So they ditched the suits and, for some reason, swapped them for baseball shirts, probably to try and break the US. Debut single Boogiest Band in Town on Polydor in 1975 got nowhere. Slik didn’t initially have the same success. Their most recent group to benefit from their skills was the Bay City Rollers, and very well they were doing too. Together the duo had scored three number 1s over the years with Sandie Shaw, Cliff Richard and the England 1970 World Cup squad. Slik suited up to live up to their name, and ditched glam rock to work with pop songwriters Bill Martin and Phil Coulter. They signed with Polydor and adopted pseudonyms – Ure was already Midge, Hyslop became Oil Slik, McGinlay was Jim Slik and McIsaac was now Lord Slik. Ure assumed singing duties while remaining as guitarist.

In April 1974 Kevin McGinlay left Salvation to pursue a solo career. They became the house band at Glasgow discothèque Clouds, where they would perform cover versions. In a bid to avoid the confusion of having two Jims in the band, their bassist suggested Ure say his backwards, and he became ‘Mij’, which in time became ‘Midge’, and stuck for the rest of his life. The line-up changed several times but stabilised in 1972 with Kevin on vocals, Jim on bass, Kenny Hyslop on drums, Billy McIsaac on keyboards and Jim Ure on guitar. The original line-up featured the McGinlay brothers, Kevin and Jim, Nod Kerr, Mario Tortolano, and Ian Kenny. Slik started out as Glasgow-based heavy-rock band Salvation in 1970. Before his solo career, before Band Aid, before Ultravox, Midge Ure was in a group called Slik, who briefly lorded it over the charts with a bizarre mix of Gothic horror and Bay City Rollers-style pop. But can the visit to the chocolate factory last forever? Or is it just a temporary reprieve before Charlie must hang his head low and return to his poor, ailing family? Likewise, in James and the Giant Peach, the abuse James Henry Trotter suffers at the hands of his malicious aunts is made all the more tragic by the happy, bright child we see in the first few pages of the novel - that is, before his parents are trampled by a rhino.Here is surely one of the strangest and most obscure number 1s of the 70s, perhaps of all time.

From the bottom rung of despair, he is rocketed into a rapturous dream that is otherworldly. When Charlie Bucket, of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, momentarily escapes his derelict home, it’s to a paradise where all of his desires coalesce. The author presents childhood as an age when terror and wonder are bedfellows. Fox, who uses little more than his own smarts to beat three dumb lugs at their own game, Dahl understood the power of mischief-making and how it can liberate us (not to mention enrich a story).ĭahl’s young heroes are capable, possessed by a zeal that forces them to shoulder their burdens more acutely. Dahl did this with humor, wit and passion. But the best children’s books contain more than a measure of sadness they confront the cruel realities of the world without weighing us down. Our understanding of the world would be imperfect without villains, without a bit of darkness. But this darkness in Dahl’s books serves a greater purpose.Īs children, we need to believe in not just big friendly giants, but ones who eat kids too. Fox are the personifications of obesity, greed and evil. , or the “Big Friendly Giant,” features child-eating monsters with names like Fleshlumpeater and Bloodbottler, and the three villains of Fantastic Mr. Indeed, almost all of his novels are suffused with a kind of morbid curiosity. The author, having served time as a pilot in World War II, was no stranger to human cruelty. His heroes are precocious, often lonely children whose guardians are at best neglectful and at worst horrifyingly abusive. Years later, I find myself wondering: Why was Dahl so dark?ĭahl’s books are as gilded with whimsy as they are filled with sorrow. These are the images that keep in a young mind: screaming matches, schoolyard humiliations, terrifying disciplinarians. But even more powerful than Dahl’s dazzling ability to construct musical sentences was the darkness on each page.

I had never read anything like it before. Even at a young age, I noticed the way the prose danced. I’ll never forget the first time I read one of Roald Dahl’s books: I was in the first grade and my friend let me borrow his battered paperback copy of Matilda. The renowned children’s author undoubtedly has a way with words, but he’s also a master of confronting the difficulties of life.

Slik forever