Flushbunking! (makes no sense whatsoever)
By Steve Sharp
My two eldest children’s first school was Little Missenden Church of England Infant School, an idyllic establishment catering for just 45 pupils. The next-door churchyard was separated from the playground by a low iron railing fence and often an elderly looking gentlemen would chat to the children at breaktimes.
His main purpose for being there was to tend to the grave of his daughter Olivia who tragically died of measles aged just seven. He campaigned tirelessly for a vaccine and the disease is all but eradicated now.
He missed her terribly, and so chatting to the children and telling them little stories gave him some comfort. None of the children really knew who he was, but the teachers did. He was Roald Dahl.
Eventually he was properly introduced to the boys and girls when he came to the school to ask them if they would like to take part in the filming of James and the Giant Peach, which of course they jumped at.
Those children, and millions of others around the world grew up reading his fantastic and irreverent stories, designed so that parents would enjoy them too.
There is controversy now because the publishers have bowed to pressure to edit the texts and remove words now considered rude or mean.
What would the great man make of this interference with his work?
Well in 1982 at his home in Little Missenden a conversation with Francis Bacon was recorded in which he made his views characteristically clear.
“I’ve warned my publishers that if they later on so much as change a single comma in one of my books they will never see another word from me. Never! Ever!”
He went on, “When I’m gone, if that happens then I wish mighty Thor knocks very hard on their heads with his Mjolnir. Or I will send along the ‘enormous crocodile’ to gobble them up.”
Bacon agreed with the sentiment saying, “There must be no changes to an artist’s original work when he is dead for any reason whatsoever”.
Dahl replied, “I just hope to God that will never happen to any of my writings as I am lying comfortably in my Viking grave.”
Given the millions of books with lurid, blasphemous, violent, foul language, why pick on Dahl. Are we to rewrite them all including classic texts and indeed The Bible?
Dahl was very clear he did not want his work tampered with and would surely have preferred those who objected to it to simply not to be troubled by reading it.
Steve