0:00:02 > 0:00:03Marking. Camera one.
0:00:04 > 0:00:08Can we go back to the beginning?
0:00:08 > 0:00:09I'm aware of that.
0:00:09 > 0:00:15I can see my father every time I see myself in the...
0:00:17 > 0:00:22- What, every time you look in the mirror...? - In the mirror, yeah, yeah.
0:00:22 > 0:00:25The anecdote I'm specifically thinking of is the...
0:00:25 > 0:00:28I know what the anecdote is. I'm trying to remember...
0:00:33 > 0:00:36He was in Karachi...
0:00:36 > 0:00:39- in the war. In the air force.- Ah.
0:00:42 > 0:00:44- Burma.- Ah, OK.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48And he turned and...
0:00:48 > 0:00:51He was a...
0:00:51 > 0:00:55Air like... Air lang...
0:00:55 > 0:01:01- Erm...- 'So sad. A man of words, a man who created so many words,'
0:01:01 > 0:01:04and I think we probably left this six months too late.
0:01:05 > 0:01:10Today at five, the author Sir Terry Pratchett has died, aged 66.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12Lasted for over 40 years,
0:01:12 > 0:01:17Terry Pratchett wrote 70 books which sold more than 75 million copies.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19He is one of the greatest satirists since Swift.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22He skewers his intended victims.
0:01:22 > 0:01:26Terry is actually talking about the human condition in a way
0:01:26 > 0:01:28that is going to break your heart.
0:01:29 > 0:01:34He was brilliant at those lightbulb moments to get across complex,
0:01:34 > 0:01:37highbrow concepts in a book about witches and tea.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45He should be here, he's not here, that's the biggest thing.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48He's here in spirit, but we want him here in body.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50We really do.
0:01:50 > 0:01:51We miss him.
0:02:01 > 0:02:06So, if it's all right with you, I am going to tell you my final tale.
0:02:06 > 0:02:14The story of my own life in my own words. Well, mostly.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27I chose a wicker casket to be laid to rest in,
0:02:27 > 0:02:30because I always thought coffins were a bit morbid really,
0:02:30 > 0:02:33not to mention claustrophobic.
0:02:33 > 0:02:35Plus the fact it looks a little bit like a Weetabix.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42They say your life flashes in front of your eyes before you die.
0:02:42 > 0:02:44This is true.
0:02:44 > 0:02:45It is called living.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51But nobody's really dead until all the ripples they have created on
0:02:51 > 0:02:53Earth have completely died away,
0:02:53 > 0:02:57so as long as my words and my stories are still sploshing
0:02:57 > 0:03:02around the planet, there's life in the old dog yet.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32Walking back into Terry's office,
0:03:32 > 0:03:36all the books were created for the first time after Terry had died.
0:03:38 > 0:03:40So I feel him all the time.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42Terry always said that you see cats out the corner of your eye.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44If you've lost a cat, you will always see it,
0:03:44 > 0:03:46it will always come back and it was
0:03:46 > 0:03:49just almost slightly, just slightly beyond your peripheral vision,
0:03:49 > 0:03:52but Terry's closer than that. He's here all the time.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58I was Terry's PA. It's still a multi-million pound business
0:03:58 > 0:04:01and it's all run from this desk.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04At least for the last couple of years of his life, we talked
0:04:04 > 0:04:07about Terry's memorial and we talked about what he would want from it.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11He would want the rock concert of memorials.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14That's what we've got to give him.
0:04:20 > 0:04:22My life on the whole has been that of a ping-pong ball
0:04:22 > 0:04:25in a hurricane - I just went where the winds blew me.
0:04:30 > 0:04:32Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,
0:04:32 > 0:04:34and thank you from myself,
0:04:34 > 0:04:37from Terry's family, for being here tonight.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41I asked Terry, "What is the one thing you want from your memorial service?"
0:04:41 > 0:04:44- And he said, "To be there." - LAUGHTER
0:04:44 > 0:04:46"Spread joy whenever possible.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50"Make puns and bugger the embuggerances. Read books,
0:04:50 > 0:04:53"read my books, you might like them."
0:04:53 > 0:04:56There is a fury to Terry Pratchett's writing.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00It's the fury that was the engine that powered Discworld
0:05:00 > 0:05:02and you'll discover it here.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05It's the anger at the headmaster who would decide that six-year-old
0:05:05 > 0:05:09Terry Pratchett would never be smart enough for the 11+.
0:05:09 > 0:05:14Anger at pompous critics and at those who think that serious is the
0:05:14 > 0:05:16opposite of funny. And I think,
0:05:16 > 0:05:20"What would Terry do with this anger?"
0:05:21 > 0:05:25Then I pick up my pen and I start to write.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27APPLAUSE
0:05:27 > 0:05:30Well, this is all very nice, I'm sure,
0:05:30 > 0:05:33but I was never the sentimental type,
0:05:33 > 0:05:35so that's quite enough of that nonsense.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39Let me tell you how it all began.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48HE LAUGHS
0:05:48 > 0:05:53I left school in 1965 at the age of 17 with barely
0:05:53 > 0:06:00a qualification to my name, but I had one burning ambition in my mind.
0:06:00 > 0:06:01I knew I wanted to be a writer.
0:06:03 > 0:06:06But with a father who was a mechanic and a mother who was
0:06:06 > 0:06:10a secretary, I realised that the odds of me actually making
0:06:10 > 0:06:13a living from writing were about as likely as a hen growing teeth,
0:06:13 > 0:06:17or the Earth being flat. HE GASPS
0:06:25 > 0:06:29Whilst I was still at school, I wrote a letter to the editor
0:06:29 > 0:06:33of my local newspaper, the Bucks Free Press, asking for a job.
0:06:33 > 0:06:37"I like the cut of your jib, young man," he said,
0:06:37 > 0:06:40which I believe is the last recorded use of that phrase
0:06:40 > 0:06:41in Britain.
0:06:44 > 0:06:50This was a real newspaper with 96 pages of classified ads.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54It was here I learnt all the rudiments, tricks, dirty jokes,
0:06:54 > 0:06:58suspicious folklore and cliche of local newspaper journalism.
