Given a golden ticket

Taranaki author Emma Pearl has writing in her blood via a relative famous for his classic kids' books.

-  LINDSAY WRIGHT

Toko, astride the Forgotten World Highway, is about 10 minutes' drive east of Stratford. It's dairying country. There's a pub, school, hall, rugby club, domain and tennis courts, a big-iron trucking company.

Also nestled into this rumpled volcanic landscape of central Taranaki is the home of author Emma Pearl, who writes books for children and adults. Toko is her adoptive land, a long way from Buckinghamshire, where she grew up in a whānau that included her very literary great-uncle, Roald Dahl.

What sweet-toothed youngster hasn't salivated over Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or chortled with The Twits? His irreverent and funny works have reached across the world for generations.

"My grandmother, Uncle Roald and my family all lived within a few miles of each other in Buckinghamshire," says Pearl. "It was like one big, extended family. Uncle Roald was my maternal grandmother's brother and the closest thing I had to a grandfather after my other grandfather died.

"I sort of filled the gap between Roald's own children and his grandchildren - at a time when he was doing most of his writing for children, so we spent quite a bit of time together."

This included Dahl teaching his young relative to swim. "I was five years old and not too keen on getting wet. He said if I could swim a width of his indoor pool, he would buy me the biggest box of chocolates you could get.

"I practised and practised ... and finally did it. Uncle Roald clapped, cheered and gave me a big hug. 'Come on,' he said. We got into his car and drove to the village shop where he bought the biggest box of chocolates they had and gave it to me."

An even bigger treat came a few years later when The Twits was published. "He had dedicated it to me. It was such a huge thrill for a seven-year-old bookworm like me to see my name - 'For Emma' - inside the flyleaf."