AN OXFORD playwright has spoken of his grief after the death of his writing partner and friend Sir Terry Pratchett.

Stephen Briggs spent the past 25 years working with the best-selling author, who died on Thursday aged 66.

Sir Terry wrote more than 70 novels and Mr Briggs recorded audiobooks as well as bringing dozens of them to the stage, including at the Unicorn Theatre in Abingdon.

He said: “For me it’s been a wonderful time with Terry over the last 25 years.

Our top stories

“We became good friends. He was a lovely and supportive man.

“I saw him two weeks ago. I went down to his house and pottered in to see him, and he wasn’t well then.

“He will leave a large gap in the world.”

Oxford Mail:

Sir Terry Pratchett.

Mr Briggs, a member of the Headington-based Studio Theatre Club, said: “I first wrote to him through amdram and asked if we could stage one of his books. We were the first in the world to stage any of his stuff.

“I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. It’s a real privilege to be a part of creating even a small part of his wonderful world, and it’s something which I never take for granted.”

Sir Terry told the Oxford Mail in 2013 that Mr Briggs “just got” his Discworld novels and joked that he enjoyed getting free tickets to performances.

Mr Briggs said: “It was a lot of fun to be around him.

His skewed view of the world was there in everything.

“He was always looking at things in a different way, like a cracked mirror perspective.”

After being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2007, Sir Terry publicly campaigned for the right to die in the UK and to raise awareness for dementia.

Mr Briggs said: “Terry would certainly want to think if anything positive could come out of this it would be to keep the debate going and get changes made in the law.”

He added he was planning to carry on adapting Sir Terry’s work for future generations to enjoy.