Lady MacRobert's Reply

Summary

The Secret World of Roald Dahl – Episode 5: "Lady MacRobert's Reply"

Podcast: The Secret World of Roald Dahl
Host: Aaron Tracy
Date: February 16, 2026
Producer: iHeartPodcasts

---

Overview:

This episode dives into some of the darkest and most extraordinary periods in Roald Dahl's life, focusing on his years as a parent confronting staggering family tragedies. From his son Theo’s harrowing accident and subsequent medical innovation, to the tragic loss of his daughter Olivia, and finally, his wife Patricia Neal’s near-fatal stroke, the episode examines how repeated brushes with mortality and grief reshaped Dahl’s life and ultimately catalyzed the transformation of his writing career. Through archival clips, dramatizations, and interviews, host Aaron Tracy explores how these traumas — and Dahl’s characteristically stubborn, hands-on responses — influenced not only the man, but the stories that became childhood classics.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Medical Crisis: Theo’s Accident and the Birth of the Wade-Dahl-Till Valve

[03:57–22:43]

• Intro to Dahl’s Neuroscience Feat:
  Tracy introduces the surprising sidebar in Dahl’s career: his accidental development as an amateur neuroscientist and medical device co-inventor.
• The Accident:
  Six weeks after the birth of Dahl’s son Theo in 1960, their nurse is out with Theo in a pram when a taxicab hits them.
  • Dahl recounts: “A cab shot past and took the pram right out of Susan's hands... The pram had flown 40ft through the air.” [06:56]
• Immediate Aftermath:
  Theo, only four months old, sustains life-threatening brain injuries. Dahl and his wife, actress Patricia Neal, are thrust into a desperate hospital odyssey.
• Hospital Failures:
  Sensationalism around Neal’s fame leads to distracted care and a near-fatal medication error. The family removes Theo from the hospital amid a New York blizzard, aided by Neal’s agent, Harvey Orkin.
  • Dahl on Harvey Orkin: “Yet there was Harvey, still the sort of friend who would drive through the snow for you in an emergency.” [10:59]
• Medical Innovation:
  As Theo struggles with a drainage tube for “water on the brain” (hydrocephalus) that continually clogs, Dahl refuses to accept defeat. He links up with neurosurgeon Kenneth Till and toymaker Stanley Wade to engineer a new, superior valve.
  • They swap out plastic for stainless steel, enhance the design, and ultimately create the Wade-Dahl-Till valve — a lifesaving breakthrough distributed globally and used in thousands of children.
  • Tracy’s admiration: “With absolutely no training, Dahl wills himself to come up with this breakthrough device in order to save Theo, his only son. Is that not the greatest thing you’ve ever heard?” [20:38]
• Wider Impact:
  The device’s non-profit model ensures worldwide distribution, especially in developing countries.
• Literary Influence:
  Dahl infuses this inventive spirit into his later stories. Stan Wade partly inspires the character of the toymaker in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and elements of all three inventors shape Willy Wonka.

2. The Shattering Loss of Olivia

[27:55–32:43]

• Context:
  Two years after Theo’s accident, the family faces another disaster: measles claims Olivia, aged 7, mirroring the tragic death of Dahl’s own sister when he was young.
• Dahl’s Recollection:
  Dahl recalls his final moment with Olivia:

  “I was sitting on her bed … I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together... In an hour she was unconscious, and in 12 hours she was dead.” [28:51]

• The Guilt and Grief:
  Vaccines were rare in England at the time, and though the Dahls succeed in vaccinating Theo, Olivia is left exposed and contracts a fatal case. Dahl obsesses over what might have been, and is consumed by guilt about the family’s move from New York, where vaccines were more accessible.
  • Dahl: “Normally, we would have been in New York in November, but after the accident, we said, let’s get out of this place … Of course, Olivia wouldn’t have died if we had stayed in New York...” [32:19]
• Coping (or Not Coping):
  Dahl’s wife turns to faith, but Dahl rejects religion as superstition. He struggles to function as a father and writer, his productivity ground to a halt by a year and a half of grief.
• Determined to Find Meaning:
  He attempts to contact scientists worldwide to investigate potential links between immunity and Olivia’s fatal reaction, but mass vaccination soon renders this research moot.

3. Lady MacRobert’s Reply — Wallace Against Despair

[34:32–35:11]

• Source of the Episode Title:
  Dahl draws inspiration from the story of Lady MacRobert, who, after losing her three sons in WWII, personally funded a bomber named “Lady MacRobert’s Reply” to fight on in their memory. He resolves to create his own reply to tragedy through action, rather than surrender to grief.
  • Dahl on Lady McRobert: “…It was something really dauntless. You simply cannot defeat such people.” [34:32]
• Legacy for Olivia:
  Dahl channels his grief into dedicating his masterpiece, The BFG, to his late daughter — a story he had invented for Olivia — transforming personal loss into lasting wonder for generations of children.

4. Patricia Neal’s Stroke and Recovery

[35:11–47:09]

• Another Catastrophe:
  In 1965, while filming in LA and pregnant with their fifth child, Patricia Neal suffers a massive, near-fatal stroke.
• Dahl’s Leadership in Crisis:
  Drawing on skills and connections gained from Theo’s ordeal, Dahl orchestrates a life-saving response. Despite grim prognosis, Neal survives.
  • Doctor’s blunt warning: “She’s going to live now, isn’t she? …Yes, she is. But I’m not sure I’ve done you a favor, you see. Because the odds are it’s a vegetable. Really? Oh yes, with that kind of brain damage...” [40:31]
• Unorthodox Rehabilitation:
  Dahl, rejecting doctors’ cautious approaches, imposes a strict, all-day speech and occupational therapy program for Neal at home, determined to restore her to full health.
  • Their friends are shocked by Dahl’s intensity; Neal herself despairs, contemplating suicide.
  • Dahl’s dark humor, when Neal jokes about suicide: “We’ve got knives in the kitchen that will do you up fine... Or else you can lock yourself in the car and turn on the engine and before you know it, Bob’s your uncle.” [44:31]
• Art from Adversity:
  As Neal’s aphasia produces mangled, creative phrases, Dahl takes notes. These unique word mishaps later inspire the speech patterns of the BFG — ‘squiggly words’ and all.
  • Neal describing her struggle: “I didn’t even know one word from the other when I first became conscious … I knew what nothing meant. You have no idea. When your brain is operated on me, you have no brain. It’s sad.” [46:41]
  • Dahl lists examples of Neal’s phrases: “She used to want to say, ‘You drive me crazy.’ She used to say, ‘You draped my diadles…’” [44:58]
• Neal’s Miraculous Recovery:
  Despite the bleak predictions, Neal makes a remarkable comeback, gives birth to a healthy daughter, Lucy, and resumes parts of her acting career.

