Salisbury museum to host Terry Pratchett exhibition

A museum curator has revealed how a forthcoming exhibition dedicated to Sir Terry Pratchett has inspired people to book flights “from all across the world” to see it.

Richard Henry is organizing Terry Pratchett: His World at the Salisbury Museum in Wiltshire, with the help of the author’s estate and his artist of choice, Paul Kidby, whose many designs will feature on display. The exhibition will also include artwork by Pratchett, creator of the Discworld fantasy series, and personal items which have never previously been on public display.

Henry said the exhibition “came about organically” and will be the largest ever hosted by the museum in Pratchett’s hometown. Henry sent out a release earlier this month “as a ‘save the date’ because people are now booking flights around it” and it will run from 16th September to 13th January.

The exhibition curator told The Bookseller: “It’s a really special thing. It’s hard not to be excited. It will be the biggest exhibition that the museum’s ever done... The reaction has been incredible and we’ve seen on Twitter how people have been booking flights from America and all over the world to come to see it. Some seem to be basing their holidays around it.”

Henry, an archaeologist, revealed: “Exhibitions are normally organised by pitching an idea but, fittingly for Terry, this kicked off with a sword. Terry got a sword made because when he became a knight [in 2009] he decided all good knights needed one. We started working with the two men who helped him to make his sword: Jake Keen, an experimental iron-melter and master blacksmith Hector Cole. There were a number of archaeological discoveries – we managed to trace the meteorite in Terry’s sword -  and then we spoke to his family, and a few weeks later it had grown into an exhibition about Sir Terry Pratchett. This is not normally how it works, there are usually more meetings and pitching, but it’s exciting that it’s grown so organically and very fitting.”

The curator is delighted to be displaying the writer’s important personal items. He said: “We have things like his hat, sword, and stick accompanied by information all in his own words. There will also be a variety of badges and medals including his Carnegie medal [won in 2001] as well as his Blue Peter badge. We’ve also got Terry’s [former assistant and business manager] Rob Wilkins involved. It is such a lovely exhibition to curate, it’s really special. The aim is to give an insight into the man himself. We have his first typewriter and his first short story and designs by Kidby and everything in between.”

Henry met the author three times and first developed a passion for reading from Pratchett's books. He said: “It took me a long time to discover reading when I was younger and it was only when I got a copy of Truckers (Corgi Children’s) when I was 10 that I got into into it. Terry means so much to so many different levels of people and for different reasons: not just his books but also his experience of Alzheimer’s.”

Pratchett died in 2015 after being diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer’s, Posterior Cortical Atrophy, in 2007.

There is a concurrent exhibition, The Charmed Realm by Kidby, running in the museum’s print room from 2nd September until 6th January. Kidby has designed the Discworld book jackets since 2002.

For more information, visit www.salisburymuseum.org.uk/.