0:06:59 > 0:07:00It was an education.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05When you're a journalist, you're taught very quickly that
0:07:05 > 0:07:08there's no such thing as writer's block,
0:07:08 > 0:07:10because there will be some unsympathetic bloke screaming
0:07:10 > 0:07:14in your earhole to get the bloody thing written.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27It was while working at the Bucks Free Press that I came up
0:07:27 > 0:07:29with the idea for my first-ever novel.
0:07:29 > 0:07:34Ooh! The Carpet People.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40I was sent to do an interview with a small press publisher.
0:07:40 > 0:07:45While I was there, I thought I'd be a little cheeky sod. "Here!
0:07:45 > 0:07:48"I've got a manuscript in my satchel, mate.
0:07:48 > 0:07:50"Would you like to have a peek?"
0:07:50 > 0:07:54And there was no way it could not be published.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56I mean, this had been written by a 17-year-old
0:07:56 > 0:07:59and it was brilliant and that is the result.
0:08:01 > 0:08:06Terry painted this picture and even hand-coloured pictures,
0:08:06 > 0:08:10which we pasted up.
0:08:10 > 0:08:14There's the hymetors, the honeybees of the carpet.
0:08:15 > 0:08:20Imagine beings who are so small, who look on the threads of carpet
0:08:20 > 0:08:26as being towering trees of 60-100 feet high.
0:08:26 > 0:08:29This one's inscribed, by the way, "To Colin Smythe,
0:08:29 > 0:08:33"and may this book make him lots of money."
0:08:34 > 0:08:37"There was beauty but none to see.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40"There was life but none to live it. Yet in the dust,
0:08:40 > 0:08:44"the mother carpet wovers, the first of us, the carpet people.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49"Then the web was woven complete. Though Fray, who hates life in
0:08:49 > 0:08:54"the carpet, may tread on us, those shadows grow over us,
0:08:54 > 0:08:58"we are the lords of the carpet and that is a mighty thing.
0:08:58 > 0:08:59"We are the fruit of the loom."
0:09:02 > 0:09:04I mean, if you can do that at 17
0:09:04 > 0:09:07and if there was any, you know, development,
0:09:07 > 0:09:10my God, what was he going to be like later?
0:09:10 > 0:09:14How great we, of course, had no idea.
0:09:19 > 0:09:23There is an ancient myth that the world is travelling through
0:09:23 > 0:09:25space on the back of a giant turtle.
0:09:27 > 0:09:29There is a version of that myth
0:09:29 > 0:09:34that claims there are four giant elephants set on the top of it.
0:09:34 > 0:09:38I remember reading about it in a book on astronomy.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41I filched it and ran away before the alarms went off.
0:09:46 > 0:09:50This world began as an antidote to fantasy.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55There are so many cliches in the fairy-tale view of fantasy -
0:09:55 > 0:09:59with the wizards and the witches and so forth - that it may be fun just
0:09:59 > 0:10:00to treat them as if they were real life.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10This world even has a condom factory in it and why not?
0:10:10 > 0:10:12You couldn't do that in Middle-earth.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14You couldn't even think about doing it in Narnia.
0:10:14 > 0:10:19Being a fantasy writer is a bit like that kid you envied at school.
0:10:19 > 0:10:20We all had a box of paints,
0:10:20 > 0:10:26but he had a posh box that included tubes of gold and silver.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33"In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that
0:10:33 > 0:10:37"was never meant to fly, the curling star mists waiver and part.
0:10:37 > 0:10:41"See, Great A'Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the
0:10:41 > 0:10:45"interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49"His huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters."
0:10:49 > 0:10:51Classic Terry. There it is. The Colour Of Magic
0:10:51 > 0:10:53and immediately he draws you in.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55I want to know more about that.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00As it was read, it had had more reactions,
0:11:00 > 0:11:04positive and negatives, than any other book they'd done for years.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07On some saying, "What trash!"
0:11:07 > 0:11:10And others saying, "This is brilliant, let's have some more."
0:11:11 > 0:11:15In those days, I wasn't earning much money from writing.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18I was just happy to get a free meal, to be honest.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21The only journalist who was interested in me was
0:11:21 > 0:11:25a snotty 24-year-old from an obscure sci-fi magazine,
0:11:25 > 0:11:31but he ended up becoming one of the biggest-selling fantasy authors.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33Behind me, of course.
0:11:33 > 0:11:37Terry and I met in a Chinese restaurant.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41I was the first interview that Terry Pratchett had ever done.
0:11:41 > 0:11:47The interview is in this, in this magazine, which I haven't seen
0:11:47 > 0:11:51for about 30 years and it ran one page.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54GLASS SHATTERS
0:11:55 > 0:12:00He is looking pretty rock and roll, he's got an argyle sweater,
0:12:00 > 0:12:04he's got an anorak and he has a little leather sort of beret cap.
0:12:05 > 0:12:09Part of the problem with Terry's fiction is a lot of
0:12:09 > 0:12:11people wind up starting there.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14So this is The Colour Of Magic. It's a romp
0:12:14 > 0:12:16and it's a terrible place to start.
0:12:16 > 0:12:21It's like trying to understand PG Wodehouse by beginning with
0:12:21 > 0:12:24his school stories, and it's a collection of jokes and in The Colour Of Magic,
0:12:24 > 0:12:26they aren't even very good jokes.
0:12:26 > 0:12:31The Terry Pratchett of fine and beautiful plots built like
0:12:31 > 0:12:34Swiss watches was a long way from turning up.
0:12:36 > 0:12:40But he's building something.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45If you're a writer, journalist or whatever,
0:12:45 > 0:12:48everybody you've ever known - loved ones, hated ones -
0:12:48 > 0:12:50they've all gone into the dark mill of your mind,
0:12:50 > 0:12:55so that when the time came for me to write my books, they were all there.
0:12:55 > 0:13:00Years ago, I watched a rather large lady struggling down
0:13:00 > 0:13:03cobblestones with a suitcase on wheels.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06The suitcase was bouncing all over the shop.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09It had a life of its own,
0:13:09 > 0:13:14so I bunged it in a book and the character of The Luggage was born.
0:13:14 > 0:13:16I have to tell you, at that time,
0:13:16 > 0:13:19characters were coming out of my brain left, right and centre
0:13:19 > 0:13:23and I was finding it extremely difficult to keep track of them all.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26Thankfully fate intervened.
