TERRY PRATCHETT - THE LATE LATE SHOW (04/05/12)

okay so on to my next guest my next guest is a best-selling author who thrived his career has written 50 books which have sold over 80 million copies they've been translated into 37 languages worldwide his novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen and he's the winner of multiple prizes including the Carnegie Medal as well as being awarded a knighthood for services to literature five years ago he was diagnosed with a form of Alzheimer's disease and since then he has spoken openly of his support for assisted death would you welcome please Terry Pratchett welcome back to Ireland you very much good to see it you've had this phenomenal success as an author but I understand that reading wasn't easy for you as a child it wasn't and I was behind the class and my mum was a kind of pushy mum yeah and she actually said I'll tell you what if you lead I'll give you a penny for every page actually that you get like that worked for about three stories yes the next one was The Wind in the Willows and I wanted to lead that so much that mum didn't have to pay me anything and after that I went down to the library and just got out every book that I could possibly could and you just kept going there absolutely and can I ask you about the interest in in fairies and elves not side of your imagination where did that come from because they seem to be with us we think about them especially in Ireland for heaven's sake yes you know I made a big pilgrimage to be the earliest cottage last time I was here there's something kind of sticks it but the other thing is it's not really about that the fairies and the elves you can use them as metaphors and yes and my my city rank more pork has got all kinds of different creatures in it you know including vampires and werewolves but they're just citizens you know they do a daily job yes so you you credit that back to the days of as was the Irish storytelling sort of situation yes yeah my mum used to say I took after my I've he would have been my great-grandfather okay she told he told her with stories and here you are back in Ireland your professor of Trinity as well as how have you enjoying that you're wearing the t-shirt tonight I see so great they made me do a baby oh yes and how are you enjoying that experience it's a lot of fun boy didn't know a levels yes but I left school because it's you know I knew I wanted to be a journalist and I could mean like that I could like well yes and so iPhone you know I thought that got fed up with this and I phoned up the local newspaper and say when have you got a job for tray he said right now yeah and he said I like my night went to see him he said I like the cut of your jib young man I don't think you can say that today without actually being sent to prison but I got a good job and it was great yes working in journalism is the first is a really good start for a writer it gave you a good grounding did it in writing what do you see you have to write every day you have to work and and you do everything the commoners cause murders suicides everything you covered all these things and you fill it and more or less an adolescent kid and you have to learn all this stuff you go very very far yeah for sure in 2007 Terry you've decided to go public with the fact that you had Alzheimer's a form of Alzheimer's oh why did the decision to go public with I I could I didn't even think twice about it we came away from the the hospital where the diagnose took took part and my PA said are we gonna tell them I said everybody and next thing you know our driveway he was full of journalists we just couldn't get them away with shovels because I said it never never occurred to me to hide it I think the thing that I really had in mind you remember everyone hope I think everyone I think remembers Richard Dimbleby one of the great broadcaster when he died of cancer his family told the world that he had cancer and up to that time people never talked about cancer yes but after he had talked about that they had talked about it suddenly it was okay to talk about it and I thought well he did that I'll try this and so I just yeah fool myself into it would you mind telling us a little bit about the form of Alzheimer's excuse me yeah well it's a curious thing called it's known by its initial initial of PCA yes it's some people call it the low voice of Alzheimer's what does that well it starts in a different place and so it takes a lot longer as far as I can see to go you're full lung I mean after all I've I've written I think eight bits in novels with each since you were diagnosed yes that's extraordinary so as you can see it's going slow sooner or later it would find it will try and take me out yeah but you know I've been going around the world and doing all kinds of stuff and so far in a Broadway you wouldn't notice unless I told you and precisely so can you explain to me there are to us at least on a day-to-day basis what are the sort of effects that you have no that you wouldn't if I pretend they're kind of the other thing that's a problem I'm I now over 64 and I don't know where the things that are happening to me me being 64 on top of any everything else right you know because my granddad used to my dad used to lose track of stuff people people say anyone says sometimes I go upstairs and I forgot why I've gone upstairs for yeah so you know it's just the commonality of mankind I dressed myself in mornings you know it there's not much that I can't do that but I can't drive a car because Alzheimer's affects your vision at this well PCA effectual your perceptions a little bit and you just don't want to run over a little girl on a crossing cuz you can't see her there sure that's the major thing yes I read book signings well this hand I've used it so many so much many times you know putting the hand in freezing buckets of water to bring it back to life again and so forth I do them occasionally now but they never mind about the outside as its busted up this hand I used it for I used to do round the world tours and stuff like that and signing tours we'll kill you faster than drinkin women although I'd like to fight okay can you sign your name Terry um what Kitty's now is a it's like a a chop you know a Chinese word if you know it's me you all get the squiggles okay but sometimes Rob my PA would nip in afterwards and just write it down so yes it really is it okay very good what about a keyboard are you able to use don't have to no I talked to the computer and I use a wonderful package yes and I can actually dictate to the computer and even teach the computer the names of my characters and things like that it's absolutely I recognize it to everybody everybody because it's much easier to talk story liking is a story telling one way or the other yes and it's it seems suitable to say it Lars and