes littering up a desk. Half a million to preserve something of such fascination seems like small change."

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Roald Dahl's writing shed was inspired by Dylan Thomas's writing shed

One of the most famous modern shedworkers Roald Dahl was inspired to build his own garden office (pictured top) to escape the distractions of family life following a trip to see Dylan Thomas's writing hut in Wales.

In an interview with the BBC (which you can see here) Dahl's widow Felicity said:

"He realised he had to have a space of his own in the garden away from the children and the noise and the general domesticity and he remembered that Dylan had felt the same. And so he went down to Wales to look at Dylan's writing hut and, like everybody, fell in love with it. He built it exactly to the same proportions as Dylan's hut, the same roof, one skin of brick. Of course Dylan's hut was a garage originally, whereas Roald had nothing, it was an empty space that he built on."

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Michael Rosen explores Roald Dahl's writing shed (video)

An interactive webcast with Dahl illustrator Quentin Blake and children's writer Michael Rosen who has a poke around inside Roald Dahl's writing hut starting at 16.45 on the timer. ----------------------------------------------------------
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Interact with Roald Dahl's writing hut

If you've always fancied a poke around Roald Dahl's iconic writing hut, nip across to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre where they have an interactive version: you can zoom in and out, rotate and click on key items (bin, chair, writing board, etc) for more information.