0:13:26 > 0:13:31I met a mild-mannered civil servant who came up with a hi-tech solution.
0:13:31 > 0:13:33And this is it.
0:13:33 > 0:13:38The Discworld Companion. Still accessible after all these years.
0:13:39 > 0:13:43Genetics. Geoffrey. Gimmick. Ginger.
0:13:43 > 0:13:47Samuel or Vimes. Dislikes a lot of things -
0:13:47 > 0:13:50kings, the undead and assassins.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54A skinny unshaven collection of bad habits marinated in alcohol.
0:13:54 > 0:13:55HE CHUCKLES
0:13:55 > 0:14:00So what we've got here is the first complete card index of
0:14:00 > 0:14:02everything to do with all the books -
0:14:02 > 0:14:05every character, every place,
0:14:05 > 0:14:08every street name, every country, every river, every stream,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11every Ford is all in here on bits of paper.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15Terry found it highly amusing, because Terry was very
0:14:15 > 0:14:18electronically literate and I was still working in the 19th century.
0:14:18 > 0:14:21See how accessible these are?
0:14:21 > 0:14:24Unlike anything you'd have on computer.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26Granny Weatherwax.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28Famous throughout the mountains for special potions for
0:14:28 > 0:14:32illnesses that village women just hinted at with raised eyebrows
0:14:32 > 0:14:34and lowered voices.
0:14:34 > 0:14:39Granny Weatherwax is somebody who has total self-belief.
0:14:39 > 0:14:40She is intolerant of fools,
0:14:40 > 0:14:43she's not very tolerant of anyone really.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45Hard, driven, and very powerful
0:14:45 > 0:14:49and very, very, very good at understanding people.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53There's a lot of that in Terry, that kind of being driven and, yes,
0:14:53 > 0:14:58a certain anger about injustice and stupidity.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00There's always a kind of anger about him and Granny Weatherwax
0:15:00 > 0:15:02is somebody who's permanently angry.
0:15:04 > 0:15:08Unlike most fantasy worlds, Discworld is based strongly on reality.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12He wants to have a map of his city.
0:15:13 > 0:15:17And then this is the final version, the map of Ankh-Morpork.
0:15:17 > 0:15:21The last thing we did was to turn it around like this,
0:15:21 > 0:15:24so that it looks less like the opening credits of EastEnders.
0:15:24 > 0:15:26It's the Isle Of Gods, which has the Opera House,
0:15:26 > 0:15:30the theatre district, and then round here into Elm Street, which is where
0:15:30 > 0:15:34a lot of the undead tend to stay when they stay in the city.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36The thing that fascinated Terry was how cities work.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40When I first came across Discworld, when Terry and I first met, I was
0:15:40 > 0:15:43a civil servant working, effectively, for the Ministry of Agriculture.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46He knew I'd know what figures there were for the per capita
0:15:46 > 0:15:51consumption of beef. That sort of thing fascinated both him and me.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55He was firing on all cylinders, writing about three books a year.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58It was just crazy, because he would have two or three books on
0:15:58 > 0:16:00the go at once, in his head.
0:16:01 > 0:16:07This next gentleman has sold over 35 million books. Can he get a, "Boo!"?
0:16:07 > 0:16:10Terry's audience was growing with every book and people were
0:16:10 > 0:16:13talking about Terry.
0:16:13 > 0:16:15And they knew that something was happening,
0:16:15 > 0:16:16something exciting was happening.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19Terry Pratchett.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23Discworld series of books have an amazing following.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25Are you surprised at the way they've taken off?
0:16:25 > 0:16:28I've been in a state of shock for the last eight years, in fact, yeah.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31Do you get upset if people say, "Are you a bit like Tolkien, then?
0:16:31 > 0:16:34"Or that kind of writer?" Is that fair or not?
0:16:34 > 0:16:36- He's more dead than I am.- Yeah.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42Terry was writing two novels a year,
0:16:42 > 0:16:46editing two novels a year and touring two novels a year.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48That didn't leave a lot of time.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54Terry's writing became the most important thing at the
0:16:54 > 0:16:55expense of everything.
0:17:00 > 0:17:03Haven't been this way for a very long time.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10I do remember Dad
0:17:10 > 0:17:14picking me up from the little school I went to
0:17:14 > 0:17:18and it had snowed very heavily and my dad turned up to pick me
0:17:18 > 0:17:20up with a sledge.
0:17:20 > 0:17:22Dad embraced the narrative of the moment
0:17:22 > 0:17:25rather more than the practicality.
0:17:26 > 0:17:28Mum and Dad had a happy marriage,
0:17:28 > 0:17:32I think, living in a little cottage with goats and chickens and just
0:17:32 > 0:17:37trying to get by in a sort of Tom and Barbara in The Good Life experience.
0:17:37 > 0:17:43- Hello.- Hello.- Hi. Good to meet you. I'm Rhianna Pratchett.
0:17:43 > 0:17:45And this room hasn't changed very much.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50So this is where I'd sit in front of the fire and Dad
0:17:50 > 0:17:51would read me The Hobbit.
0:17:51 > 0:17:56That's one of my... That's one of my core Dad memories, I think.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00There was definitely a bit of big brotherness to Dad as much
0:18:00 > 0:18:05as the kind of, you know, he was part dad, part big brother, I think.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12The first book I remember was probably Equal Rites.
0:18:12 > 0:18:16Equal Rites has a character called Esk
0:18:16 > 0:18:18who he, he based on me.
0:18:21 > 0:18:25"Nothing much happened for seven years except one of the apple
0:18:25 > 0:18:29"trees in the smithy orchard grew perceptibly taller than the others
0:18:29 > 0:18:32"and was frequently climbed by a small girl with brown hair and
0:18:32 > 0:18:34"a gap in her front teeth.
0:18:34 > 0:18:38"The sort of features that promise to become, if not beautiful,
0:18:38 > 0:18:40"then at least attractively interesting."
0:18:40 > 0:18:41Thank you, Dad.
0:18:46 > 0:18:50Well, I think the success took him away from home more
0:18:50 > 0:18:52and I was always very...
