Double Oh Dahl

Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and other children's stories, was apparently a spy.
This might be the most interesting "outed as a spy" since Errol Flynn.

Donald Sturrock has written the first biography of Dahl - "Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl" (not the book in the picture... that happens to my kid's favourite Dahl).

It surprises me greatly there has never been a biography before.

According to this biography, Dahl did the Bond thing and slept around with wealthy women in America while working for an organisation called the British Security Co-ordination, established to promote British interests and counter Nazi propaganda. Officially he did public relations at the British embassy in Washington, after injuries sustained as a fighter pilot ended his RAF career.

"I think he slept with everybody on the east and west coasts (female) that had more than $50,000 a year" goes one claim.

...okay...

The biography also goes into Dahl's experiences during his boarding school days in the British Midlands, which he wrote about in his book "Boy - Tales of Childhood". British boarding schools are firmly associated in my mind with pathological bullying. I remember this being a touchstone of actor David Niven's autobiography. Dahl's account corroborates this.

He was married to actress Patricia Neal. His oldest daughter Olivia died of measles encephalitis at the age 7. He kept a book which no-one knew about till after his death called simply "Olivia". It was found at the back of a drawer in his writing hut at the end of his garden. It contains his thoughts about her, which he never spoke of. He was, however, a passionate proponent of immunisation thereafter.

Roald Dahl died in 1990 age 74.

He was buried with his pool cues and his typewriter, according to one account I found.

According to another it was snooker cues, a bottle of burgundy, some chocolates, pencils and (I don't know why...) a power saw.

Apart from English he spoke Norwegian and Swahili.