5. Dahl’s Artistic Reinvention

[48:47–End]

• Writing Transformed by Trauma:
  Desperate to support his family through Neal's recovery, and profoundly affected by the cascade of family traumas, Dahl focuses anew on children’s fiction.
• A new direction:
  Dahl reworks his earlier adult stories for children, kickstarting the run of stories that would make him famous and beloved worldwide.
  • Host Aaron Tracy concludes: “It took Dahl going through everything you just heard… for him to finally find his voice… Dahl is about to become one of the richest, most famous, most successful men in the world. We’ll hear all of that in our next episode…”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Innovation Amidst Desperation:
  “I couldn’t believe that with everything science had come up with, they couldn’t produce one little clog proof tube. That little clog proof tube becomes his life’s mission.” — Aaron Tracy [16:25]

• On Friendship in Crisis:
  “Yet there was Harvey... still the sort of friend who would drive through the snow for you in an emergency.” — Roald Dahl (as recounted) [10:59]

• On Suffering & Resilience:
  “Theirs was a family that toppled unwittingly over the edge of a jagged cliff face into a canyon of darkness, which was filled with such sadness, such total devastation that we would never recover.” — Tessa Dahl (quoted) [22:56]

• On Coping with Guilt:
  “Of course, Olivia wouldn’t have died if we had stood in New York. They had the inoculations there. But here in England, they… They weren’t available then.” — Roald Dahl (as recounted) [32:19]

• On Channeling Grief Through Creation:
  “Dahl comes up with his own version of this. He dedicates his masterpiece, the BFG, to Olivia. The book was inspired by a story he would tell Olivia at night while she fell asleep. Now millions of other children benefit from it.” — Aaron Tracy [35:11]

• On Recovery and Humor in Adversity:
  “When she started to pick up words, she made them up. I made a whole list of them once… She used to want to say ‘You drive me crazy.’ She used to say ‘You draped my diadles.’” — Roald Dahl (BBC interview) [44:58]

• On His Wife’s Experience of Aphasia:
  “When your brain is operated on me, you have no brain. It’s sad.” — Patricia Neal (to Terry Gross) [46:41]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |---------------------------------------------------|--------------| | Start of content, medical invention intro | 03:07 | | Theo’s accident recounted by Dahl | 06:56 | | How Dahl, Till & Wade invent the new valve | 16:25 | | Valve’s global impact, literary connections | 20:38–22:54 | | Olivia contracts measles, dies suddenly | 27:55–29:27 | | Dahl grapples with survivor’s guilt | 32:09–32:43 | | Lady MacRobert’s Reply – Dahl’s philosophy | 34:32–35:11 | | Patricia Neal’s stroke and Dahl’s response | 38:51–41:00 | | Rehab regimen, catalysts for BFG language | 44:58–45:28 | | Patricia Neal on the pain of recovery | 46:41–47:09 | | Dahl pivots creatively, adult stories for kids | 48:47–End |

---

Additional Insights

• Recurring Motif: The Brain as Battleground
  From Dahl’s own war injuries to his son’s accident, daughter’s illness and wife’s stroke, the episode notes a haunting, almost “cursed” repetition of brain trauma.

• Legacy of Loss and Perseverance
  The episode makes clear that Dahl’s relentless refusal to be defeated by tragedy — his “Lady MacRobert’s Reply” — directly fueled the inventive, anarchic creativity and persistent undercurrents of darkness in his most beloved work.

---

Closing Thoughts

Rich in pathos and full of astonishing turns, this episode showcases the pivotal role of family crisis in transforming Roald Dahl’s life and his writing. Aaron Tracy skillfully draws connections between these ordeals and the fantastical, subversive stories that would define Dahl’s career, suggesting that perhaps the real secret world of Roald Dahl lay not in espionage or Hollywood, but in the crucible of survival and the alchemy of grief into stories that would enchant generations.

---

For listeners seeking to understand the man behind Matilda and Charlie, and the extraordinary resilience it takes to create lasting tales out of terrible loss, this episode is essential.

---

Transcript

[Public Investing Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures [e-mail] disclosures you're listening to

[Redfin Advertiser]

a podcast, so you're doing something else too. Like maybe scrolling home listings on Redfin saving places you like without thinking you'll get them. Because that's what house hunting has become. But Redfin isn't built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents, which means when you find a place you love, you've got a real shot at getting it. Redfin helps turn saved listings into real addresses. Get [e-mail] own the dream

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

at Lowe's get up to 35% off select major appliances plus members get free delivery, install and more when you spend $2,500 on select major appliances. Lowe's we help you Save valid through 225 while supplies last. Selection varies by location. Excludes Massachusetts, Maryland, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Florida. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Visit lowe's.com for details. Subject to change.

[Public Investing Announcer]

Visit your nearby Lowe's on Colorado street in Kennewick.

