National Roald Dahl Day honoured at St George’s Court
The residents at St George’s Court enjoyed a lovely chance to reminisce about the author Roald Dahl and his most famous creations on his national day of celebration recently. Many of the residents are avid readers, so this activity was like a ‘golden ticket’ for them, as they took a trip down memory lane.
Lifestyle and Wellbeing Lead, Pearl started the activity by first reading out some facts about Roald Dahl. Many of the residents told her that they did not know much about Roald’s personal life and admitted to being very surprised to find out that he joined the Royal Air Force and became a World War II fighter pilot after training in Kenya.
The residents took part in some games such as guessing how many books Roald Dahl had written in his lifetime. Several guesses later, the final answer turned out to be 19. They then had a go at trying to remember the titles of some of his books, as well as discussing their particular favourites. “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory”, “James and The Giant Peach” and “The BFG” proving to be the most popular of his titles amongst the residents.
Afterwards, they took a short quiz about “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, which everyone did extremely well with. This was then followed by an in-depth discussion about the content of the book, as well as some of Roald Dahl’s other popular works. Illustrations and excerpts of some of his book were then passed around to the residents.
Many enjoyed the chance to talk about their memories of when the books first came out, as well as a few of the films that were inspired by them such as the Willy Wonka film starring Gene Wilder. Some of Roald poems were also read out such as “The Dentist and the Crocodile”, “The Pig” and “The Tummy Beas”. All of which went down extremely well with the residents.
Annis, a resident at St George’s Court, said that it was a delight to be reminded of just how creative of a writer Dahl was. She also said that if she wrote her own children’s book it, “would be nice to have a book that only had pleasant things happening in it.” In the discussion that followed, the residents told Lifestyle and Wellbeing Lead Pearl that they would like to “write a happy book together.” This has spurred on an idea for an exciting new project that will be put on next month’s activity schedule at St George’s Court. So watch this space for more exciting developments to come!