Terry Pratchett: 28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015. He died at home, surrounded by his family.
“rather than let Alzheimer’s take me, I would take it. I would live my life as ever to the full and die, before the disease mounted its last attack, in my own home, in a chair on the lawn, with a brandy in my hand to wash down whatever modern version of the ‘Brompton cocktail’ some helpful medic could supply. And with Thomas Tallis on my iPod, I would shake hands with Death.”
Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy in 2007, a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s.
His books live on.
Alzheimer Scotland: Action on Dementia and Alzheimer’s UK would appreciate your support.
“Terry still has all of his faculties. He’s fighting Alzheimer’s, but he has a rare kind of Alzheimer’s which means physical objects no longer make sense to him, but he still has memory, and he still has a mind, and he’s still very much the sharpest knife in the drawer. But he couldn’t read the script, so I had to give him his lines.”He sighs – that pause again. “And it was this very strange, sad, sweet, funny, odd moment, as the two of us sat in the car with Dirk’s lines inspired by a line that one of us had written 26 years earlier. With me saying my line first and then Terry’s line. And then Terry echoing his lines. It was a little moment for me and Terry. I don’t know if we’re acting terribly well, but it’s a moment that made me extra happy.”
I HAVE TO KNOW. WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF I HAD NOT… LOST?
– “At the cards, you mean?”
YES. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?
– “Well, for a start … I’d have broken your bloody arm.”
Edinburgh Eye 