[Bethany Frankel]

Here's the truth no one in pet food wants to say out loud if it isn't just fresh from just food for dogs, it isn't fresh, period. Because a lot of fresh dog foods in those cute little packages. They're not 100% human grade, they're not backed by real science, and they're definitely not Something you could eat. Unless you enjoy mystery meat puree with a side of marketing spin. Just fresh is different. It's real beef, chicken sandwich, sweet potatoes, green beans. Actual food you recognize. It's cooked daily in real kitchens. Vets recommend it. Dogs lose their minds for it. And honestly, if your dog could talk, they'd ask you why you ever fed them anything else. New Year, new you. But what about your dog's fresh start? Make the switch. Make it just fresh from just food for dogs. Get 50% off your first [e-mail] that's just food for dogs. No code, no fine print, no fake fresh. Just real food. Finally,

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

before we start the episode one production note. In this episode, we have a lot of quotes from Roald Dahl from his interviews with Barry Farrell. Rather than just have me read them in my terrible British accent, we decided to bring them to life. So we used an actor's performance and some custom software to create a doll like voice. Okay, now on to the episode. We've heard a lot about Roald Dahl so far. His days as a fighter pilot, his work as a spy with the Irregulars, his screenwriting in Hollywood. What if I told you that on his way to becoming the most successful children's author ever, Dahl took a quick little detour to become a world class neuroscientist? At this point in the season, I feel like you might actually believe me, as you should. Here's Tom Solomon, a doctor who knew Dahl speaking on Liverpool tv.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

In his life, he did some amazing medical things. He actually invented a new neurosurgical device to treat water on the brain to treat hydrocephalus. And the treatments weren't very good. So he invented a new one and it was used around the world. Thousands of children benefited.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Okay, then, Roald Dahl, the neuroscience engineer. I promise it's an even crazier story than that doctor just alluded to. But in order to really understand why it was necessary for him to become an expert in the brain, I got to tell you about Dahl's kids. Of all the masks that Dahl tries on, this is going to be his most challenging. Doting father. For my heart podcast, imagine entertainment, and parallax. Hi, I'm aaron tracy, and this is the secret world of roald dahl, episode five. I didn't become a father until after my career had sort of found its footing, until I had some stability, which took a while because, you know, I'm a writer. But when Dahl becomes a dad, he's still trying to figure out his career Figure out what kind of writer he is. He hasn't found his voice yet. He's still attempting adult fiction in the vein of his heroes like Hemingway, Graham Greene, and C.S. forster. In other words, he's writing this muscular, macho prose focused on action. His stories at this time are also filled with the pretty explicit sexual adventures of his heroes. If you've never read these stories and only know Dahl from his kids books, you will be shocked. Start with My Uncle Oswald. It is raunchy, but here's what I'm getting at. It takes Dahl going on the insane journey with his family that you're about to hear for him to figure out who his natural audience is and what kind of writer he is. In 1960, Dahl and Neil welcomed their third child, Theo, their only son. With two daughters already at home, Olivia and Tessa, Dahl is thrilled to finally have a boy. According to writer Nadia Cohen, Dahl writes pretty graphically about his excitement over the baby's boy parts that I'm not going to subject you to here. I'll just say he compares it to an exotic flower glowing with promise and leave it at that. Dahl immediately feels a special kinship with Theo. The only boy in a family of sisters just like Dahl had been. Six weeks after Theo's birth, the family moves to New York for the winter. Dahl explains what happens next to Barry Farrell, a journalist who I'll come back to a bunch because he practically moves in with the family during this period, Farrell writes an entire book about what he witnesses. I think Farrell was originally just hoping to write a cozy Sunday profile, but ended up becoming embedded with the dolls like a war correspondent in a combat zone. So the family is living in New York. Dahl is struggling to write his short stories. While his wife, Pat Neal, is on a break from shooting breakfast at Tiffany's. Dahl tells Farrell what happens next.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

It was December 5, 1960. We had a nurse then Susan. And Susan had Theo in his pram on their way to pick up Olivia from her nursery school two blocks from home. And a cab shot past and took the plan right out of Susan's hands. Susan dashed across after it. The plan had flown 40ft through the air and into the side of a bus. Theo was just four months old.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Tessa, three years old, is left standing alone on the sidewalk as Susan rushes into the street. The police are there within minutes, and they rush them all to the hospital. Neil is only a few blocks away when the accident happens. She hears the sirens pass, but she has no idea they're for her infant son. When she walks into their apartment. The telephone is already ringing. As soon as she receives the news, she hangs up and calls Dahl at his office. She doesn't have the full story yet, doesn't sound overly alarmed. Theo has been hurt, she tells him. They say, not too seriously. We have to go to the hospital. Dahl throws on a coat and gets ready to leave. But before he can get out the door, Susan calls from the hospital, hysterical, saying, hurry, hurry. So then I knew it was bad. Dahl says, theo is an emergency. When we get there, Dahl continues, they X ray him and find lots of fractures. Very critical shape, they say. In her memoir, Neil goes even further, writing that the doctor pulled them aside after examining Theo. He told them, we are doing everything we can, but he is going to die. From that moment on, Neil essentially moves into the hospital, living off stale coffee, sleeping in a chair beside her son's bed, obsessed with the rhythms of his labored breathing. When he sleeps, which is a lot of the time, Neil climbs two flights of stairs on unsteady legs to another kind of vigil. In an upstairs room at this very same hospital is her old friend, the playwright Lillian Hellman, who's keeping watch over Dashiell Hammett, the famous detective novelist and her longtime romantic partner. He's dying of lung cancer. It's a really cruel symmetry. You might remember Hellman played matchmaker for Dahl and Neil by throwing that dinner party years ago. That was the bright beginning of something in a beautiful setting filled with brilliant writers and celebrities. Now the two women are together again in the opposite of that glamorous setting. No more fancy dresses, no makeup, just trapped in a sterile Manhattan tower, terrified and grieving. But back to Dahl. He tells Farrell about the dreadful special nurses that kept getting called into Theo's room. One of these nurses walks right in, and before even attending to Theo, she shows Dahl and Neal a newspaper clipping about the accident and says how thrilled she is to be assigned this case. This is something Dahl and Neil are going to have to get used to. Unfortunately, Neil is a world famous movie star. Her son being in an accident like this is huge international news, and some of the nurses seem much more interested in getting Neil's autograph than in paying attention to her son. They seem downright distracted. One afternoon, Dahl observes a nurse giving Theo a dose of an anticonvulsant. And she's giving him a ton of it, Dahl says. Isn't that rather a lot? He asks her. No, half an ounce like it's supposed to be, she replies calmly. Well, it was supposed to be a tenth of a gram, Dahl later explains, A hell of a lot less. Doctors rush in and start to pump the stomach of this poor 4 month old baby after the nurse's mistake. Despite the comfort of having Hellman and Hammett right upstairs, the Dahls decide to get the hell out of this hospital. So they wrap Theo in blankets, pick him up in their arms and just carry him out. All the doctors are standing around looking very worried and protesting, Doll says, but their minds are made up. To make matters worse, it's a crazy snow day in New York. But then Neil's longtime agent, Harvey Orkin, suddenly materializes with a car.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