0:18:52 > 0:18:53independent, I think,
0:18:53 > 0:18:58and I sort of kept myself away from the fame aspect of Dad.
0:19:00 > 0:19:05Fame can kind of twist things and sort of twist relationships
0:19:05 > 0:19:10and time and commitment and family life and work and things like that
0:19:10 > 0:19:14and so, you know, the dad that I grieve for most was the dad I knew here.
0:19:20 > 0:19:22We didn't have much back then,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25but I wasn't used to much.
0:19:26 > 0:19:30My own childhood was... Well, it was a humble one.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35I was brought up on this lane,
0:19:35 > 0:19:38in a little village called Forty Green in Bucks.
0:19:40 > 0:19:42I lived in a cottage which had a roof,
0:19:42 > 0:19:46one cold water tap and a mum and dad.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49In post-war Britain, that was a little bit like winning the lottery.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53I was an only, not a lonely child.
0:19:53 > 0:19:57In fact, I had no hang-ups whatsoever,
0:19:57 > 0:20:01so I had to invent them all myself.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04I was a pretty average young lad really.
0:20:04 > 0:20:08I liked climbing trees and playing outdoors,
0:20:08 > 0:20:13but then something happened that changed my small world for ever.
0:20:14 > 0:20:18A family friend gave me a copy of Wind In The Willows.
0:20:18 > 0:20:22Nobody had bothered telling me that books could be that much fun.
0:20:22 > 0:20:25There was this mole who had a friend who was a rat who had
0:20:25 > 0:20:28a friend who was a badger and they all had a friend who was
0:20:28 > 0:20:30a toad, but not just any toad.
0:20:30 > 0:20:34This toad could drive a car and represent himself in court.
0:20:35 > 0:20:40It was all so...utterly weird and entirely unexplained.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44So I got myself a Saturday job at the local library.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46It was a bit like giving a monkey the keys to
0:20:46 > 0:20:50a banana factory and they paid me handsomely in library tickets.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56I started with the fantasy and once I'd read all the fantasy,
0:20:56 > 0:21:00I moved on to mythology, because it was still blokes with helmets,
0:21:00 > 0:21:03bashing each other on the head with swords.
0:21:03 > 0:21:06When I'd read all the mythology, I moved on to ancient history,
0:21:06 > 0:21:09more blokes with helmets bashing each other over the head with
0:21:09 > 0:21:11swords and on it went.
0:21:11 > 0:21:15I read for pleasure every single copy of Punch magazine from
0:21:15 > 0:21:18the 1840s to the mid-1960s.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21I was reading Mayhew's London Labour and London Poor at the same
0:21:21 > 0:21:25time as I was reading Tove Jansson's Moomintroll books
0:21:25 > 0:21:29and contained within all this literature
0:21:29 > 0:21:31were all the friends I would ever need.
0:21:35 > 0:21:36Thinking about it now,
0:21:36 > 0:21:40I was probably at my happiest in that library.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43All I ever tried to do from that time on was to pass on all the
0:21:43 > 0:21:45fun I'd had with words.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49- Right. It's Terry. - Most words ending in fu
0:21:49 > 0:21:52refer to some kind of martial art.
0:21:52 > 0:21:56As in deja fu, which is the feeling that you have been kicked
0:21:56 > 0:22:00in the head before. LAUGHTER
0:22:00 > 0:22:03'I've had plenty of practice making up funny stuff.
0:22:03 > 0:22:06'I've been doing it since I was 14 years old.'
0:22:11 > 0:22:15The first short story that I ever wrote was called The Hades Business
0:22:15 > 0:22:20and my teacher gave me 20 out of 20 and put it in the school magazine.
0:22:20 > 0:22:22All the other kids loved it.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25It made them laugh and I've been popular ever since.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37These days, of course, people from all over the planet go to
0:22:37 > 0:22:42Discworld conventions just to talk about my books.
0:22:42 > 0:22:47I used to be guest of honour, but I'm currently indisposed,
0:22:47 > 0:22:49so I send Rob instead.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52Morning.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55Welcome to the Discworld Convention,
0:22:55 > 0:22:57a gathering of about 800 fans.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00It's the first UK convention where everybody knew that Terry
0:23:00 > 0:23:02wouldn't be here.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06I feel as if I'm shouldering the burden of having to carry him
0:23:06 > 0:23:09and his memory and then realised that when you're here with all of
0:23:09 > 0:23:11the fans and everyone's enjoying themselves,
0:23:11 > 0:23:14that isn't a burden, everybody wants to throw their love at you.
0:23:16 > 0:23:19This is all very strange, because I'm just me.
0:23:20 > 0:23:22Have you just seen what I've got to sign?
0:23:22 > 0:23:26Somewhere Terry is looking down and he either highly approves of this
0:23:26 > 0:23:29or he's shaking his head in dismay.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32- Done.- Thank you so much.- Thank you.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37I'd attended the first Discworld convention just as a fan,
0:23:37 > 0:23:38just as an attendee.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41Terry asked me what my favourite electronic component was and
0:23:41 > 0:23:44I think he was actually trying to catch me out and I said,
0:23:44 > 0:23:46"Well, Terry, it's the NE555 timer,"
0:23:46 > 0:23:49and he stood up and punched the air and he looked me up and down
0:23:49 > 0:23:51and said, "Good God, it's Captain Capacitor,"
0:23:51 > 0:23:53so Terry noticed in me a kindred spirit.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56There we were, geeks and nerds united.
0:23:56 > 0:24:01- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE - Welcome to the 2016 Masquerade.
0:24:01 > 0:24:03CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:24:05 > 0:24:09You may think that my fans are a little odd,
0:24:09 > 0:24:13but one of them could be the next Terry Pratchett.
0:24:13 > 0:24:15Well, maybe not him.
0:24:17 > 0:24:20I started going to science fiction conventions as
0:24:20 > 0:24:25a spotty teenager back in 1964.
0:24:25 > 0:24:29I was in the gents having a piss when I heard somebody in the
0:24:29 > 0:24:32cubicle having a rather loud poo.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38When the door finally opened, I was absolutely staggered to
0:24:38 > 0:24:41discover it was none other than Arthur C Clarke.
0:24:42 > 0:24:46And I thought, "Bloody hell!