goat Appetit Appetit Appetit tap on the keyboard and I rather like doing it and my output is pretty good as well how was your wife coping with the situation she's quite sanguine about the whole thing yeah I mean in a major way nothing much has really changed I'm a bit absent-minded yes but Pratchett lots of people in the 60s in their 60s absent-minded so it's it's it's really rather minor she she wants to take care of you as the as in the event that it does deteriorate it but it's undoubtedly that sooner or later that's going to happen I've no no nothing that will stop it there's quite a few medical but there's two medications now which do slow it down yes but sooner or later you run out of brain and your wife as I understand it wants to keep keep you here and take care of you you don't want to be that you're very nearly right I mean we've had a long happy marriage sure and the decisions seem to be made by osmosis without 'less having to talk about it she would like very much to look after me I'm aware that she's almost the same age as me and if something goes wrong with her that's happened to be another problem and I think ahead as most people in this in this situation do but at the moment we don't have to think about it I make we make certain continue conveniences most at the moment I enjoy every single day can I ask you about this you're an advocate I've assisted death is enough right well I don't actually tell it think that everyone should have one but I think it should be available for certain people who have an illness that cannot be counted in any way and which will which is nasty and crippling quite often and eventually will kill them I see no reason why they shouldn't if they are compos mentis which is quite important Mary and I would also say because I'm a real married man if their wife is also standing by the wife or husband item so the family themselves all of one mind yes I think that should be possible I watched the documentary my choosing today and it's been nominated for a BAFTA congratulations on that one but more importantly you follow two people and one man anything give motor neuron disease another man with MS roulette if we concentrate on the older man and go to where who went with his wife to Zurich to to to die oh yes and we saw him die on camera in this program we never set out to do that we thought requite thought we got on very well with Peter Smedley in his wife they work they were great they were the best the best of British as far as I could see you know the old kind yeah it is an old kind of English gentleman I think he was quite firm in his purpose and I think his wife was would would support him because this was what he wanted yes and I thought that we would and we all expected I think that what we would do is go to the door of where it was going to happen and then we would camera stops everything but when we arrived that last day husband and wife opened the door to the room and said come in all of you yeah I think both of them want you to make a statement of thought thoughts and I think one of the statement was it's a wretched thing that this man had to go across the world to find a place where he could find surcease when why couldn't he have done it in London somewhere can I can I make a kind of such a personal observation I've thought probably by couple I felt that they were very in love with each other and I felt that he was compos mentis but his body was was it wasn't what it should be if you like in the natural that was why but I felt it was a terrible waste for on the play on the basis that they were talking to each other only minutes but they were talking about chocolate and cups of tea and then he was gone within two minutes of a tree that yes I was there talking to I know I felt they had there was more in them there was more juice in the tank it was for him it was the simple thing is this under our laws and the UK laws yeah if his wife helped him he he could be prosecuted yes so he told us and it was in the program he went so that he couldn't put he wouldn't be putting her in jeopardy and equally Terry you you had the scenario where you watched him make that decision while he was still compos mentis and you made the observation that you're in a similar predicament for a by your Alzheimer's could will deteriorate to a point where you won't be able to make that decision and do you know how find yourself wondering are you going to run out at a time in which you can actually make this fatal decision I think that I've sort of followed the way things are going at the moment I'm not getting very worried about about anything very much because but the writing's going well and and I don't seem to be with every book I does I didn't seems to get better the the speech is a bit impaired but even that's also probably an age thing it does rather though very slowly and I keep in touch with a specialist yes he is quite amazed but I you know I saw I saw myself into every day and believe me every day is absolutely fair but back to the question may come the time if you want to go this way if you'll excuse the crudity of the language but if you do want to go this way what I really said but I would love I would think of it going if it was possible in England okay but not if you are to travel the travel is you have to have three days in the country before this is this is a rule and every day you have to talk to the doctors and well I saw that happening with Peter whom I very much admire but it's a different person me I thought I if I had to be in a foreign country for three days by myself thinking about this and either end up as a poet or a madman and I thought clerk can I go through that I still think about that now this isn't something somehow the lighting of the book keeps me going does the soul so at the moment I know I've got time yes so I'm making the most of it does death frighten you at the thorny never never I've written about in so many times about him oh yes death in the first disco buck I think I introduced death and he become came one of the most popular characters because he's kind okay as death is he calls himself you know the friend of the poor all the you know let hogarth ian type stuff he also scares a lot of people well he takes people away when they don't want to be taken well if you lead the books when he when you meet you he gives you a little chat you know point you in the right direction you know do you believe in the afterlife um I have no religious belief but I believe this world isn't the only one and can we expect more books from Terry Pratchett Terry Pratchett is expecting more books from tell you those commentary pocket okay

Channel: stabmasterarsonirl

Views: 58,007

Keywords: Terry, Pratchett, interview, RTE, 2012, Fantasy, Science, Fiction

Id: xmx2V221-F8

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 18 2012