Campaign to save Dahl’s magic hut

THE simple hut in which Roald Dahl weaved his magical tales to captivate millions of readers is to be preserved for his fans worldwide.

His family is aiming to raise £500,000 (€576,000) to move the atmospheric interior of the building, piece by piece, to stop the decay which has left it in imminent danger of falling apart.

They have launched a fundraising campaign yesterday to enable them to move the hut — built more than half a century ago — to the Roald Dahl Museum for public display.

Dahl, who would have been 95 yesterday, would sit in the hut located in the garden of his home, Gipsy House in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, alone to write. Only he was allowed in and he visited the property every day for 30 years.

Even now the building in which Dahl sat surrounded by knick-knacks has been a private place and visited only by friends, family and visitors to his home.

But the property has fallen into disrepair and there are fears that the property which gave birth to classics such as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG and James and the Giant Peach could be lost.

Now his family is behind a plan to transfer the hut early next year to the nearby Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.

The idea came from the author’s grandson, Luke Kelly, who was inspired by the relocation of Francis Bacon’s studio to the Hugh Lane gallery in Dublin.

Dahl’s widow Felicity — known as Liccy — said: “It is a forensic exercise, not only to retain the eccentric objects but more importantly the magical atmosphere that fed Roald’s seemingly limitless imagination.”

He was inspired to build the white-painted shed, which was built in the late 1950s from bricks with polystyrene, after visiting Dylan Thomas’s writing shed at Laugharne.

It contains a wealth of items which Dahl loved to have around him while he wrote, including a huge ball made from foil sweet wrappers, a favourite wing-backed chair and artefacts such as his own hip bone.

But the appeal launch prompted some critics to suggest that the family should use their own wealth to fund the project.

Journalist Misha Glenny spoofed the project on Twitter with a message which said: “Stella McCartney to appeal to taxpayers for money to restring her father’s Hofner bass guitar.”

Another Twitter user wrote: “I love Roald Dahl, but ... half a million quid to relocate a shed? Really?”

But Amelia Foster, the director of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre responded to the criticism to say that Roald Dahl’s family had already made “a very significant financial contribution” to the preservation project.