DW: Polka is unique. There are only two children’s theatres in London and we are very grateful to you for becoming a patron. Now – you’re a writer, aren’t you?

SD: Yes, that’s what I wanted to do when I was little and there’s been an interim gap while I’ve done other things, but now it’s carrying me into adulthood.

DW: The new book is very grown-up. I think it’s very good indeed; it must be partly autobiographical. Did you plan to make it so?

SD: No, it wasn’t conscious. I think it just happens with lots of first novels. I thought I’d been clever not to make it anything related to me but then people saw connections with my life. Fiction tends to be about coming of age and childhood.

DW: Let’s talk about your childhood at Gypsy House – you went to lots of schools, didn’t you?

SD: I went to about 14 or 15! It was a lot – some of them boarding schools. Gypsy House was like a sanctuary. My mum liked to move house a lot so Gypsy House was the place I always went back to in the school holidays. My parents were divorced – my mum lived in New York and my dad in LA.

DW: And at Gypsy House, Roald Dahl had the hut he wrote in. Can you tell us about that?

SD: The hut is at the end of the garden, down an avenue of trees. It’s a tiny hut – you think it’s going to be big, but it’s tiny and dirty and smelly. No one was allowed to clean it so there were cobwebs everywhere and it smelt like a cellar. My grandfather (who I called Mould or Mouldy because when I was little I couldn’t say Roald) treated it like his office. We weren’t allowed to knock on the door unless the house was burning down!
There’s a table with all my grandfather’s things, including a heavy silver ball which is like a paperweight, but actually it’s made from all the wrappers from all the chocolate bars he’d ever eaten! His hip bone was taken out when he had a replacement and that was in there, along with a jar filled with murky liquid…I think it was some spinal fluid he had removed once! All sorts of strange and funny things…

DW: What about mealtimes at Gypsy House?

SD: Yes, they were important, and my grandfather’s love of chocolate came into play at every meal! There was a red box that would come out at the end of a meal full of every chocolate you can imagine… Cadbury’s Flake, Mars Bars, Maltesers, Kit-Kats, Toblerone… Everyone got a piece, including the dogs! My grandfather’s chair was at the end of the table and the Jack Russell would sit on the arm and have a napkin tied round his neck for the chocolate-eating!

DW: Did your grandfather play games with you? Tease you? What do you remember?

SD: He played games with everyone. There was always a story behind everything – he pretended that recipes had come from The Maharaja of Dara Salaam or something like that. He told me the story of The BFG when I was little and he was testing it out.

I was staying with my friend Emily, and he sat at the end of our bed and told us the story of a giant who blew dreams into children’s heads at nights. We were just falling asleep when we heard a knocking at the window and we looked at each other – Emily jumped on to my bed and there was an enormous man with a trumpet at the window! We were terrified and went to find our mothers but they were at the foot of the ladder holding my grandfather who was up the top!


DW: Undoubtedly, he enjoyed having you around. He didn’t frighten you?

SD: He was never frightening… he could seem slightly daunting as he had definite ideas about how things ought to be. He hated boring people – adults or children. I remember a friend coming for tea and he asked her what she wanted to eat and she said, ‘I don’t mind.’ He got very cross and said, ‘You MUST mind!’ That was how he was – people knew it and expected it from him. He had very definite likes and dislikes and he was quite prone to picking at things and causing controversy.

DW: What do you remember about when your grandfather died?

SD: We were living in New York and I came over – my Mum was already here. He was the first person I’d been close to who’d died and I was very surprised that people carried on with washing and meals with him missing. It was incredibly sad. And so many children were at the funeral… children who loved his books and who’d come with their parents to say goodbye, which was extraordinary. It was then I realised that he didn’t just belong to me… he belonged to everyone else too.

DW: What is your favourite of Roald’s books?

SD: I love The Witches and Danny The Champion of the World. It’s hard to narrow it down – I also love The BFG, Fantastic Mr Fox and James and the Giant Peach…