I'm not beaten yet: Terry Prachett on the frustration and fury of Alzheimer's

He can no longer drive and struggles to dress himself but Terry Prachett, creator of the cult Discworld books, refuses to be broken by Alzheimer's.



Author Terry Pratchett has coined a word to describe the dementia with which he was diagnosed last year. He calls it an ' embuggerance', which deftly expresses his frustration at the encumbrance it represents. He recalls the fury and isolation he felt when he was told he had Alzheimer's: 'When Satan was cast into the pit of hell and raged at heaven, he was only a trifle miffed compared to how I felt that day,' he says. 'I felt totally alone, with the world receding from me in every direction.'

Although he calls it a 'wretched disease', since disclosing that he has it, he has retained his dark sense of comedy. He began an address to his latest convention of fans by cracking a joke. 'I said, "Hello my name is..." Then I retrieved a crumpled piece of paper from my pocket and read out my name,' he recalls.



Frustration and encumbrance: Terry Prachett described living with Alzheimer's as 'embuggerance'

The audience laughed because Terry, afflicted by an illness that steals both memory and identity, was permitting them to do so.

Until the day he 'came out', as he puts it, and announced he had a very rare form of earlyonset dementia called posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) - he had not then turned 60 - he was, of course, best known as an author. His most celebrated works are the comedy-fantasy Discworld novels - The Colour Of Magic, the film adaptation of the first book in the series, starring David Jason, has just been released on DVD.



This year marks the 25th anniversary of the series, which sells in such prodigious number that Terry long ago stopped trying to keep a tally, but at the last count he'd sold 60 million books. But such literary milestones have been eclipsed by his personal story. When I broach the subject of his illness with a pointed, 'How are you?' he sighs a tad wearily.

He's done nothing but talk about dementia, every permutation and implication of it, since September last year, and he's practically run out of things to say. 'I haven't for a moment regretted coming out, as it were, because it does look as if that's done some good,' he says. (He also donated £500,000 to research into the disease, thereby elevating awareness of it.) ' Nevertheless, it's amazing how I've ceased to become an author and have now become Mr Alzheimer's.

'But to answer your question, I'm fine. I just had a test that showed I was pretty much the same as the last time I was tested. It cheers me to find the creative process still works: my last book, Nation, was definitely written by a bloke with PCA - I'd got halfway through it before I was diagnosed - and it got excellent reviews. I know it was good. That's not a boast. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have sent it to the publisher.'

The illness has brought small, incremental changes. He has difficulties handling the practicalities of the physical world, but his loquacity, vocabulary and his fertile imagination remain undiminished.



'I had to give up driving. That would be a big thing for most men, but I didn't bat an eyelid. It doesn't interfere with my core business. My wife drives; my PA drives; I can hire a cab. The real embuggerance is that my typing and handwriting are all over the place, and I sometimes lose track of spellings completely.

'I also have the odd moment when my brain has to pause to sort things out. The quintessential one is the glass revolving door. I have to approach it very carefully. It's glass. It's full of reflections. It's coming towards me and going away at the same time. I have to wait for a second or two before I go through. But I'm still coherent on just about every news channel, just more and more tired as the day wears on. Which isn't what you'd normally expect from someone with dementia, but I was diagnosed very early.



'If I didn't tell you anything was wrong, you'd have to know me very well indeed to tell anything was amiss. You'd probably have to watch me getting dressed. Retrieving a shirt sleeve that's been turned inside-out can be tricky.'



He has told his fans, who are legion, worldwide and mostly women, that he wants to retain a sense of optimism and cheerfulness. 'But people still tend to come up and talk in hushed voices. I say, "We're not in church, you know."'



They've also sent in ideas for cures. 'I once said I'd gnaw the a**e off a dead mole if I thought there was any science behind it. That provoked a response from a mole catcher from Somerset who had a more ethereal cure in mind. Lots of people have offered me all kinds of ideas, but I've said I'll only entertain offers of help from high-end experts in brain chemistry.'



He is famously uxorious and has been happily married to his wife, Lyn, for 40 years. They have a daughter, Rhianna, 32, also a writer, and live in rural Wiltshire where they keep a well-stocked garden and chickens - Terry returns from cleaning their coop for our chat.



I ask, what with his high proportion of women fans, whether he's ever been propositioned. He guffaws with laughter. 'Once,' he confesses. 'In another country. Proposition would be the wrong word, but unmistakable signals were sent and received. I thanked the nice lady concerned for her kind offer to "show me the town", but explained that I was moving on - I was on a signing tour.

'That afternoon I dropped into a gardening shop and bought a thermometer for my compost heap. I'd always wanted one. I thought, "I've extricated myself from an awkward situation and bought a compost thermometer. I must be the most married man in the entire world."'

He does not covet a starry, metropolitan lifestyle, and has obdurately resisted offers from Hollywood to adapt his books. Only two, Hogfather and The Colour Of Magic, have been made into films, both for Sky TV. 'The budget for The Colour Of Magic was about the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger's cigar bill,' he says. 'I could play around with the script and make suggestions. I wanted the Arch Chancellor's study to be dustier, so they got a dust machine and did what they call, "snotting up".'

He is genial company and would probably have chatted until teatime had Lyn not called on the intercom to remind him about lunch.



What are his hopes for the future? 'It's too early to say the war will be won because no one is talking about a cure. It's something like the treatment for HIV: you live with the disease to a decent age, and it's kept pretty much in check, and then you die.'



Does he fear death? 'No, it isn't death that worries me,' he says. 'Everyone dies. I'd just quite like to be there when it happens.'

