Terry Pratchett’s Real Cat and a tragic embuggerance

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/terry-pratchett-discworld-remembered

Version 0 of 1.

I didn’t like reading when I was a kid. I read comics, but I hated reading books. But school made us read, forced us to go to the library and read books and talk about them. I still hated reading. Then one day I discovered some children’s fantasy books and I started tearing through them. Soon, I was reading fantasy books for teens, but then I hit a dry spell.

So on a lonely Wednesday afternoon, while wandering through the shelves the librarian comes up to me – a kind and friendly lady who’d sometimes let me off when I returned a book late – and asks me what I’m looking for. I told her I’d read all the fantasy books that I was allowed to. I’d never read an adult book and thought I couldn’t go into that section. She told me to follow her and showed me Terry Pratchett’s books (Obituary, 13 March). The Colour of Magic indeed.

I’m 20 years older now and I’ve got every Discworld book and many of his other books as well. I’d like to thank Sir Terry for what he gave me as a child – a place to go to when I needed it – and for what he has given us all. Chuckles and tears, but mostly laughing out loud.Jelle Van OverbergheGroot Bijgaarden, Belgium

• So sad to hear of Terry Pratchett’s death; one of life’s enrichers and courageous to the last. His last moments were surrounded by family and his cat. One wonders if it was the Real Cat, or a well-behaved moggy who instinctively understood the gravitas of the occasion. I like to think Terry would have preferred the Unadulterated Cat who would have misbehaved, spat and hissed at the dying of this irreplaceable light.Judith DanielsGreat Yarmouth, Norfolk

• To sadly paraphrase, the last (and only known) line of Nanny Ogg’s Hedgehog Song “the embuggerance couldn’t be dodged after all”.Tim LidbetterKingston upon Thames, Surrey