Dahl it was snowing like hell and we were desperate. But then Harvey suddenly materialized with a car, and he drove very fast and very skillfully through the blizzard with cars skidding at odd angles all around us. I'd not forgotten my ride, because here was Harvey, an unhappyish chap, a wise cracky fellow, a person I wasn't so keen on and who doubtlessly wasn't so fond of me. Yet there was Harvey, still the sort of friend who would drive through the snow for you in an emergency.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

I love this detail. Loyalty is such an important theme in Dahl's work. Think of Matilda and Ms. Honey Sophie and the BFG Charlie and Grandpa Joe. You can just feel how much it means to Dahl that this guy, this agent, who's not even a close friend, has nevertheless shown up in a snowstorm to save them, Harvey drives them to Presbyterian Hospital. I know it well. It's where I had both of my kids. Here the doctors evaluate Theo and operate on him for a subdermal hematoma, which is a kind of swelling caused by bleeding into the brain. And they put it right, Dahl says. A huge, huge relief. Still, Theo will stay in the hospital inside an oxygen tent for the next two weeks. It's a terrible period. Theo goes temporarily blind from cerebrospinal fluid accumulating around his brain, which requires another operation. Remember, he's only four months old. Each operation is incredibly dangerous. Neil somehow stays relatively calm through it all. She has a kind of strength you could only step back from and admire. Dahl later gushes about his wife.

[Public Investing Announcer]

Support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures Now I'd

[Cindy Crawford / Meaningful Beauty Advertiser]

like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skin care brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skin care simple and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types and it's designed to work as a complete skin care system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the Amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has the power of melon leaf stem cell technology. Its melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the Amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee. All that [e-mail]

[Redfin Advertiser]

let's talk about modern home shopping. It's sort of become a fun side hobby, right? Scrolling listings at night, dreaming about kitchens you've never seen or backyards you haven't even stepped foot in. All from the comfort of pretty much anywhere. Redfin knows a lot of people like you want to own but are stuck in this browsing mode loop. That's where Redfin flips the script. With listings that update within minutes and tours you can book right from the Redfin app, you can see your dream home the moment it appears. Now liking a listing is easy, but actually landing it. That's where Redfin comes in. Redfin has over 2200 agents with local expertise and Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents. That means they want to help you win, not just window shop. Redfin is built to help you go from just looking to wait. This could actually be home. So become the newest neighbor on the block. Visit redfin.com to start finding and start owning. That's redfin.com this is Bethany Frankel from

[Bethany Frankel]

Just Be with Bethany Frankel. It is a new year and everyone is trying to get it together. If we are making a fresh start for ourselves, why wouldn't we make a fresh start for our dogs? Biggie and Smalls are my babies and I love Just Food for Dogs because it is real. It is fresh. It is 100% human grade food. Just Food for Dogs is the number one vet recommended fresh dog food. Go to justfood fordogs.com 50% off your first box. You are welcome.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Theo finally gets released from the hospital right before Christmas. He goes home, but he has a bunch of terrifying setbacks, according to Dennison, including a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid pressing on the brain that renders him silent, unseen, unmoving. Every time there's this buildup of fluid, they have to hurry him back to the hospital for the fluid to be drained. And of course, this puts Theo at risk of blindness, brain damage and death. Doctors try to prevent further fluid buildup with a drainage tube, but the tube keeps getting blocked, making another operation necessary. And with every operation, the stakes are raised and the chances lessen of restoring Theo's sight and brain function. Neil says whenever they take Theo back in for surgery, he looks up at us with those huge, desolate, bewildered eyes that ask, why are you doing this to me again? Theo has eight operations in 30 months, all before he's three years old, and it's almost all due to the inability of this tube to work. I think in a lot of partnerships, when one person becomes pessimistic or feels defeated about something, the other person just naturally becomes more optimistic and upbeat. I've definitely experienced this over the years in writing partnerships. While Neil may be showing a ton of strength around Theo, she's genuinely not sure if he's going to make it through all this. So Dahl takes the opposite outlook, according to Dennison. Again, Dahl sets aside any assumption that Theo will die. He just puts it out of his mind and sets out to find a way to save him. Dahl's sole focus becomes this tube that keeps failing, he writes. I couldn't believe that with everything science had come up with, they couldn't produce one little clog proof tube. That little clog proof tube becomes his life's mission. But what the hell does a writer know about medical tubes? Without any medical expertise to draw on, Dahl relies on his creativity instead. But where to begin? His first call is to Dr. Kenneth Till, a pediatric neurosurgeon who's been in charge of Theo at the hospital. Til can help with the science, but they need someone else too. Someone who can help with the design. In a very inspired, very creative, very Dahlian move, Dahl decides to call a toymaker he knows, Stanley Wade. Dahl had once bought model airplanes from Wade for his nephew, and he remembers how ingenious Wade was with tiny instruments. Together, the three of them, Dahl, Til and Wade spend hours in Dahl's living room brainstorming ideas. It's not that different from the writers room in LA where Walt Disney first taught Dahl how to collaborate years ago. They throw ideas on the board, rejecting ones that don't work and building on those that do. They take breaks to play pool. They snack, they laugh. They pour coffee down their throats by the gallon. In hindsight, what they come up with seems so obvious. But no one had done it before. For instance, until that moment, all of these tubes were made of plastic, which was expensive and hard to sterilize. Dahl and his two partners swapped out the plastic for stainless steel, which made the device more durable and also way easier to disinfect and prevent infections. They also changed the design slightly to give the tube a bigger surface area, which prevented fluid from flowing back into the brain and creating blockage again. Sounds obvious, but no one had ever come up with a design that reduced the risk of blockage before. I don't know if it's the special alchemy of these three specific men with their very different skill sets, or the urgency Dahl feels to get this done quickly to save his son. But together, Dahl, Till, and Wade come up with a better tube than has ever existed. Can I just stop for a second here to say, oh, my God. With absolutely no training, Dahl wills himself to come up with this breakthrough device in order to save Theo, his only son. Is that not the greatest thing you've ever heard? His poor infant son is dying. Nothing is working. And instead of just throwing his hands up, he literally invents the Solution. It takes two years for them to build it, which is roughly 40,000 years fewer than it would have taken me. The Wade Dahl Til valve, named for its three innovators, is so successful that it soon gets manufactured globally. Dahl insists they not make a profit on it in order to be able to distribute it cheaply. According to the National Library of Medicine at NIH, the device is estimated to have been used in 20003000 children worldwide in the two years after they came up with it. It's especially useful in developing nations where medical devices like this mean the difference between life and death. Not to take us off topic, but a quick aside just to say that I did a bunch of research around this and the only similar example I found of anything like this ever happening. A breakthrough medical device getting created by someone without medical training is exactly one year later, a guy named Paul Winchell, a TV actor who appeared in lots of sitcoms like the Brady Bunch and the Beverly Hillbillies and was the original voice of Tigger in Winnie the Pooh. He co creates the first artificial heart. I have nothing more to say about that except what the hell was happening in the 60s. For Dahl, creating the tube is another incredible feat. In a life full of them. I think each of these accomplishments was only possible because of the one that came before. They all built on each other. When Dahl was recruited into the Irregulars in his twenties, without any espionage training, he didn't know what he was doing. But in a matter of months, he was hanging out with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. When he decided to rate movies, he was completely clueless. But soon he was on top of Hollywood, working with Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock. When you go through life like that, with no apparent ceiling to what's possible, with life constantly reinforcing your crazy ambitions, you must start to feel like nothing is out of reach. So when no device exists to help cure your infant son, you don't go to church and pray. You call a doctor and a toymaker, you know, and say, let's get to work. Dahl, of course, later puts all of this into his writing. The lead character in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is partly based on the toy maker Wade. And Willy Wonka has parts of all three men. An innovating scientist, a creative genius, a toy making savant. But instead of torturing children like Wonka does, Dahl and his buddies build a device to save them.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