0:24:46 > 0:24:50"You're a human being, I'm a human being. Your poo stinks,
0:24:50 > 0:24:55"my poo stinks. You're a writer and I want to be a writer."
0:24:55 > 0:24:58I discovered the commonality of humankind.
0:25:08 > 0:25:14I am a little old lady who lives with her daughter,
0:25:14 > 0:25:19but when I come to Discworld, I am an assassin.
0:25:20 > 0:25:24This is a Christmas card that was sent to me by Terry, so it was
0:25:24 > 0:25:27a really lovely gift to get through the post and totally unexpected.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Pratchett fans have that shared core,
0:25:33 > 0:25:38kernel of Pratchettness that he's left with us.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41"Be more Terry," I think is what they say.
0:25:41 > 0:25:43If you meet someone who also likes Pratchett,
0:25:43 > 0:25:47you almost have this knowing smile of, "Ah, great!
0:25:47 > 0:25:52"You have a wider worldview and a sense of humour that I
0:25:52 > 0:25:55"instantly hope that we'll be better friends because of."
0:25:55 > 0:25:58It had already been dedicated, so I turned up to
0:25:58 > 0:26:01a signing in Bradford with this book and
0:26:01 > 0:26:06a bottle of Tippex and Terry whited out the original dedication
0:26:06 > 0:26:13and wrote underneath, "Officially unsigned by Terry Pratchett, 1997."
0:26:13 > 0:26:18Terry was a great feminist writer, but that was not his mission.
0:26:18 > 0:26:23It's character before anything and I loved that!
0:26:23 > 0:26:25Yes! He gets this.
0:26:30 > 0:26:35One of my favourite characters from my books is the Librarian.
0:26:35 > 0:26:39He is an orangutan, because when I was a small boy,
0:26:39 > 0:26:43I couldn't reach the books on the top shelf,
0:26:43 > 0:26:47so I figured that an orangutan could get up as high as he liked
0:26:47 > 0:26:50and discover all sorts of treats.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58One of my fans turned up at a book signing one day with an
0:26:58 > 0:27:02armload of the most incredible drawings of my characters.
0:27:02 > 0:27:04And I thought, "Well,
0:27:04 > 0:27:08"I might give this young whippersnapper his big break."
0:27:08 > 0:27:13I like the Feegles, a cross between Braveheart and Trainspotting.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17The sort of character that you don't want to meet down a dark alley,
0:27:17 > 0:27:19even if they're six inches tall.
0:27:20 > 0:27:26I think Terry was doing something like The Borrowers, but with
0:27:26 > 0:27:30an edge, an edge to it that made you think about the realities
0:27:30 > 0:27:32of being six inches tall.
0:27:32 > 0:27:37It makes you think about things and see things differently.
0:27:37 > 0:27:39There's so many characters.
0:27:41 > 0:27:46My interpretation of Terry's creation was try and make it real.
0:27:46 > 0:27:53It's a fantasy scenario, but it's peopled by people that you know.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01So this is Death.
0:28:01 > 0:28:03He's not the Grim Reaper.
0:28:03 > 0:28:10He's... He just does a job and he's trying to understand humanity.
0:28:10 > 0:28:14You're challenging yourself to try and make...
0:28:14 > 0:28:16a skull look friendly.
0:28:20 > 0:28:23The most popular character in my books is Death,
0:28:23 > 0:28:28your genuine, bona fide, seven-foot tall hooded skeletal figure
0:28:28 > 0:28:30with a horse called Binky.
0:28:30 > 0:28:34I simply ask the question, if Death were a real person,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37what will he do on his afternoons off?
0:28:41 > 0:28:44"He looked down and saw the landscape spread out below him,
0:28:44 > 0:28:47"the night etched with moonlight silver.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52"Vast streamers of light shimmered and glittered across the night.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55"Great golden walls surrounded the world.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01" 'It's beautiful,' said Mort, softly. 'What is it?'
0:29:01 > 0:29:04" 'The sun is under the disc,' said Death.
0:29:04 > 0:29:07" 'Is it like this every night?'
0:29:07 > 0:29:10" 'Every night,' said Death. 'Nature's like that.'
0:29:10 > 0:29:14" 'Doesn't anyone know?' 'Me! You! The gods!
0:29:14 > 0:29:17" 'Good, is it?' 'Gosh.'
0:29:17 > 0:29:20"Death leaned over the saddle and looked down at the kingdoms
0:29:20 > 0:29:22"of the world.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26" 'I don't know about you,' he said, 'but I could murder a curry.' "
0:29:29 > 0:29:35I've received letters about him from convents, ecclesiastical palaces,
0:29:35 > 0:29:38funeral parlours and not least hospices.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43He is, in short, a kindly death.
0:29:45 > 0:29:52Utterly fascinated by human beings and their capacity to find a bother
0:29:52 > 0:29:55in the short time that they spend on Earth.
0:29:59 > 0:30:05I brought Death to life, so with the help of my old friend
0:30:05 > 0:30:11Bernard, I thought why not bring my fantasy city Ankh-Morpork into the real world too?
0:30:11 > 0:30:15Conveniently located just off the A303.
0:30:15 > 0:30:17Welcome to Wincanton.
0:30:17 > 0:30:23The only town that is twinned with a totally unreal place.
0:30:23 > 0:30:25Twinned with Ankh-Morpork.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29Wincanton is a town of blow-ins, good breakfasts,
0:30:29 > 0:30:33funny little hotels and lots of pubs and Ankh-Morpork,
0:30:33 > 0:30:36of course, is the same, but writ much larger.
0:30:36 > 0:30:38We spoke to the Foreign Office,
0:30:38 > 0:30:40the Home Office and all the other offices of the Government in
0:30:40 > 0:30:43London and then, of course, we spoke to the local council.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56Of course, once the whole town had been twinned with Ankh-Morpork,
0:30:56 > 0:30:59things started to go in their own way.
0:30:59 > 0:31:01Wimpey were putting up houses and they thought,
0:31:01 > 0:31:04wouldn't it be a jolly good idea if they took some of the names from the
0:31:04 > 0:31:08Discworld book, from Ankh-Morpork, and used them as street signs?
