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You are going to read and listen to the beginning of a short story by Roald Dahl called The Landlady. What do you think the story might be about? Does the title make you want to read more?

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Read and listen to the beginning of the story. As you do so, pay attention to all the adverbs and adverbial phrases that you find in preparation for a class activity in the next session.

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You are going to listen to the second part of the story The Landlady. Before you listen, try to predict what the house is going to look like and the landlady´s personality. Do you think Bill will be happy there? Do you think he should have chosen the pub? What would you have done in his place?

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As you listen,  take notes on the following. Your answers will be discussed in the next session

. Description of the landlady

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. Billy´s feelings

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. The price of the lodgings

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. Other guests

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. Billy´s opinion of the landlady

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. The room

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. What Billy does before going to bed

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Now read and listen to the rest of the story. What happened to Bill?

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If you were Billy, would you stay at the landlady's home?
Why? Why not?

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THE LANDLADY

By Roald Dahl

Billy Weaver had travelled down from London on the slow afternoon train, with a change at Swindon on the way, and by the time he got to Bath it was about nine o’clock in the evening and the moon was coming up out of a clear starry sky over the houses opposite the station entrance. But the air was deadly cold, and the wind was like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks.    “Excuse me,” he said, “but is there a fairly cheap hotel not too far away from here?”.

“Try The Bell and Dragon,” the porter answered, pointing down the road. “They might take you in. It’s about a quarter of a mile along on the other side.”

Billy thanked him and picked up his suitcase and set out to walk the quarter mile to The Bell and Dragon. He had never been to Bath before. He didn’t know anyone who lived there. But Mr Greenslade at the Head Office in London had told him it was a splendid city.  “Find your own lodgings,” he had said, “and then go along and report to the Branch Manager as soon as you’ve got yourself settled.”

Billy was seventeen years old. He was wearing a new navy-blue overcoat, a new brown trilby   hat, and a new brown suit, and he was feeling fine. He walked briskly down the street. He was trying to do everything briskly these days. Briskness, he had decided, was the one common characteristic of all successful businessmen. The big shots up at Head Office were absolutely fantastically brisk all the time. They were amazing.

There were no shops on this wide street that he was walking along, only a line of tall houses on each side, all them identical. They had porches and pillars and four or five steps going up to their front doors, and it was obvious that once upon a time they had been very swanky residences. But now, even in the darkness, he could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows, and that the handsome white façades were cracked and blotchy from neglect.

Suddenly, in a downstairs window that was brilliantly illuminated by a streetlamp not six yards away, Billy caught sight of a printed notice propped up against the glass in one of the upper panes. It said BED AND BREAKFAST. There was a vase of yellow chrysanthemums, tall and beautiful, standing just underneath the notice.

He stopped walking. He moved a bit closer.  Green curtains (some sort of velvety material) were hanging down on either side of the window. The chrysanthemums looked wonderful beside them. He went right up and peered through the glass into the room, and the first thing he saw was a bright fire burning in the hearth. On the carpet in front of the fire, a pretty little dachshund was curled up asleep with its nose tucked into its belly.

The room itself, so far as he could see in the half-darkness, was filled with pleasant furniture. There was a baby-grand piano and a big sofa and several plump armchairs; and in one corner he spotted a large parrot in a cage. Animals were usually a good sign in a place like this, Billy told himself; and all in all, it looked to him as though it would be a pretty decent house to stay in. Certainly, it would be more comfortable than The Bell and Dragon.

On the other hand, a pub would be more 80 congenial than a boarding-house. There would be beer and darts in the evenings, and lots of people to talk to, and it would probably be a good bit cheaper, too. He had stayed a couple of nights in a pub once before and he had liked it. He had never stayed in any boarding-houses, and, to be perfectly honest, he was a tiny bit frightened of them. The name itself conjured up images of watery cabbage, rapacious landladies, and a powerful smell of kippers in the living-room.

After dithering about like this in the cold for two or three minutes, Billy decided that he would walk on and take a look at The Bell and Dragon before making up his mind. He turned to go. And now a queer thing happened to him. He was in the act of stepping back and turning away from the window when all at once his eye was caught and held in the most peculiar manner by the small notice that was there. BED AND BREAKFAST, it said. BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST. Each word was like a large black eye staring at him through the glass, holding him, compelling him, forcing him to stay where he was and not to walk away from that house, and the next thing he knew, he was actually moving across from the window to the front door of the house, climbing the steps that led up to it, and reaching for the bell.

He pressed the bell. Far away in a back room he heard it ringing, and then at once – it must have been at once because he hadn’t even had time to take his finger from the bell-button – the door swung open and a woman was standing there.

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https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/landlady

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Billy Weaver, a young man visiting the City of Bath for the first time, is looking for accommodation. He is inexplicably drawn to a house where the landlady seems to be expecting him. The house and the landlady seem friendly and welcoming, and he looks forward to staying there. Signing the guest book, two names disturb him. Where has he heard them before? Why aren't there any other guests? What actually happens is left very much up to the reader, but Roald Dahl, the master of this kind of story, gives us all the clues we need to concoct a grisly ending.

The themes drawn from this story include poisoning, embalming and taxidermy as well as a look at witches.

The kit, originally written in 2003, was updated in 2007 and 2013. The editing process has been the result of a continuing trend for shorter kits. The materials in this BritLit Kit are available to download in the Attachments box below. To download pdf files and audio, right click on the file and save to your computer.

You can also listen to the audio included in the attachments below.

How to use this BritLit kit

The material is divided into three sections: Pre-reading, After reading, and Word Work.

Landlady Pre-reading (pdf) examines who Billy and the landlady are and asks the students to speculate on what they might look like. This is an essential activity to do before the task of reading the story.

After Landlady text (pdf) has been read - or the Landlady Audio 1-4 (mp3) listened to - there are some activities in Landlady After reading (pdf) which look at some of the issues that can be explored from the story:

1. The year in which it was set (1959), embalming, taxidermy, witchcraft and a look at some famous poisoners!

2. Landlady Word Work (pdf) takes some aspects of language in use from the text - the use of reflexive pronouns and a 'glossary' of words and phrases used in the story.

3. You can find the answers to activities and exercises plus some suggestions in Landlady Intro+Key (pdf).

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About this BritLit kit Billy Weaver, a young man visiting the City of Bath for the first time, is looking for accommodation. He is inexplicably drawn to a house where the landlady seems to be expecting him. The house and the landlady seem friendly and welcoming, and he looks forward to staying there.

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If you were Billy, would you smell a rat?

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If you were Billy, would you smell a rat?