The invention, my dear friends, is 93%

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.

[Bethany Frankel]

That's 105%.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

That's of course, a line for from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. But Dahl isn't yet ready to write that. He's still a few years away from dreaming Wonka up. He's still writing for the wrong audience, namely adults, and it's not going well. Dahl's creative frustrations start bleeding into his home life, adding strain to a family already fractured by Theo's accident. But if he thinks the pressures are intense right now, they're nothing compared to what's lying right around the corner. Dahl and Neil's second oldest daughter, Tessa, sums up what's about to happen well when she says theirs was a family that quote, toppled unwittingly over the edge of a jagged cliff face into a canyon of darkness, which was filled with such sadness, such total devastation that we would never recover. Yeah, get ready.

[Public Investing Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

It's great.

[Public Investing Announcer]

Screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S P500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Investment Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosure is available at public.comdisclosures now

[Cindy Crawford / Meaningful Beauty Advertiser]

I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skin care simple and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones, tones and types and it's designed to work as a complete skin care system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has the power of Melon Leaf Stem Cell technology. It's melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the Amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee. All of that available@meaningful beauty.com

[Redfin Advertiser]

let's talk about modern home shopping. It's sort of become a fun side hobby, right? Scrolling listings at night, dreaming about kitchens you've never seen or or backyards you haven't even stepped foot in. All from the comfort of pretty much anywhere. Redfin knows a lot of people like you want to own but are stuck in this browsing mode loop. That's where Redfin flips the script. With listings that update within minutes and tours you can book right from the Redfin app, you can see your dream home the moment it appears. Now, liking a listing is easy, but actually landing it? That's where Redfin comes in. Redfin has over 2200 agents with local expertise, and Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents. That means they want to help you win. Not just window shop. Redfin is built to help you go from just looking to wait. This could actually be home. So become the newest neighbor on the block. Visit redfin.com to start finding and start owning. That's redfin.com here's the truth no one

[Bethany Frankel]

in pet food wants to say out loud. If it isn't just fresh from just food for dogs, it isn't fresh, period. Because a lot of fresh dog foods in those cute little packages, they're not 100% human grade, they're not backed by real science, and they're definitely not something you could eat unless you enjoy mystery meat puree with a side of marketing spin. Just fresh is different. It's real beef, chicken, sweet potatoes, green beans. Actual food you recognize is cooked daily in real kitchens. Vets recommend it. Dogs lose their minds for it. And honestly, if your dog could talk, they'd ask you why you ever fed them anything else. New year, new you. But what about your dog's fresh start? Make the switch. Make it just fresh from just food for dogs. Get 50% off your first [e-mail] that's just food for dogs. No code, no fine print, no fake fresh. Just real food. Finally,

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Olivia is Dahl and Neil's firstborn. It's now November 1962, a little less than two years after Theo's accident. The family has left New York and is living in England now. Olivia comes home with a note from the headmistress of her elementary school warning of a measles outbreak. She's 7 years old. Dahl and Neil's first thought, of course, is about Theo. After what he's been through, they can't risk him getting the virus under any circumstances. Vaccines against the disease are still pretty uncommon in this era, and doses are in limited supply. But pulling some strings, Neel is able to obtain the vaccine for Theo, which means Olivia, who's perfectly healthy, doesn't get any protection. And, of course, Olivia contracts measles. It doesn't seem like a terrible case at first, but here's Dahl on what happens next.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

One morning when Olivia was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed and showing her how to fashion little animals out of colored pipe cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together, and she couldn't do anything. Are you feeling all right? I asked her. I feel all sleepy, she said. In an hour she was unconscious, and in 12 hours she was dead.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