0:31:08 > 0:31:11And now we have Treacle Mine Road and Peach Pie Street and
0:31:11 > 0:31:15Hen and Chicken Field and Terry was chuffed as hell.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29Well, what you see here in this strange little shop
0:31:29 > 0:31:32we create what Terry has written and we turn them into pieces
0:31:32 > 0:31:33that people can take away with them.
0:31:36 > 0:31:38It's the soft edge of a dream.
0:31:40 > 0:31:45This is the description of Sergeant Jack Jackrum.
0:31:46 > 0:31:52Terry did tell me the character was based in some part on me.
0:31:52 > 0:31:54"The sergeant turned to Polly.
0:31:54 > 0:31:58"The word fat could not honestly be applied to him,
0:31:58 > 0:32:02"not when the word gross was lumbering up forward to catch
0:32:02 > 0:32:06"your attention. He was one of those people who didn't have a waist.
0:32:06 > 0:32:10"He had an equator. He had gravity.
0:32:10 > 0:32:13"And if he fell over in any direction, he would rock."
0:32:13 > 0:32:16HE CHUCKLES
0:32:16 > 0:32:19Terry understood the human condition.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23He was a man that had been bullied at school,
0:32:23 > 0:32:30so he grew up understanding what it was to be the underdog.
0:32:30 > 0:32:34Good old Bernard. He knows me better than almost anyone.
0:32:34 > 0:32:39I wouldn't say I was an underdog, but as a child,
0:32:39 > 0:32:41I did always feel different.
0:32:42 > 0:32:44On the count of a bicycle accident
0:32:44 > 0:32:47I had when I was, oh, five years old,
0:32:47 > 0:32:51I have a mouthful of speech impediments which has left me
0:32:51 > 0:32:55with a voice that sounds like David Bellamy with his hand
0:32:55 > 0:32:57caught in an electric fire.
0:33:01 > 0:33:03HE LAUGHS
0:33:06 > 0:33:08BICYCLE RATTLES
0:33:08 > 0:33:10Ooh.
0:33:10 > 0:33:12I'm having a flashback.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14I was a bit of a twit at school.
0:33:14 > 0:33:16Easily distracted.
0:33:16 > 0:33:18And I st-stuttered.
0:33:18 > 0:33:21Kids can be quite cruel.
0:33:21 > 0:33:22Ow!
0:33:22 > 0:33:26But it wasn't the kids that really got to me.
0:33:26 > 0:33:33It was the crushing of my boyhood dreams by someone three feet taller.
0:33:33 > 0:33:36Mr Tame, my headmaster, thought he could tell
0:33:36 > 0:33:38how successful we were going to be in later life
0:33:38 > 0:33:42by how well we could read or write at the age of six.
0:33:42 > 0:33:46At six years old, I was far more interested in climbing the desks
0:33:46 > 0:33:47than working at them.
0:33:49 > 0:33:51Pratchett!
0:33:51 > 0:33:52TERRY GASPS
0:33:55 > 0:34:00Mr Tame had taken a rather vicious disliking to me.
0:34:00 > 0:34:04But I subsequently discovered that he'd had a very bad war.
0:34:04 > 0:34:06Seen lots of men blown to pieces.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12"It may help to understand human affairs to be clear
0:34:12 > 0:34:16"that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused
0:34:16 > 0:34:20"not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad,
0:34:20 > 0:34:24"but by people being fundamentally people."
0:34:24 > 0:34:27'Young Terry Pratchett is told he'll never amount to anything.'
0:34:27 > 0:34:31It really got under his skin, it really, it did affect him.
0:34:33 > 0:34:38There were pictures of Terry smiling,
0:34:38 > 0:34:42and there were pictures of Terry fierce.
0:34:44 > 0:34:48The fierce Terry was the more accurate.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52'The feeling of being somehow inferior was hard to shake off.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57'The critics, bless 'em, could be utter bastards!'
0:34:57 > 0:34:59Tom Paulin, Terry Pratchett has been one of the literary
0:34:59 > 0:35:01sensations of recent years
0:35:01 > 0:35:04read by millions of people. Are they stupid? Why do they read him?
0:35:04 > 0:35:05For me, it was like lifting up a stone.
0:35:05 > 0:35:08You see all these insects scurrying around and you think,
0:35:08 > 0:35:11what on earth are they up to? And you put the stone back and go away.
0:35:11 > 0:35:12That was my attitude.
0:35:12 > 0:35:17'The London literary clique were quite unabashed.'
0:35:17 > 0:35:20The snobbery that was going on.
0:35:20 > 0:35:22I got to about page 151 and I actually wrote
0:35:22 > 0:35:25across the centre of the page, you know, I just can't go on.
0:35:25 > 0:35:27It's nerdy, real-ale stuff. Very Boy's Own stuff.
0:35:27 > 0:35:29I'll be surprised if any woman would want to read this book.
0:35:29 > 0:35:32He's selling thousands of copies, a complete amateur,
0:35:32 > 0:35:33he doesn't even write in chapters.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
0:35:35 > 0:35:40'Anger, for Terry, was an engine. Anger drove him.'
0:35:40 > 0:35:45Always taking that anger and using it as fuel.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48He will take something.
0:35:48 > 0:35:54Take an idea, take something big and obvious, like newspapers
0:35:54 > 0:35:56or steam trains
0:35:56 > 0:35:58or movies, the movie industry,
0:35:58 > 0:36:02use the Discworld to reflect it.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09'I wrote a lot of words, and I made a lot of money.
0:36:09 > 0:36:14'Anger can carry you quite a long way, it turns out,
0:36:14 > 0:36:16'if you learn to channel it properly.'
0:36:16 > 0:36:19The thing is, I would have written the books anyway
0:36:19 > 0:36:24whether they paid me or not. Shush.
0:36:24 > 0:36:28'It only took 20 years and three dozen novels
0:36:28 > 0:36:31'before the critics finally caved in.'
0:36:31 > 0:36:36'Terry Pratchett matches Charles Dickens book for book,
0:36:36 > 0:36:38'as Britain's best-loved novelist.'
0:36:38 > 0:36:42I mean, compare Pratchett with Tolkien, the use of language,
0:36:42 > 0:36:45Tolkien, completely dead as far as I can see, linguistically.
