As the literary world gets ready to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s birth, travellers to Wales can enjoy a brief sojourn at his favourite holiday home. Kevin Borg experiences the full treatment at The Cabin in Tenby.

A 100 years after his birth and with the release of Stephen Spielberg’s The Big Friendly Giant, you can now relive Roald Dahl’s Easter holidays.

His quayside family holiday home in Tenby in west Wales is available for rent. The famous Welsh story-teller spent every Easter there from 1920 to 1936.

The house itself.The house itself.

The Cabin, as it is affectionately referred to, was part of the walled seaside town’s old assembly rooms, water baths and recreation rooms.

The place is now the property of Dahl’s niece. Testament to his affection to the place is an in-scription on the wall of one of the bathrooms, a quote from his posthumously published book, My Year. The quote simply states: “We adored Tenby”.

For Dahl, no Easter was complete without a vacation break in Tenby and he holidayed there unfailingly when he was four up to the age of 16. His summer holidays, on the other hand, were spent in Norway – both his parents were Norwegian, his father being a wealthy timber merchant.

Sadly, the first-floor holiday apartment, although boasting luscious views of the Atlantic, has no lickable wallpaper or edible marshmallow pillows. But complementary rock pooling nets and winkling paraphernalia – a bucket and spade – are provided.

Cardiff-born Dahl was a compulsive and self-confessed winkle hunter. As the aforementioned inscription proclaims: “We hunted for winkles on the rocks and carried them home, boiled them and got them out of their shells with bent pins and then we put them on bread and butter and had them for tea”.

He holidayed there unfailingly between the ages of four to 16

The cabin’s kitchen looks out over the harbour to the sailing school and the tiny St Julian’s fishermen’s church on Penniless Cove Hill.

Through the next window you look over North beach and Carmarthen Bay. On the ground floor below is Caldey Island storehouse. The ferry to the monastic island (and its chocolate factory) leaves from outside the Dahl house – along with the seal and mackerel safaris.

Roald Dahl’s gypsy wagon in the garden of his house, Gipsy Cottage, in Great Missenden, where he wrote the book Danny, the Champion of the World in 1975. Photo: George MahoneyRoald Dahl’s gypsy wagon in the garden of his house, Gipsy Cottage, in Great Missenden, where he wrote the book Danny, the Champion of the World in 1975. Photo: George Mahoney

Two lifeboats stations are visible from outside the bedroom windows; one has been renovated as a private residence and featured on UK TV show Grand Designs.

Roald Dahl’s visits are not Tenby’s only claims to literary fame. Writer Beatrix Potter – incidentally, this summer also marks the 150th anniversary from her birth – visited Tenby a few times. She based the illustrations for Peter Rabbit on the garden of the house she stayed in.

Wales, which Dahl left in 1927 when his family moved to Bexley in Kent, will be celebrating Dahl 100 in many ways. Close to Tenby, in St Clear’s, you can have a Dahl-themed afternoon tea. The Lolfa Cynin working dairy and sheep farm offers Dahl’s infamous snozzberries, served with whipped cream, whipped with real whips.

“We’ve been amazed by the response. The adults get into it as much as the kids,” says Gwawr Davies, whose father, Dyfrig, also gives lambing workshops on the 440-acre family farm.

Mrs Pratchett’s teashop in Cardiff has a blue plaque commemorating the mischief a young Roald Dahl played on her by putting a mouse in the gobstoppers jar.Mrs Pratchett’s teashop in Cardiff has a blue plaque commemorating the mischief a young Roald Dahl played on her by putting a mouse in the gobstoppers jar.

“The Dahl centenary has put us on the map.”

Dahl attended Repton School, located near the Cadbury chocolate factory. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, published in 1964, was his third book. His first was Gremlins, published in 1943.

Apart from his life as writer, he also worked in Kenya and Tanzania and was an ace fighter pilot in the war, being one of last Allied pilots to withdraw from Greece. The much-loved children’s author wrote from a hut in the garden of Gypsy House in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire.

The Dahl Museum and Story Centre opened in Great Missenden in 2005 and to date 200 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide. He died in 1990 and was buried with his snooker cue, HB pencils, a saw, a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates.

Tenby honours Dahl as one of its most eminent citizens.Tenby honours Dahl as one of its most eminent citizens.

Your stay at the author’s cabin might not come equipped with a saw and snooker cue but, upon arrival, you are indeed greeted with a bottle of Jacob’s Creek Shiraz and a copy of Boy – Tales of Childhood.

The holiday home sleeps six and comes equipped with all mod cons vital to any Dahl self-catering holiday. Copies of his classic Revolting Recipes abound.

It may not be possible to make bird pie, “noodles made out poodles” and “smelly jelly made from armadillo toes”. And your children may prefer pizza or fish and chips to “wasp stings on a piece of buttered toast”. But, as a non-stick skillet and plenty of pots and pans are provided, you can always whistle up a batch of “pishlets” (for kids who can’t whistle ) or rustle up some “scrambled dregs, cavity-filling caramels, three-course dinner chewing gum and other delumptious delights”.

Good for growing giants as well as grown-ups, before going down to the beach, singing the Oompa-Loompa Song along the way.

www.coastalcottages.uk

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