It's been 10 years since Sir Terry Pratchett left us on 12th March 2015. I had, just two weeks before, moved in with Rachel in our home in South Wales and was just finding my feet in a new town.
We'd just put on our coats as we were just about to head down to the local supermarket to purchase something for dinner. Then the three tweets came through on my phone, at the same time Rachel got a text from a friend asking if we'd heard the news.
We took off our coats, turned the computers back on and while I checked our sources, Rachel quickly put some infographics for our various social media accounts.
At the time, we still had the Discworld Monthly Facebook group running and Rachel was also moderating the Terry Pratchett Facebook group as well.
We carefully composed an obituary and started posting where we could. Very quickly it became clear that the fandom was in mourning and needed outlets to vent their grief. The various facebook groups were those places, for a while the fandom was unified in its collective grief and everyone got along. (It took about a week before the cracks started to reappear and the fractious normality returned).
While putting out those initial reports I received an email from someone at the BBC asking if I would be available for an interview. I was reluctant at first as I'd only ever done a couple of radio interviews before. But with a nudge from Rachel with the words, "Do it for Rob and Rhianna. Take the pressure off them" I answered the email.
Shortly after I got another email from another local BBC radio station and then another, and another, and another. By the end of the day I had been on the TV once for BBC live news channel and four times for various local BBC radio stations.
The next morning (Friday 13th) shortly before 7am the phone rang and once again it was a frantic can you come on the radio at 7am type call. So Rachel ran to put the kettle on while I fired up my PC and loaded skype. I really wasn't fully awake for that interview.
Then I got a call from BBC Radio 2. The Jeremy Vine show wanted me to come on and talk about Terry but they wanted me in one of their studios. They were quite insistent and even offered to send a taxi to get me into the studios in Swansea. But as previously mentioned I had just moved in and we had planned a visit to Ikea to purchase some bedroom furniture (we were living out of bags and boxes at the time). After a bit of forward and back it was agreed that we would go to IKEA first and then head over to the BBC Cymru studios in Cardiff where a parking space would be reserved for me.
We did our IKEA shop and made our way over to the studios after a quick stop at a KFC drive through. The reception was full of TV screens simultaneously showing all the BBC channels at the same time. After talking to the people on reception and getting our passes an elderly gentleman in a brown overall coat was assigned to take us to the "News and Current Affairs Studio" - which turned out to be a small 6 ft square room with a small table and two chairs in it. On the table were two headsets, two microphones, a small box with lots of lights and a telephone. A sign on the wall helpfully suggested in case of emergency to dial 666. (I remember joking at the time that Terry would have loved that).
We put on the headsets and after a few seconds we were connected over an ISDN line to BBC studios in London. After a brief call we were connected to radio 2 studios where I would be interviewed by Paddy O'Connell who was standing in for Jeremy Vine. What I hadn't realised was that it was to be a three way interview with myself, Paddy and Paul Kidby (Discworld cover artist). Paul was at home in the middle of the chalk on a very bad mobile phone line. It was a good interview and while they mucked about with Paul's line I was asked about Witches of the disc etc. Paul had managed to turn on a radio and heard my side of the interview and when reconnected was able to riff off what I had said. So for the listener it was probably quite entertaining.
I'd never really spoken to Paul Kidby before and it took about another year before we managed to get to a signing. Paul seems really lovely and we had a good chat about that interview.
That night, Rachel and I realised that we hadn't really had the opportunity to grief Terry's loss. We'd been so tied up in sharing with people and making sure the fandom was OK we forgot to look after ourselves. We turned off all the computers and our phones and turned on the television. I think it was either red nose day or children in need [It was red nose day - Rachel] that was on the TV. The pictures moved but neither of us actually took any notice of what was on the screen - we sat in silence processing our thoughts in our own ways.
We were careful to download, where possible, each of the radio interviews I was part of as well as many of the ones we could find from the likes of Stephen Briggs, Pat Harkin & Emily Witten.
They've been on our YouTube channel for several years. Here is a link to our playlist of the radio interviews that we uploaded. It may bring back memories and feelings, and may still be a little raw. A packet of Kleenex nearby might be a good idea.
Enjoy.