Fantastic Mr Dahl

Born in Glamorgan in 1916, Roald Dahl worked for Shell and served in the Royal Air Force before embarking on a career as a children's author. This portrait from 1983 shows him in front of the garden shed where he wrote almost all of his most famous works
Photograph: Stephen Hyde / Rex Features/Stephen Hyde / Rex Features

The manuscript of Fantastic Mr Fox, first published in 1970 Photograph: David Sillitoe/Guardian

Dahl wrote on a large tray in a shed at the bottom of his garden, perched in a green, wing-backed armchair, an Anglepoise beside him, a pot of sharpened pencils close to hand Photograph: Leonard McCombe/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

Armed with a flask of coffee, Dahl would head for the hut at around 10.30am and write until lunchtime and a gin and tonic at midday. After a break for reading he would clock in again around 4pm for a couple more hours, though never for too long, as he maintained that a writer couldn't work 'particularly long hours because he can't - he becomes inefficient' Photograph: Harpercollins

The shed stands at the bottom of the garden at his house in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire Photograph: Ian Cook/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

Dahl's writing shed remains there to this day, not far from The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, established in the writer's memory
Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

The interior has been left untouched since Dahl's death from leukaemia in 1990
Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

A close-up of Dahl's glasses on his writing tray Photograph: David Sillitoe/Guardian

Dahl's house is in Great Missenden, in the valley of the River Misbourne in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire
Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

Dahl reached a wider audience with his series Tales Of The Unexpected, 25-minute adaptations of sinister short stories with a twist introduced by the author from the comfort of another wing-backed armchair Photograph: ITV / Rex Features/ITV / Rex Features

Dahl married the American actor Patricia Neal in 1953. Their marriage lasted for 30 years Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Dahl married Felicity Crosland in 1983. Eighteen years after his death she told Elizabeth Day that life without him was 'hell' Photograph: Antonio Olmos/ Antonio Olmos

Quentin Blake, who illustrated many of Roald Dahl's books, is seen here at the Museum of Childhood, London Photograph: Rex Features/Rex Features

Originally launched on 13 September 2006 to celebrate what would have been the writer's 90th birthday, Roald Dahl day has this year expanded to a full month of festivities Photograph: ITV / Rex Features/ITV / Rex Features