Sir Terry Pratchett has been in the news a lot recently, and not just for his extremely prolific writing career.

Following the publicity surrounding Bradford multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy and her campaign to ensure her husband would not be charged with any criminal offence if she sought to take part in an assisted suicide programme should her pain become too much to bear, Sir Terry weighed into the debate.

Writing in a national newspaper the author, who has been fighting a very public battle against Alzheimer’s, said: “I live in hope I can jump before I am pushed.”

The interview appeared a couple of days after I met Sir Terry at Bradford University, where he was receiving an honorary Doctor of Letters.

And I’m pleased to report that, despite the tone of his article and the subsequent publicity, Terry appears to be in no rush to shuffle off his mortal coil.

Speaking candidly about his Alzheimer’s, he spoke of the rather inevitable worry that at some point it will stop him doing the thing he loves – writing. He’s currently averaging two books a year and is also working on his autobiography.

But the 61-year-old has no intention of throwing in the towel just yet, despite the fact that his condition is already beginning to bite.

He said: “Because of my disease I can’t type very fast. I’ve been working with some voice recognition software which is coming along nicely… it does trip up sometimes, though, such as not knowing the difference between the word ‘pioneer’ and the phrase ‘pie on ear’…”

A former local newspaper journalist, Sir Terry said he never thought twice about making his illness public. He said: “I remember when a TV presenter died back in the 60s and his family came out and said publicly he had suffered from cancer. It wasn’t the done thing to say that at the time… people generally said they had ‘suffered from a long illness’.

“But, being a journalist, it never occurred to me to try to keep it secret in any way. I perhaps didn’t expect all the fuss that followed, but in the best tradition of fantasy fiction, once you know the demon’s name, it is easier to fight it.”

And fighting is what he does. He said determinedly: “There’s always going to be a next book. I tell myself, one day there will be a book that I don’t finish… but it isn’t going to be this book I’m working on.”

Sir Terry has written 36 comic fantasies set on Discworld – a flat world balanced on the back of four elephants, which in turn ride on a vast turtle swimming through space – as well as a slew of non-Discworld titles, including his children’s novel Nation, which has garnered huge praise and a clutch of awards.

And with the fame and fortune come the honours. He said: “Bradford will be, I think, the eighth Doctorate of Letters I have been given. It’s a huge honour for this to happen so many times.”

Looking every inch a character from one of his own books in the red gown and felt mortarboard he had temporarily swapped for his trademark black hat, Sir Terry was obviously delighted at being in Bradford and his enthusiasm about his work gave no clue that he was anything but in the peak of mental and physical health.

Sir Terry received his knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List announced at the close of last year, and in the best fantasy traditions, he is relishing being a Knight of the realm… with only one complaint. “The Queen didn’t give me a sword, which I was quite disappointed about,” he said with a twinkle. “So I’m making my own. I went to where iron ore is mined and collected my own, and it’s now being smelted into a sword.”

Only a handful of authors working in a genre such as fantasy make it to the status of household names, and Sir Terry has certainly done that, thanks in no small part to the television adaptations of his work, which have included Hogfather, starring David “Del Boy” Jason.

Many people, of course, will be familiar with him after he “went public” with his Alzheimer’s in 2007, and a subsequent two-part television documentary which followed him on a quest to find out about his illness and what advances are being made to combat it.

But the writing’s the thing. Sir Terry was born in Beaconsfield in 1948 and went to High Wycombe Technical High School, displaying his writing talent from an early age – he made his first professional sale of a short story when he was just 13. He used the proceeds to buy a typewriter, and by 1971 had sold his very first book – The Carpet People.

He counts among his fans both “hardcore” fantasy readers and a wide range of people who wouldn’t usually number themselves as aficionados of the genre. With his aforementioned hat and bushy white beard, he is a regular sight at conventions and when he does a book signing the queues often snake out of the shop and around the block.

On his website, Sir Terry gives a potted history of his Discworld phenomenon: “It started out as a parody of all the fantasy that was around in the big boom of the early ‘80s, then turned into a satire on just about everything, and even I don’t know what it is now. I do know that in that time there’s been at least four people promoted as ‘new Terry Pratchetts’ so for all I know I may not even still be me.”

It’s a joke, of course, but one invested with a certain poignancy given Sir Terry’s Alzheimer’s. For now, though, on the evidence of our meeting, I’m happy to say that Terry Pratchett certainly seems to be Terry Pratchett. And, for Terry Pratchett, there’s always going to be a next book… and hopefully another… and another… and another.