by Craig Cabell
The young Pratchett continued to do well at school. He achieved five O levels and started A levels in art, history and English, but he heard that there was a vacancy at the Bucks Free Press (a local newspaper). After consulting his parents, he went for the job and, remarkably, he got it, leaving school in 1965. When he got to the newspaper, he found that his education was far from over. He had to take a two-year National Council for the Training of Journalists proficiency course. He would come top in the country. If that wasn’t impressive enough, he also passed an A level in English while on day release (his only A level pass).
Pratchett fell easily into journalism. He has described himself as a ‘born journalist’, and that the pleasure of hitting the keys as a touch typist is almost like a therapy to him. One cannot but agree, because in November 1965 Pratchett found his short story ‘The Night Dweller’ in a paperback anthology entitled New Worlds SF, edited by Michael Moorcock.* ‘The Night Dweller’ is not considered a milestone in Pratchett’s back catalogue. The few copies that come onto the market through antiquarian book dealers are often underplayed today and Pratchett fans are not exactly overcome with enthusiasm for the story either. What is interesting is the fact that Pratchett was still submitting stories for publication and, shortly after leaving school, he had had his second real success as a short-story writer.
Some people call this paperback The Wrecks of Time because the cover of the book depicts an interpretation of James Colvin’s headline story inside.
Pratchett’s drive, enthusiasm and natural ability had paid dividends again, and his talents as a writer of science fiction and fantasy did not go unnoticed at the Bucks Free Press. Very quickly he was given his own column, taking over ‘Story Time with Uncle Jim’ in the ‘Children’s Circle’ section. Between 8 October 1965 and 17 July 1970, Pratchett wrote children’s stories, sometimes in weekly episodes. In total he wrote 247 episodes, amounting to 67 individual tales, all fantasy stories but none of them with titles. They have never been anthologised in print but most are accessible on a website (www.terrypratchett.weebly.com), where they are now given distinguishing titles. Some of the stories can be viewed as pdfs of the original newspaper, or as text-only documents, whatever suits the reader. None of the stories were written under Pratchett’s own name but they include Carpet People and other very Pratchett-like characters and situations, clearly showing the formation of the wit and wisdom of Discworld years before it was conceived. When one reads the stories today, one can detect glimmers of the Pratchett we have grown to know and love over the years, so they are worthy of some analysis here.
‘And, picking up their axes, they all walked off into the carpet, to chop down some big hairs to rebuild the village.’
(Part one of an untitled story from the Bucks Free Press)
It was on 8 October 1965 that Pratchett began a 12-part series that is now known as the original version of The Carpet People. It starts with the ash falling from a human’s cigarette, floating down to a thick carpet and being noticed by one of the Carpet People who is standing propped up against one of the carpet hairs, ‘which to him was as big as a tree’.
Straight away the story is upon us, but then it needed to be. Each instalment of an ‘Uncle Jim’ story was no more than the equivalent of one side of typed, single-spaced, A4 paper in length. So Pratchett had to engage with his audience straightaway, and the name Uncle Jim and the caveat Children’s Circle gave him clear parameters to work to.
There is something very Uncle Remus about Pratchett’s tone, as if one expects Brer Rabbit to pop up at any given moment – but perhaps he does, as the whimsical characters are there. In the third paragraph of the first episode of that original version of The Carpet People story, he writes: ‘… the carpet was bigger than a forest, and was full of cities, towns and small villages, castles and all sorts of tiny animals, even cunning and hairy bandits in the really thick parts…’ And there, 18 years before the first Discworld novel was published, was a flat world – a carpet – with fantastical creatures in a mystical – fantastical – setting. Indeed, there is a fairy-tale quality to all of Pratchett’s writing for the Bucks Free Press. In a way, he was recreating the Brothers Grimm short story, but without the menacing undertones.
The Brothers Grimm analogy is an interesting one, as the ancient folk tale was the origin of the fantasy story. Andrew Lang built upon this in a very late-Victorian type of way with his series of coloured Fairy Books, and Arthur Rackham built upon it even further by drawing and painting very sensual-looking fairies in anything from The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.* Pratchett was fully aware of all this and embraced – and parodied – much of this history of fairy tale/fantasy in his works. Because he had studied it so well, he could avoid fantasy or dip into it whenever he wanted. But with the Bucks Free Press stories, perhaps he was still getting the traditional values of fantasy out of his system; indeed, he wallowed in them sometimes.
On 31 December 1965, he wrote a two-part story (concluding on 7 January 1966) about a factory. The first thing that we note is the tea made by the apprentice in the factory: spoons can stand up in it because it’s so strong. There’s some delicate humour here but also some hard lessons in life, because part one of the story ends with the realisation that the factory – which manufactures a certain type of pin (shades of a pin-loving postman from Going Postal looming here perhaps) – will go out of business because it can’t mass produce its ‘thrist pin’. In fact, it can only produce one a year, while the new factory across the road can produce 50,000 a second.
