Terry Pratchett : 1948 - 2015

I was updating our company's twitter feed on Thursday afternoon, saw retweets of posts from Terry Pratchett's account and realised, after some frantic googling, that it was true, that PTerry, Sir Terry Pratchett, had died.

I kept googling, hoping against hope that I'd find the site, the news story, that said it was a lie, or a malicious hoax, or that Terry's family had checked, and discovered that he was actually clasping a little sign saying "I aten't' dead" but of course I couldn't find one, because it wasn't.

Later, when I got home from work, I was able to turn on the news, and there could be no more doubt, (or hope). The story was a leading headline on the national news , and as Terry lived here in the West Country, it was also the lead on the local news, with soundbites from the Doctors at RICE, in Bath, where Terry's embuggerance was researched and treated. 

And it feels like losing an old friend.

I first encountered Terry over 25 years ago, in an English Literature lesson. Of course, they were not teaching us his work. We were supposed to be studying Oliver Twist, but were in fact not studying it, so much as reading it aloud, V.E.R.Y.     V.E.R.Y.    S.L.O.W.L.Y. and with absolutely no expression. I was very bored (and lost all interest in Dickens for a decade or so). And a friend offered to lend me a paperback book, small enough to read discreetly inside my copy of Oliver Twist (It is easier to get away with this stuff when you have the reputation of being quiet and studious). 

I wasn't immediately taken by the book. The cover was a bit garish, and had wizards, and big muscly men with double-headed axes, which made me think it was likely to be a sub-Tolkien swords-and-sorcery story - not my favourite thing. But  still, anything seemed better than slow motion Dickens, so I started to read The Colour of Magic... And realised that it was not, after all, quite what I expected. And that I wanted more.

I think I borrowed the next two or three books over the following weeks, and then (because this was 1988 or '89, and there were only 5 or 6 paperbacks) I ran out, and the wait for each new book began.

I think Wyrd Sisters was the first Discworld book I bought rather than borrowing, when it first came out in paperback, and I spent the next 10 years buying each new novel as it came out in paperback (I could not afford the hardcovers). Good Omens  is how I found out about Neil Gaiman, so I have Terry to thank for that, as well.

I got to meet Terry in 1999. I was newly qualified, and living in Manchester, and not terribly happy. I had been in Manchester city centre, for a court hearing, and decided to go and spend a little whole browsing in Waterstones, and perhaps having a coffee in their cafe, to avoid having to drive home in heavy traffic, as there had been a road closure on my route home. 

I got to the cafe, and discovered that all of the seating had been rearranged in neat rows, and learned that this was because Terry Pratchett would be coming, for a signing of his new book, The Fifth Elephant. 

So of course, I had to stay. I bought a copy of The Fifth Elephant  (my first hardback Pratchett) and a copy of Eric as mine had filed to return from a loan to a friend. And over the next hour or so, I started to read, the room filled up, and the Terry arrived, and spoke briefly, and signed. And signed, and signed. I am pretty sure that his minder had brought a packet of frozen peas along for him to rest his wrist on, knowing how much signing would be necessary.

I told Terry why I was buying a new copy of Eric, so he wrote 'Give it Back' in the new copy. (Of course, I didn't lend out *that* copy, after that!)  And he he was kind, and friendly, when I babbled about how much I enjoyed his books, just as if he hadn't heard exactly the same thing from hundreds of other people.

I had been near the front of the queue, and as I left I realised that the queue was not simply the 150 or so people sitting in the cafe, nor those winding their way around the whole of the 3rd floor. The queue continued down the stairs, around the 2nd floor, down a second flight of stairs, around the 1st floor, down another flight of stairs, and around the ground floor. It did not stretch out of the door into the street, but only because they had closed the doors. . . 

It was the first time I had ever been to a signing, for anyone. It was around the same time, I think, that I discovered that that 'Neil Gaiman' bloke, who Terry had written Good Omens with had also written some other stuff, ensuring that I found The Sandman and was properly hooked by the time American Gods came out.

The second time I met Terry was nearly 10 years later, in 2008. Terry was to be featured on a BBC Radio 4 program, 'With Great Pleasure', which was broadcast on Christmas Day 2008. The program featured him talking about books and writers which were important to him, and was recorded at the Forum, in Bath. 

I wrote about it at the time - it was a fascinating evening in which Terry talked about pieces of writing which had interested or inspired him.

This was, of course, about a year  after Terry had gone public about his Embuggarance, and the script from the evening was auctioned off for Alzheimer's, and Terry himself explained, at the end of the evening, that while he would be happy to sign things for people, he would not be able to personalise them, as while he could sign his name, adding other details 'derailed' his hand/eye coordination, and slowed him down.

I continued to buy and read Terry's books (buying them in hardback on publication day, by this time: one of a very small number of authors I will do that for) and continued to be frequently moved to laughter, and to tears (and sometimes to tears of laughter) by his work.