0:36:45 > 0:36:50Pratchett is very alive. I mean, very funny. Highly satirical.
0:36:51 > 0:36:54As for Terry's best book,
0:36:54 > 0:37:00Night Watch is the deepest, the darkest, and the most human.
0:37:16 > 0:37:18'For a crime writer like me, there's a great appeal in Sam Vimes
0:37:18 > 0:37:20'because he's the cop.'
0:37:20 > 0:37:24In Night Watch, what's not to like about Sam Vimes?
0:37:24 > 0:37:29You know, the boy from nowhere who goes on to run the world, basically.
0:37:29 > 0:37:33And is essentially a good man trying to do the right thing.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37"Everyone was guilty of something. Vimes knew that.
0:37:37 > 0:37:41"Every copper knew it. That was how you maintained your authority.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44"Everyone talking to a copper was secretly afraid you could see
0:37:44 > 0:37:47"their guilty secret written on their forehead.
0:37:47 > 0:37:48"You couldn't, of course.
0:37:48 > 0:37:51"But neither were you supposed to drag someone off the street and
0:37:51 > 0:37:54"smash their fingers with a hammer until they told you what it was."
0:37:54 > 0:37:57You'd have to say he could have been a crime writer
0:37:57 > 0:38:01if he hadn't fallen by the wayside into fantasy.
0:38:02 > 0:38:06'Just like Sam Vimes, I started out with very little,
0:38:06 > 0:38:11'and ended up being made a knight of the realm.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14'Do you know they don't give you your own sword?
0:38:14 > 0:38:16'So I had to make my own.
0:38:16 > 0:38:21'Not bad for a boy who was told he'd never amount to anything, eh?'
0:38:39 > 0:38:40'One day, he called me down and said,
0:38:40 > 0:38:43' "Come on, what have you done with it, what have you done with it?"
0:38:43 > 0:38:45'I said, "Done with what, Terry?"
0:38:45 > 0:38:49'He said, "The S on my keyboard's gone, where has it gone?" '
0:38:49 > 0:38:52I looked over his shoulder and there it was next to A where it always is.
0:38:52 > 0:38:56And I said, "No, it's there," and I lent over and punched it.
0:38:56 > 0:38:59And in that moment, we knew something strange had happened.
0:39:01 > 0:39:03He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
0:39:08 > 0:39:10I'd like to show you something.
0:39:16 > 0:39:22'Imagine you're in a very, very slow-motion car crash.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25'Nothing seems to be happening at all.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29'There might be the odd banging noise possibly,
0:39:29 > 0:39:32'a little crunching sound here and there.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36'A screw might pop out and spin its way across the dashboard
0:39:36 > 0:39:40'as if you were in Apollo 13.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43'But the radio's blasting rock and roll.
0:39:43 > 0:39:47'The heaters are on and it doesn't seem all that bad.
0:39:49 > 0:39:52'Except for the certain knowledge that, at some point,
0:39:52 > 0:39:55'your head is going to go smashing through that windscreen.'
0:40:01 > 0:40:05I've heard myself called Mr Alzheimer's.
0:40:05 > 0:40:06AUDIENCE LAUGHS GENTLY
0:40:06 > 0:40:10What they're going to be calling me in the morning, I have no idea.
0:40:10 > 0:40:11LAUGHTER
0:40:11 > 0:40:15'Dad being so public about it was quite surreal.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18'In Discworld, there's a concept of second thought.'
0:40:18 > 0:40:19So the idea of, you know,
0:40:19 > 0:40:21there's always a part of you watching yourself,
0:40:21 > 0:40:24and even a part of you watching the part of you watching yourself.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27'There was still a part of his brain that was processing
0:40:27 > 0:40:30'what was happening to him with the Alzheimer's.
0:40:30 > 0:40:32'I could see him watching himself.'
0:40:36 > 0:40:41On the first day of my journalistic career, I saw my first corpse.
0:40:41 > 0:40:46Some unfortunate chap had fallen down a hole on a farm
0:40:46 > 0:40:49and had drowned in pig shit.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52Would I swap my own death for his?
0:40:52 > 0:40:56All I'll say is that, compared to that horrific demise,
0:40:56 > 0:40:59Alzheimer's is a walk in the park.
0:41:00 > 0:41:02HORN BEEPS
0:41:03 > 0:41:07Except, with Alzheimer's, my park keeps changing.
0:41:07 > 0:41:09The trees get up and walk over there.
0:41:09 > 0:41:11The benches go missing.
0:41:11 > 0:41:15And the paths seem to be unwinding
0:41:15 > 0:41:18into particularly vindictive serpents.
0:41:19 > 0:41:21Terry got really angry at his disease
0:41:21 > 0:41:24because now he could see how it was affecting him,
0:41:24 > 0:41:26how it was tripping him up.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29And I knew we were up against it for time.
0:41:29 > 0:41:30We had to get these words down
0:41:30 > 0:41:34with the white heat, that white anger driving him
0:41:34 > 0:41:39to write seven more novels, through the haze of Alzheimer's.
0:41:41 > 0:41:44I remember buying this and thinking, I don't want to read it.
0:41:46 > 0:41:48Because it was the last.
0:41:48 > 0:41:50And I felt that very much.
0:41:50 > 0:41:55I didn't want to read this book because that would be it.
0:41:57 > 0:42:01But one of the things I think is done very well in Terry's books
0:42:01 > 0:42:05is that when people come to the end of the line, he lets them die.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09And Granny Weatherwax, in The Shepherd's Crown,
0:42:09 > 0:42:12comes to the end of her days.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14There's a sort of pragmatic honesty to it
0:42:14 > 0:42:17that really, it really touched me when I first read this,
0:42:17 > 0:42:19it definitely brought a tear to my eye.
0:42:21 > 0:42:27I don't know if I could write with that much joy if I knew I was dying.
0:42:29 > 0:42:31"It was a strange night.
0:42:31 > 0:42:36"The owls hooted almost nonstop and the wind outside, for some reason,
0:42:36 > 0:42:39"made the wicks of the candles inside wobble with a vengeance,
0:42:39 > 0:42:41"and then blow out."
0:42:44 > 0:42:46"Then the darkness spoke.
