© Llandaff Society
Llandaff -
Roald Dahl birthday celebrations on 12th September
To mark 100 years since the birth of the ‘World’s No. 1 Storyteller’ in Llandaff, Cardiff, four commemorative plaques will be unveiled in the ‘city within a city’, to complete the new ‘Roald Dahl Trail’. All four plaques will be unveiled by Minister Ms Ragnhild Imerslund, Deputy Head of Mission and Head of the Political and Economic Section of the Royal Norwegian Embassy.
The day of celebrations begins at 10.45am at Villa Marie, Fairwater Road, his birthplace and now the residence of Gerry and Ann Johns. The Llandaff Society in partnership with the Welsh Norwegian Society and the owners of ‘Villa Marie’ will host the morning event.
The second plaque, promoted by the Llandaff Society, will be unveiled at Elm Tree House, the former kindergarten on Palace Road, where the young Dahl rode every day on his new tricycle and remembered the joy of speeding around corners on two wheels and ‘whooping his way to school in the centre of the highway’. The house is now a private residence. Back around those corners to Howell’s School, where the third plaque will proudly be unveiled on the gatepost of Cumberland Lodge -
At 2pm there will be a visit to the site of the old Cathedral School overlooking The Green where the fourth plaque will be unveiled, as the result of the Old Boys of the School taking the initiative to honour a former pupil. Following in Dahl’s footsteps, the party will then make its way to the High Street sweetshop – location of the famous ‘Great Mouse Plot’ and home of the fictitious, and hideous, Mrs Pratchett. It is now The Great Wall Chinese takeaway and houses the blue plaque unveiled in September 2009.
A visit will be made to the Llandaff Institute where the winning entries of the Admiral Insurance sponsored Children’s Art competition, involving nine local primary schools, will be on display.
Minister Ms Imersland will then be driven to visit the Dahl family grave in St John’s churchyard, Danescourt. The day of celebration and remembrance will be brought to a close in the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay with afternoon tea, hosted by the Welsh Norwegian Society.