In such a cruel mirror to his own childhood, A Olivia is seven when she dies, the same age Dahl's older sister, Astri, was when she died. The defining moment of Dahl's childhood repeated again in his adulthood. In Dahl's memoir, Boy, he writes about Astri. She was far and away my father's favorite, he says. He adored her beyond measure, and her sudden death left him literally speechless for days afterwards. Dahl's first father was so overwhelmed with grief that when he himself went down with pneumonia a few weeks after Astri died, he didn't care whether or not he survived, dahl writes. A patient had to fight to survive. My father refused to fight. He was thinking, I am quite sure, of his beloved daughter, and he was wanting to join her in heaven. So he died, too. He was 57 years old. My mother had now lost a daughter and a husband, all in the space of a few weeks. Heaven knows what it must have felt like to be hit with a double catastrophe like this, dahl finishes, which is such a strange turn of phrase because of course, Dahl was hit with it, too. He was three years old. So the big question right now for Dahl can he be stronger than his father was? He genuinely doesn't know the answer. He becomes lost. He begins drinking more and taking more painkillers for his old back injury from the plane crash. It happened so swiftly that one didn't have time to prepare for it. Dahl Writes. I was in a kind of daze, I suppose, and morbid thoughts kept after me. That kind of thought can run you down, you know, worrying about fate and the meaning of things. I couldn't do any writing. And that went on for about a year and a half. According to Dennison, Dahl's only recourse is to try to figure out exactly what happened to Olivia. Maybe he can invent something that will help others in the same situation, like the medical tube he made for Theo. He remembers that Olivia, strangely, hadn't had a reaction to her smallpox vaccinations years before, meaning she seemed naturally immune to that disease. Huh. Maybe there was a connection between that and her measles reaction. He begins writing letters to specialists around the globe. He is desperate for answers. Dal tells me. Barry Farrell.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

I got the idea that there must be some way of finding out in advance if a child is susceptible to this. I wanted to set up a careful investigation, and I was prepared to get in touch with every parent of every child in this country who had had severe complications from measles. I thought of drawing up a questionnaire and correlating the answers, but by then, the inoculation against measles had become more common in England, so the problem had been very largely erased.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Still, Dahl seems hell bent on blaming himself for Olivia's death. After Theo's accident on the Upper east side, Dahl and Neil had decided to get the hell out of Manhattan.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

Normally, we would have been in New York in November, but after the accident, we said, let's get out of this place where children are hit by taxicabs, and we moved our permanent household to England. Of course, Olivia wouldn't have died if we had stood in New York. They had the inoculations there. But here in England, they. They weren't available then.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Neel's strategy to deal with all this grief is through religion, finding solace in her Southern Protestant upbringing. But Dahl is dismissive of nearly all religious beliefs, comparing them to superstition. I don't have those feelings at all, he writes, though he does confess to having moments of wondering how so much misfortune could befall one family. But Dahl doesn't see it as a curse, or, as he puts it, a doom coming down on us. He just thought, how odd. I don't think I'm capable of taking it beyond that. Superstition is something one grows out of. You try avoiding all the cracks in the pavement or you touch all the posts in the fence, but then you find out later that it doesn't help. You find out that it's not going to make a bit of difference if you step on the cracks or not. I think I just realized subconsciously that if you start thinking about bad luck, you're starting to weaken. The great thing is to keep going, whatever happens. Dahl finishes. So unlike his father, Dahl decides to live. He becomes the embodiment of that famous Samuel Beckett phrase, you must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on. Tessa, meanwhile, needs her parents help, too. This poor girl. She watched her brother's accident from the the of side sidewalk, and now her older sister is dead. She's understandably struggling. The dolls take her to see Anna Freud, a pioneering psychoanalyst and the youngest daughter of Sigmund. Anna suggests family therapy for the dolls, but Roald refuses. His writing still isn't going well, and he doesn't want to take any chances of losing his edge. He says he's seen too many writers who could never create anymore after they had all their nooks and crannies flattened like pancakes. No therapy for him. But Dahl does need to find something, something that will give his life meaning again. He tells Barry Farrell that there was something that had a huge influence on him during the war. It was called McRobert's reply.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

Lady McRobert was a fine Scottish woman with a manor house, and she had three sons, all in the raf, all pilots. And all of them killed one after the other. In 1941, Lady McRobert, upon hearing this news, gave a tremendous sum of money to pay for the cost of a Sterling bomber. And when that plane was built, she had painted on it Lady McRobert's reply. I can remember being moved by that. It was something really dauntless. You simply cannot defeat such people.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Dahl comes up with his own version of this. He dedicates his masterpiece, the bfg, to Olivia. The book was inspired by a story he would tell Olivia at night while she fell asleep. Now millions of other children benefit from it. It's not exactly a Sterling bomber to avenge his child's death, but it is his own defiant reply to loss, transforming grief into wonder, ensuring that while one little girl's laughter was silenced, countless others will echo thanks to the pages he writes in her memory. Okay, it's 1965 now. Dahl has lost a daughter. He has a son who's in and out of the hospital. His writing is not going well. He still hasn't found his voice or his audience. But at least he's got his wife right again. Hold on tight. Just a few Years after Olivia's death, Neil lands a huge acting job. It's the lead in a studio film being directed by one of Hollywood's all time legends, four time best director winner, John Ford. Back in the 60s, Orson Welles was interviewed and one of the questions he was asked was who his favorite American directors were. He said, well, I prefer the Old Masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford and John Ford. That was director Peter Bogdanovich from a documentary called Directed by John Ford. The movie Ford wants Patricia Neal to star in will be his final film. He's retiring, even though he's less than a decade removed from some of his best work like the Searchers and the man who Shot Liberty Valance. Neil is ecstatic to work with Ford and it's maybe the only gig she would have said yes to right now, because in addition to everything else going on with her family, she's just discovered she's three months pregnant. Neal brings Dahl and the kids out to LA for the shoot. She's hoping, praying it'll be a comforting change of scenery for the grieving family. Neil arranges for all of them to stay in director Martin Ritt's house. Years earlier, Ritt directed Neil to an Oscar in Hud. By this point, his career has been derailed by the Hollywood blacklist for being a suspected communist. One look at his crazy mansion in the Palisades, though, and you know this guy isn't totally opposed to capitalism. Rit and his family are abroad, so Neil, Dahl and the kids have it all to themselves. When they arrive in la, it's February. Neil begins filming. Four days into the shoot, she has the afternoon off. She comes home to give Tessa a bath. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Neil feels a searing headache. Come on, headache isn't even the right word. It's like a knife in her skull. She later writes. She collapses to the floor next to the bathtub. Doll happens to be in the bedroom, so he hears the thud and comes rushing in. He finds Neil unconscious. He quickly pulls poor Tessa out of the tub. She's crying her eyes out, looking at her mom unconscious on the floor. Doll's panic only lasts a moment. He's been here before. Almost on autopilot, Doll flies into action. He's ready for this. Theo and Olivia have prepared him. First he calls an ambulance, then quickly calls Dr. Charles Carton, a neurosurgeon who consulted on Theo. It's kind of an amazing twist of fate. Only because of Theo's accident does Dahl have the home phone number of one of the best Neurosurgeons in the world. Thanks to Dahl's quick thinking, they're at UCLA Medical Center. Within 20 minutes of Neil falling in the bathroom. Dr. Carton arrives at the same time do. He instantly takes charge, ordering tests and X rays. Lead aprons are placed over Neil's belly to protect the unborn child. Later, a TV movie will be made about all this.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