0:42:46 > 0:42:51" 'Esmerelda Weatherwax, we have met so many times before, haven't we?'
0:42:51 > 0:42:53" 'Too many to count, Mr Reaper.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56" 'Well, you've finally got me, you old bugger.
0:42:56 > 0:42:58" 'I've had my season, no doubt about it,
0:42:58 > 0:43:03" 'and I was never one for pushing myself forward or complaining.'
0:43:04 > 0:43:06"There was no light.
0:43:06 > 0:43:09"No point of reference except for the two tiny blue pinpricks
0:43:09 > 0:43:13"sparkling in the eye sockets of Death himself.
0:43:13 > 0:43:15" 'Well, the journey was worth taking,
0:43:15 > 0:43:18" 'and I saw many wonderful things on the way,
0:43:18 > 0:43:22" 'including you, my reliable friend. Shall we go now?'
0:43:22 > 0:43:24" 'Madame...
0:43:26 > 0:43:27" 'We've already gone.' "
0:43:32 > 0:43:34It was actually the 8th of December.
0:43:34 > 0:43:36We'd had a good day working on the biography.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39And he said, "Rob, Terry Pratchett's dead."
0:43:42 > 0:43:44Completely out of the blue.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46"Terry. Look at the words we've written today,
0:43:46 > 0:43:47"it's been fantastic."
0:43:47 > 0:43:52And he said, "No. No. Terry Pratchett's dead."
0:43:57 > 0:44:00He knew he was going to die.
0:44:00 > 0:44:03Yeah, he was furious. It was unfair.
0:44:03 > 0:44:06And if there was anything that really pissed off Terry Pratchett,
0:44:06 > 0:44:08it was things being unfair.
0:44:08 > 0:44:12The last time we were together, I went down to see him,
0:44:12 > 0:44:14and it was towards the end.
0:44:14 > 0:44:18And I thought, I want to talk to my friend.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32And we said everything we had to say.
0:44:34 > 0:44:36And he was there.
0:44:40 > 0:44:45And then Rob turned up with scampi, and we sat and ate scampi.
0:44:45 > 0:44:47I miss him so much.
0:45:01 > 0:45:03'It doesn't feel like a world without Dad.
0:45:03 > 0:45:05'He's still here, I think.'
0:45:05 > 0:45:09When you lose someone close, you're sort of, they're always part of you,
0:45:09 > 0:45:14and you're always taking...a piece of them with you, I think.
0:45:19 > 0:45:23I mean, I'm always seeing things and aware,
0:45:23 > 0:45:28"Oh, Dad would have loved that," or you can sort of hear him laughing.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35'Life will never be the same again.'
0:45:35 > 0:45:39You have to learn to live in a post-Terry world.
0:45:39 > 0:45:41Yeah, that was really quite hard.
0:45:43 > 0:45:45Please welcome Terry Pratchett!
0:45:45 > 0:45:46CHEERING AND WHISTLING
0:45:48 > 0:45:52'Terry was a human with all the good attributes turned up to 11.'
0:45:52 > 0:45:57To Be More Terry is to be more caring, to be more human.
0:45:59 > 0:46:02Death is a fact of life.
0:46:02 > 0:46:06And it's how we react to that death that should take us forward.
0:46:06 > 0:46:11And this, to me, is what Be More Terry means.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15'Everybody here will always tell you what a great, amazing guy he was.'
0:46:15 > 0:46:18But he was also a complete git!
0:46:18 > 0:46:21But he did always make time for his fans.
0:46:21 > 0:46:25I had a terrible time when I was, like, a young teenager.
0:46:25 > 0:46:27And probably without Discworld books, I wouldn't be here.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30I was very suicidal at that age.
0:46:30 > 0:46:33And I don't think that's over-saying it, really.
0:46:35 > 0:46:37And that's about the long and short of it, really.
0:46:43 > 0:46:45BURST OF CHORAL MUSIC
0:46:51 > 0:46:54I always dreamt that, when I die, I'll be sat in the deckchair
0:46:54 > 0:46:59with a glass of brandy, listening to Thomas Tallis on the iPod.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03But I had Alzheimer's. So I forgot all about that.
0:47:05 > 0:47:10When I was a boy, all I ever wanted was my own observatory.
0:47:10 > 0:47:13I knew even then that all the mysteries of life
0:47:13 > 0:47:15lay hidden in the stars.
0:47:22 > 0:47:26Having said that, stars aren't that important.
0:47:26 > 0:47:31Whereas street lamps, they're very important. Why?
0:47:31 > 0:47:32Because they're so rare.
0:47:32 > 0:47:36As far as we know, there's only a few million of them in the universe.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39And they were built by monkeys
0:47:39 > 0:47:43who also came up with philosophy, telescopes,
0:47:43 > 0:47:45E=mc-squared.
0:47:45 > 0:47:52And I have to say I'm very proud to have been one of them.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57Well, I'm off now.
0:47:57 > 0:47:59You're in charge.
0:47:59 > 0:48:01Oh, and one more thing.
0:48:02 > 0:48:04Don't bugger it up.
0:48:05 > 0:48:11# Some things in life are bad They can really make you mad
0:48:11 > 0:48:14# Other things just make you swear and curse
0:48:14 > 0:48:17# When you're chewing on life's gristle
0:48:17 > 0:48:20# Don't grumble, give a whistle
0:48:20 > 0:48:23# And this'll help things turn out for the best
0:48:23 > 0:48:25# Ay...
0:48:25 > 0:48:30- ALL:- # Always look on the bright side of death... #
0:48:30 > 0:48:33WHISTLING
0:48:33 > 0:48:39# Just before you draw your terminal breath... #
0:48:39 > 0:48:41WHISTLING
0:48:41 > 0:48:46# Life's a piece of shit When you look at it
0:48:46 > 0:48:48# Life's a laugh And death's a joke, it's true
0:48:48 > 0:48:53# You'll see it's all a show Keep 'em laughing as you go
0:48:53 > 0:48:58# Just remember that the last laugh is on you
0:48:58 > 0:49:04# Always look on the bright side of life
0:49:08 > 0:49:13# Always look on the bright side of life. #
0:49:13 > 0:49:15CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:49:18 > 0:49:20God bless you, Terry.