The 12 books that make up Andrew Lang’s coloured Fairy Books are extremely important to the documentation of fairy stories. Most of the stories compiled by Lang had their first English-language publication in his books, with some translated by his wife. A full collection is extremely collectable in first editions. They are detailed in the Further Reading section of this book, along with other key works in the fantasy genre.
The moral of the story turns out to be that the one pin manufactured every year is used every year by the special machine that built it; nobody else anywhere needs such a pin. The company across the road had been built out of greed. They had failed to do any market research and found no demand at all for their product.
This very gentle but highly moralistic story has a similar blend of originality and morality as the best of Roald Dahl’s children’s novels, bearing in mind that Dahl’s first bestselling children’s novel was still about two years away.
Pratchett had instantly found a voice in Uncle Jim. He has since said that his career in journalism helped him as a novelist and this is clearly showcased through his Children’s Circle stories.
Another important example of Pratchett’s Uncle Jim stories is a one-episode story dating from 11 February 1966. It is significant because it demonstrates Pratchett’s interest in historical events and twisting them to his own comic ends. It takes the Industrial Revolution as the setting for the story, turning Isambard Kingdom Brunel (the Victorian engineer of railways and steam ships) into Isombard Nuisance Funnel, the inventor of the Steam-operated House. Pratchett’s sense of fun is there straight away, along with his ability to turn historical characters and facts on their head and create an ingenious, albeit very short, story into the bargain.
‘What we must invent,’ Funnel told the men in his factory, ‘is something that will work a lot better than this new-fangled electricity, and costs a lot less.’
(From a one-episode short story,
Bucks Free Press, 11 February 1966)
We can see how Uncle Jim taught Pratchett to keep things tight and succinct, as dictated by the word count for each episode, and although little attention is given to his Bucks Free Press stories nowadays, one should not overlook them, if only for their endearing fun.
It is true that Pratchett’s heart was firmly set on the fantasy and science fiction genres. He admits to watching the very first episode of Doctor Who on 23 November 1963, at exactly th
e same time he was reading so voraciously, so the combination of TV and literature was very important to him, as indeed was the cinema.
Every budding author is told to write about what they know, and Pratchett did that from day one. He had read The Wind in the Willows and The Lord of the Rings before sitting his school exams, and that awareness of the fantasy genre paid dividends when he began to write for the Bucks Free Press. His ‘bolshy’ attitude (let’s call it determination) fuelled his desire to be a creative writer, even though he would not arrive at the Discworld series until 15 years later. By then, however, he was refusing to churn out tried-and-tested fantasy material – he had outgrown all those clichés and he wasn’t afraid to say so.
‘Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact.’
William Shakespeare
(A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
CHAPTER TWO
What Happened Next
‘I never expected to make money.’
Terry Pratchett
In October 1968, Pratchett married Lyn Purves at the Congregational Church in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. He was 20 years old and his life was moving at lightning pace. He was still writing his column for the Bucks Free Press, along with other news items and features. Shortly before his marriage he interviewed Peter Bander van Duren, co-director of publishing company Colin Smythe Limited. Van Duren had edited a book about how the educational system would look over the next ten years (Looking Forward to the Seventies). It was during this meeting that Pratchett told van Duren that he had written a novel called The Carpet People and wondered if he would consider it for publication. Van Duren said that they would be interested and passed the manuscript to his co-director Colin Smythe.
It didn’t take long for Smythe to work out that they had a very talented young man on their hands, and he asked Pratchett to produce approximately 30 illustrations for his novel. Pratchett would draw and paint the illustrations throughout 1969 and 1970, and the book was published the month after his third wedding anniversary, in November 1971.
Smythe and van Duren wrote publicity material, the blurb on the inner flap of the book making it very tempting for younger readers: ‘There is magic in every carpet. Cities and villages exist right under your feet and the people who live there are so small that each tuft of wool stretches high above them like great trees.’
Although they are becoming less common today, up until the new millennium it was almost standard practice for publishers to hold a book launch for new and important titles. Journalists, editors and freelance reviewers would be invited along to raise a glass or two to the new release and meet the author. The launch for The Carpet People took place in the carpet department of the upmarket furniture store Heal’s on Tottenham Court Road in London. The trade turned up with their light blue invitations to the launch – the publicity folders had been illustrated by Pratchett – and were handed a cocktail called Essence of Underlay (the recipe for which, Colin Smythe tells us, is now lost). Large card images of the Carpet People were displayed in front of carpets in that department and Pratchett drew his characters on other sheets of card for the smattering of children who had accompanied their parents to the cheerful launch.
Pratchett also inscribed copies of the book for people, writing in Colin Smythe’s copy: ‘… and may his book make lots of money! Best wishes, Terry, 16 September 1971’. He also hand-painted all the illustrations in Smythe’s and van Duren’s copies in beautiful watercolours, and added other doodles and comments as well.
