Terry Pratchett’s Final Wishes Will Break A Reader’s Heart…

Terry Pratchett died in March 2015 after battling with Alzheimer’s for 8 years previously. His humour and joie de vivre is still sorely missed, although we still have his vast back catalogue of novels to keep us going.

Two of his books, the final Discworld novel The Shepherd’s Crown and The Long Utopia, written with by Stephen Baxter, were published posthumously.

Many of his fans held out hope that his unfinished manuscripts may one day be completed by an author close to him but- alas- it is not to be!

Neil Gaiman, a close and personal friend of Terry, had previously told The Times  what the author wanted.

“Whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all… I am ridiculously glad that hasn’t happened yet.”

Just before the last August 2017 bank holiday weekend, Pratchett’s hard drive containing the author’s unfinished books was destroyed by a steamroller, as per the writer’s instruction.

The manager of the Pratchett estate -Rob Wilkins-  posted an image to Twitter of the still-intact hard drive while at the Great Dorset Steam Fair. The vintage steamroller was named Lord Jericho and was standing ominously behind Wilkins. He wrote: “About to fulfil my obligation to Terry”

Half an hour later another photograph was posted, the drive had been destroyed. The caption read: “There goes the browsing history…”

The flattened hard drive is to be displayed at the Salisbury museum exhibit celebrating our beloved author- Terry Pratchett: His World- between 16 September and 13 January 2018.