I'm afraid it's what I suspected.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Here's the moment from the film. It's an intracranial hemorrhage. A stroke.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

She had another hemorrhage just now, which her third. Happened while we were X raying in the same place. Yes, yes, and I. I know, unfortunately, you're familiar with the brain because of Theo's accident in New York.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Another emergency involving the brain. It's almost too hard to believe. First, in his 20s, Dahl had brain damage from his plane crash in the war. Later, his mentor, Charles Marsh died from brain inflammation from a mosquito bite. Then Theo got a brain injury from being hit by a taxi. Olivia died from brain inflammation from the measles. And now Neil has had a brain aneurysm. What on earth? Doctor Carton bluntly tells Dahl not to be optimistic. Without surgery, Neil will definitely die. But she's unlikely to survive the surgery. And if she does survive, she'll have severe complications for the rest of her life. Dahl has to decide what to do. He tells the doctor to do the surgery. So Carton and six other doctors operate on Neil. For the next seven hours, they cut a 4x6 trapdoor in her head to remove the blood clots in her brain. After the seven hours, the surgery is successful, which is sort of shocking even to the doctors. Neil will lift. But they're sure she'll never be herself again. Here's Dahl recounting it all to BBC one legend Michael Parkinson.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

I said to Charlie Carton, the surgeon, I said, well, she's going to live now, isn't she? He said, yes, she is. But I'm not sure I've done you a favor, you see. Which is the right thing to say, isn't it? Because the odds are it's a vegetable. Really? Oh, yes. With that kind of brain damage,

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

it really shakes me up when Dahl says it's a vegetable, as if he has to emotionally distance himself from her by making her an object. The family does its best to keep a low profile during this impossible time, but Neil is only two years removed from winning best Actress. She's one of the most famous movie stars in the world. At the height of her powers. And then on February 22, Variety runs a story with the banner headline, film actress Patricia Neal dies at 39. Only problem is, she's not dead. Reporters, fans, and photographers swarm the hospital for the 10 days after the surgery, Neil remains in a coma. Dahl has to just sit and wait to find out what his wife will be like when she wakes up. But over that week and a half, he makes a decision. He decides it doesn't matter what her abilities are when she wakes up, he's going to will her back to her old self, no matter what. For all of Dahl's character faults, he's an amazing caretaker in times of crisis. During her coma, Dahl remains at his wife's bedside all day, every day, leaving only to eat, see the kids, or catch a few hours of sleep. And when she wakes up, his work begins. He's determined to get his children, their mother, back. It's hard not to imagine that this is what Dahl wishes his mother had done for his father when he was three years old. If his mother had had Dahl's forceful nature, his stubbornness, his arrogance, might she have forced his dad to beat his pneumonia and depression and live so that Dahl could have grown up with a father? Neil remains in the hospital for over a month, a few days longer than Theo's stay. In the beginning, she can barely speak, and she doesn't seem to remember words or names or events. But Dahl won't permit that to last. It's his new version of creating Theo's tube. He's going to fix Neil himself. As Dennison writes, that Pat should recover and recover fully became Roald's obsessive concern. More than any doctor, nurse, or therapist, Roald dominated the steps of Pat's recovery. When Dahl finally takes his wife home, her right leg is in a brace, and she has a patch over one eye. He quickly hires a nurse, a physiotherapist, and a speech therapist. Doctors warn him that more than an hour per day of therapy is too much for Neil. But with no formal medical or therapeutic training, himself, just an unshakeable belief that he knows what's right. Dahl rejects their advice and creates a rigorous schedule for his wife all day, every day. Their friends who visit are shocked at Dahl's militaristic attitude. He seems to be torturing Neil. He becomes unrelenting, forcing her to do speech therapy five hours a day. The only thing that keeps Neil going is looking at Theo, seeing how well he's doing, which convinces her of the brain's ability to heal itself. But of Course, it's still an impossible struggle for Neil. She can barely speak or move. She has no agency. She cries all the time as her speech comes back and fits and starts. She blows up at Dahl constantly. And she asks Barry Farrell, the journalist who's covering all this and who's become one of her best friends, how to commit suicide. Farrell, who's just 30, is totally freaked out by this world famous actress asking him these questions. He doesn't know whether he should tell Dahl or not. It turned out not to matter because one night at dinner, Farrell explains Pat mentioned suicide in front of Roald and some guests, making her usual joke about not knowing how she had drunk a bit too much wine. And the laughter that spilled out of her as she spoke sounded wild and disturbed, mended. Well, if that's all that's stopping you, your problems are solved, Doll tells her in front of everyone. We've got knives in the kitchen that will do you up fine. And there are my razor blades upstairs. Or else you can lock yourself in the car and turn on the engine and before you know it, Bob's your uncle. Nothing to it. Making a joke of it is, of course, Dahl's way to cope. And then he finds another way, turning it into his fiction. Here's Dahl explaining to Michael Parkinson again.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

When she started to pick up words, she made them up. I made a whole list of them once. I don't know where they are. She used to want to say, you drive me crazy. She used to say, you draped my diadles, which is a spindle phrase. She used to call it a dry martini. A red screwdriver.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Dahl is taking notes on all of his wife's funny, strange turns of phrase and is going to put them into the mouth of the bfg. If you haven't read that book in a while, here's a typical speech by the giant from Steven Spielberg's adaptation.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

And then there would be a great rumpel dumpus, wouldn't there? And all the human beings would be rummaging and whiffling for the giant, what you saw and getting wildly excited. And then they'd be locking me up in a cage to be looked at with all the squiggling, you know, hippo dumplings and crocodile dillies and jiggy ravs. And then there would be a gigantious looksy giant hunt for all of the boys.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

I won't tell. That very unique speech pattern is part of what makes the BFG one of the most indelible characters ever put to print. And it comes right out of his wife's stroke. On the one hand, it's not Dahl's most attractive trait to poke fun at his ill wife's limitations. On the other, turning what must have been intense private pain into his art is what all great artists have always done. It just comes off a little more comical in Dahl's case, but he does make the BFG's wordplay sympathetic, at least, like when he has him say, please understand that I cannot be helping it if I sometimes is saying things a little squiggly words is, oh, such a twitch tickling problem to me. For Neil, of course, it was much more terrifying than funny. Here she is years later on FRESH air, speaking to Terry Gross.

