The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

became a mad diary enthusiast. . . I was a bit of a loner in those days and a bit of a dreamer and some of the things I wrote down for the next five or six years were thoughts that I don’t think I would have dared even to speak out aloud to myself. That’s the beauty of writing. You find that you can actually write things down that are quite outlandish and outrageous and you feel all the better for it.”

    “I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.”

Roald Dahl’s September
    “I have always loved this month. As a schoolboy I loved it because it is the Month of the Conker. . . We all know, of course, that a great conker is one that has been sorted in a dry place for at least a year. This matures it and makes it rock hard and therefore very formidable. We also know about the short cuts that less dedicated players take to harden their conkers. Some soak them in vinegar for a week. Others bake them in the oven at a low temperature for six hours. But such methods are not for the true conker player. No world-champion conker has ever been produced by short cuts. . .

    “The best conker I ever had was a conker 109, and I can still remember that frosty morning in the school playground when my one-o-nine was finally shattered by Perkins’s conker 74 in an epic contest that lasted over half an hour. After it, I felt even more shattered than my conker!”
     
     
    When Roald was sixteen, he decided to go off on his own to holiday in France. He crossed the Channel from Dover to Calais with £24 in his pocket (a lot of money in 1933). Roald wanted to see the Mediterranean Sea, so he took the train first to Paris, then on to Marseilles where he got on a bus that went all the way along the coastal road towards Monte Carlo. He finished up at a place called St. Jean Cap Ferrat and stayed there for ten days,wandering around by himself and doing whatever he wanted. It was his first taste of absolute freedom—and what it was like to be a grown-up.

    He traveled back home the same way but by the time he reached Dover, he had absolutely no money left. Luckily a fellow passenger gave him ten shillings for his tram fare home. Roald never forgot this kindness and generosity.
    When Roald was seventeen he signed up to go to Newfoundland, Canada, with“The Public Schools’ Exploring Society.” Together with thirty other boys, he spent three weeks trudging over a desolate landscape with an enormous rucksack. It weighed so much that he needed someone to help him hoist it on to his back every morning. The boys lived on pemmican (strips of pressed meat, fat and berries) and lentils, and they experimented with eating boiled lichen and reindeer moss because they were so hungry. It was a genuine adventure and left Roald fit and ready for anything!

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Mr. Wonka’s Chocolate Factory Recipes
    Butterscotch
    You will need:
    Large saucepan
    Large jug
    Whisk
    Plastic wrap
    4 tsp butter
    4 tsp superfine sugar
    2 tsp honey
    2 tsp corn syrup
    2 1 ⁄ 2 cups fat-free milk
    1 ⁄ 3 cup natural yogurt
    Makes approx 3–4 mugs

    How to make:
       In a saucepan, over a low heat, melt together the butter, sugar, honey, and corn syrup, stirring all the time until the sugar has dissolved (about ten minutes). Add a little milk to the pan, then transfer to a jug.
       Whisk in a little more milk, approximately 3 tablespoons, followed by all of the yogurt.
       Whisk in the remaining milk.
       Cover with plastic wrap. Chill before serving.
    Please ask a grown-up to help you when you are handling anything hot.

Roald Dahl’s October
    “This, like September, is a lovely month, mild and misty and smelling of ripe apples. We have a small orchard at the back of our house. . . there was so much fruit every autumn that I told all the children in the