It is almost impossible to pick a favourite Pratchett book - I have a very soft spot for Reaper Man, for all of the Sam Vimes books, perhaps particularly the later ones as Sam deals with marriage and fatherhood. Nation stands as perhaps one of the most thoughtful, and The Unadulterated Cat is, of course, unmatched as a truthful reflection of life with cats. 

I can think of only one or two other authors who have been such close and constant companions to me in my reading life. 

I didn't know Terry in person. I loved the stories he lived, as well as those he wrote. It is deeply satisfying to know that he chose to mine the ore for, and help to forge, his own sword when he was knighted, for instance. And I suspect that many of his thousands of fans will, like me, be smiling through our tears as we re-read he work, and remember.

R.I.P. Terry. 

Thank you for everything

R.I.P. Tybalt 1998-2013

This is a really hard post to write. I'm sitting in a house which feels a lot colder and emptier than it ever did before.

I met Tybalt in 1998. I'd just managed to move out of shared, rented accommodation into a place of my own, so pets became a possibility, and I pretty much immediately started to look around for a kitten.

Kitten!

There was a card in one of the local pet shops offering grey kittens, free to good homes, and I'd always rather fancied a grey cat, so I arranged to go round to see them. They were adorable, and then their owners  said 'oh, and there's a tabby kitten from another litter. He's a bit older" so I explained that no, I really wanted a grey one.

And so, inevitably, 20 minutes later I was driving home with a small, fuzzy, annoyed tabby kitten in a cardboard box on the seat beside me, and he has been with me ever since.

I named him Tybalt, after the character in 'Romeo and Juliet' and on the basis of the notes on my school copy of the play, which said that Tybalt was a common name for pet cats in Shakespeare's day.

He never lived up to his name. He wasn't a rat-catcher, he wasn't a fighter. Indeed, if I didn't love him so much I might be tempted to say he was a bit of a wuss. He did run away from a rabbit, once. Admittedly, it was a large, and aggressive rabbit, but still. He used to moths, and the odd wasp which got itself trapped against the glass in the windows, and he tried to catch the vultures on David Attenborough's 'Life of Birds' (I had a really small TV then)

He was very nervous, to start with, and would rush off if I had the temerity to cough, or move, or breathe too heavily while he was sitting on me, but as he got older he got more relaxed. After 10 years or so he would even, occasionally, sit on people other than me, if I wasn't available.

Unlike many cats, he was unfazed by travelling, and after a few minutes complaining, would settle down in the car and snooze his way through the drive, and would then be perfectly happy in whatever new house I took him to.

He came to my parents home for Christmas, when he was younger he came with me to my grandmother's house (where it took him around 5 minutes to find the airing cupboard) and after these visits, he would always remember the houses, and be able to find his way to the warm spots, and to whichever bed I was sleeping in, without any difficulty, even after over a year.

He could be playful - my friend Stacy sent him a quilt filled with catnip, which he loved (the video was from when it first arrived)

He could be beautiful, and elegant, and sometimes he could be goofy as anything.

about 18 months ago he developed thyroid problems, and lost a lot of weight before he was properly diagnosed and stabilised, and he's started to slow down.

He spent a bit more time lounging and snoozing, and a little less playing, but he still enjoyed life, and in particular the extra treats and meals he got to try to get his weight back up.

He continued to hold me responsible for the weather, and for anything else of which he disapproved,

Whenever I went away, leaving him to the tender mercies of visiting minions, he would loudly proclaim, on my return (and often while standing next to a well-filled bowl of cat biscuits) that he had been cruelly starved and neglected in my absence, and he would always forget and forgave, and be curled up on my lap purring loudly within minutes.

This morning, when I came downstairs to give him his breakfast, he was as pleased to see me as he normally is, but I found he had not eaten his supper, and he had no interest in his breakfast, or even in his sardine (the delivery method of choice for his medication) and he was wheezing and not breathing well.

He couldn't be bothered to hide when I got his carrier out, or to protest when I put him in it, or to hiss at the vet when we got there. I had to leave him there, so they could start treatment for likely acute anaemia, and do tests to see what was causing it. I got a call about 2 hours later, to confirm that the blood counts showed he was very anaemic, but that he was sleepy, not too stressed, and they were going to treat the symptoms while they waited for more test results to identify the cause, but then an hour or so later there was another call. He wasn't responding to the treatments, his condition had deteriorated a lot, very rapidly, and he was fitting. They didn't think he would make it long enough for me to get back to the vets so I could be with him while they put him to sleep, or fair to him to make him wait for me.

And now I am sitting here, in this suddenly empty house, with tears running down onto my keyboard, because I've just been able to write a whole post, without anyone walking over my keyboard, or butting at my hands until I remember that laps are for  cats, not laptops, and move it so he can sit there.

Tybalt. 1998-2013