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

I didn't even know one word from the other when I first became conscious. My son, he used to give me reading lessons. You know, he would say cat and dog. I mean, they'd be written because he had had to have those cards when he was young. I didn't even know what that meant. I knew what nothing meant. You have no idea. When your brain is operated on me, you have no brain. It's sad.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

As you can hear from that clip, Neil did make the amazing recovery that her husband insisted on. What may be most miraculous about the entire ordeal is that despite the intense trauma Neal goes through, she somehow doesn't lose the pregnancy. She was three months along when the stroke happened. In the first week of August, Neil gives birth to their fifth and final child, a happy, perfectly healthy baby girl, Lucy. And life continues. Neil's good buddy, the actress Ann Bancroft, steps into her role in the John Ford film and comes by the house all the time, often with her husband, Mel Brooks. Not for nothing, but knowing what we do now about Dahl's feelings about Jews, there is no amount of money I wouldn't pay to just watch him interact with Mel Brooks. Lots of Neil's friends come by to see her during this period. Frank Sinatra shows up with a stack of records. Judith Garland brings flowers. Cary Grant and John Ford come for coffee. Robert Altman drops by to cook dinner for the family. Dahl's nutty rehab program for his wife has worked. It's an incredible comeback story, and Neil is offered tons of jobs. According to Cohen, Mike Nichols offers her one of the most iconic roles in cinema history, the part of Mrs. Robinson opposite Dustin Hoffman in the Graduate. But Neel doesn't think she's ready for such a heavy lift, and the role goes again to her pal Ann Bancroft. Instead, Neil takes on some commercials for pain relievers, easy gigs which speak to

[Roald Dahl / Interviewee (Barry Farrell, Tom Solomon, or Roald Dahl himself)]

her recovery you can't let a simple headache interfere with the joy of life get in the way of your day. The joys of this world belong to the fighters. Let Aniston help you fight headache, pain and win.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

While the commercials pay well, the bills for Neil's medical care are astronomical. Her insurance with the Screen Actors Guild covers some. But with Dahl's insistence on round the clock rehab, expenses are adding up. And without Neal fully back at work, Dahl has to become the breadwinner. Dahl tries to figure out how he can start making some real money. He shifts gears. Dahl has always gotten a lot of pleasure out of making up stories for his kids. And with Olivia and Theo's accidents, his kids have been on his mind nonstop for several years. Now he decides to try an experiment. He takes one of his old stories for adults, William and Mary, about a troubled marriage, and more or less rewrites it for kids. It's a strange idea for a children's story, but it's about to become about a million times more successful in that form than it ever was for adults. He does the same thing with another one of his adult stories, 50,000 frog skins. And again it becomes a classic. It took Dahl going through everything you just heard with his wife and especially with his children for him to finally find and his voice. Dahl is about to get everything he's ever wanted, become one of the richest, most famous, most successful men in the world. We'll hear all of that in our next episode, and we'll also hear how he basically does everything he possibly can to screw it all up. The Secret World of Roald Dahl is produced produced by Imagine Audio and Parallax Studios for iHeart Podcasts created and written by me, Aaron Tracy Produced by Matt Schrader Post production by Windhill Studios with editing, scoring and sound design by Mark Henry Phillips Editing by Ryan Seaton Music by APM Executive producers Nathan Kloke, Kara Welker, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Aaron Tracy. Additional voice performances and recreation by Mark Henry Phillips and 11 Labs if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and review the Secret World of Roald Dahl on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Copyright 2026, Imagine Entertainment, iheartmedia and Parallel

[Bethany Frankel]

here's the truth no one in pet food wants to say out loud if it isn't just fresh from just food for dogs, it isn't fresh, period. Because a lot of fresh dog foods in those cute little packages, they're not 100% human grade, they're not backed by real science, and they're definitely not something you could eat unless you enjoy mystery meat puree with a side of marketing spin. Just fresh is different. It's real beef, chicken, sweet potatoes, green beans. Actual food you recognize. It's cooked daily in real kitchens. Vets recommend it. Dogs lose their minds for it. And honestly, if your dog could talk, they'd ask you why you ever fed them anything else. New Year, new you. But what about your dog's fresh start? Make the switch. Make it just fresh from just food for dogs. Get 50% off your first box at justfoodford. That's justfoodfordogs.com no code, no fine print, no fake fresh. Just real food. Finally,

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

running my small business was like playing basketball. Five on one and I was the one. Now QuickBooks gives me access to a team of AI agents and trusted experts for the assists I need nothing but nick outdoit with intuit QuickBooks feature availability varies by product Travel smarter, not Harder at America's Best Value Inn by Sonesta with convenient locations from coast to coast and and a value packed comfort at every turn. And when you're a Sonesta Travel Pass

[Redfin Advertiser]

member, staying at America's Best Value Inn means earning points toward free nights, upgrades and more. Go to sonesta.com to book your stay

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

and unlock the best rates with Sonesta

[Redfin Advertiser]

Travel Pass here today, Rome tomorrow. Join [e-mail] terms and conditions apply.

[Narrator / Aaron Tracy]

Rewards programs are a lot like pop culture. They can be hard to keep up with. But with Venmo's new rewards program, Venmo Stash, rewards are so easy because the more you do, the more you get and you choose the bundle of brands you get cash back at. It's giving Fiscal Queen, it's giving Star. It's giving up to 5% cash back at your favorite brands. Just pick a bundle of your go to spots to shop with your Venmo debit card and earn cash back at them. Do more, get more with Venmo stash the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Venmo Stash Bundle. Terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Terms.