The Carpet People was printed in a run of 3,000 copies. It had a black dustwrapper with a central colour image of the creatures of the carpet eating a grain of sugar, again drawn and painted by Pratchett. The hardback boards were two-toned bronze and green, making an attractive, but slim, volume.
Despite the enthusiasm for the book, there were not many reviews. The ones that were printed were very good but they failed to stimulate sales. Most copies of the book were sold to libraries, making fresh, untarnished copies very rare today. Some copies of the book were sold to North America and have the original British price of £1.90 clipped off. These copies are not worth as much as priced UK copies.
Copies of Pratchett’s first novel remained in stock for many years, and were given new price labels until they eventually sold out. Pratchett collectors today keep an eye out for the super-rare copies of the book – no more than a dozen having colour illustrations painted by Pratchett, and only two known to have all the illustrations painted.
Pratchett has described his first novel as ‘The Lord of the Rings of the microscope’, and one can see in The Carpet People how ten years of feasting on fantasy novels had influenced his style.
What is interesting is that the young man didn’t launch himself into a frenzy of novel-writing from then on. He was a journalist and enjoyed his job immensely; the writing of books was just a hobby for winter evenings. He enjoyed drawing and painting too, illustrating his own book being the culmination of a skill that he had started to develop by embarking on an A level in art back at school.
On 28 September 1970, Pratchett moved from the Bucks Free Press to the Western Daily Press. He would return to the Bucks in 1972, but this time as sub-editor. On 3 September 1973 he moved on again, this time to the Bath Evening Chronicle. He was still involved with Colin Smythe Limited, attending occasional book launches and drawing cartoons – he provided a series of cartoons for their monthly journal Psychic Researcher up until 1975. These depicted the work of the fictitious government paranormal research establishment Warlock Hall, and one can imagine that Pratchett would enjoy exercising his satirical flair in these cartoons. Pratchett illustrated about 17 issues of Psychic Researcher and these remain some of his most obscure contributions to this day.
It is important to note Pratchett’s flair for art, from illustrating his first novel and drawing with children at his book launch, through to his cartoons in the Psychic Researcher. Today, the Josh Kirby dustwrappers to his books are eye-catching and as much a part of the Discworld series as the novels themselves, but one can instantly see a Pratchett character in the mind’s eye, as if it has been drawn for you, so one should never underestimate the importance of art in Pratchett’s life.
One could argue that Pratchett didn’t write any fantasy tales during the 1970s. The Carpet People had been written in the late 1960s, and his next novel – his only novel from the 1970s – The Dark Side of the Sun, would be a stab at a science fiction novel. This second book would be written during the evenings and published by Colin Smythe in 1976, shortly after the birth of Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna. The rest of the 1970s saw him continue his career in journalism and bring up his daughter, interspersed with intervals of serious gardening, one of Pratchett’s favourite pastimes. His passion for writing was now the day job, and his priorities had to change slightly with a young family to provide for. So it is interesting, then, that as soon as he gave up journalism, he started writing novels with a passion.
‘He says it gives the place a friendly and open aspect. Friendly and open aspect! I’ve seen keen gardeners break down and cry.’
(Eric)
CHAPTER THREE
And as if by Magic…
‘Technically I’m a humanist. I don’t believe in big beards in the sky, but I do believe there is an order.’
Terry Pratchett
While Pink Floyd were content to take you only to ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, Pratchett took you to The Dark Side of the Sun. OK, Pink Floyd didn’t tell you which moon exactly, but then again Pratchett didn’t tell you which sun.
Although Pratchett had a love affair with the fantasy genre, he also had a clear passion for science fiction too, and his second novel The Dark Side of the Sun showcased that well. Although a slim volume like all his early works (because he
was in full-time employment at the time), The Dark Side of the Sun turned as many science fiction clichés on their heads as his first Discworld novel would later do in the fantasy genre.*
Pratchett also drew the illustration for the dustwrapper of The Dark Side of the Sun.
In the 1960s Pratchett had been voraciously reading all the fantasy and science fiction he could and learning his trade as a journalist. By default he had become a writer of short fantasy stories, both at school and through the Uncle Jim column. Also, through Uncle Jim, the Carpet People had been born and the story tightened up for his first novel at the start of the 1970s. So there is a natural progression in Pratchett’s work.
Five years would pass between the publication of The Carpet People (1971) and The Dark Side of the Sun (1976), but one must remember that Pratchett was a professional journalist with a young family and the books were only a hobby. They weren’t generating serious money and wouldn’t until approximately the publication of Mort (1987), just over 20 years after writing his Uncle Jim column, but Pratchett didn’t expect them to.
The 1970s were a crucial part of the process that led to his Discworld books. The Dark Side of the Sun kept his hand in until he gave up journalism at the turn of the 1980s and he had time to write his second science fiction novel, Strata, which was – like The Carpet People – based on a discworld. But before we look at Pratchett’s life after journalism, let us take a look at The Dark Side of the Sun, as it raises some important issues regarding the divide between fantasy and science fiction and, more importantly, where Pratchett sees that divide.
