Back in 2009, I had the honour of meeting Sir Terry Pratchett, when he was receiving an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Bradford.

It was one of those meetings that made me feel privileged to be a journalist, and have the opportunity of meeting my heroes.

I'd discovered him when I was about 13 and I read The Colour of Magic, the first of his comic fantasy Discworld novels, and he'd seemed to be an ever-present figure in my life from then on, even when I'd drifted away from his novels (and then, later on, drifted back again).

By the time I'd eventually met him in the September of 2009 - he'd been knighted in the Queen's New Year honours that year, and confided to me: "The Queen didn’t give me a sword, which I was quite disappointed about" - his battle against Alzheimer's was already well-documented after he'd gone public with it in 2007.

A couple of days before we met - he was resplendent in his red gown and mortarboard, which he'd temporarily swapped for his trademark wide-brimmed black hat - Sir Terry had written in a national newspaper about the assisted suicide debate that was then surrounding Bradford multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy.

He was a former local newspaper journalist, which always gave me hope that one day I, too, would follow in his path and become a proper, published author. His previous career helped him make the decision to go public about his Alzheimer's.

He said to me: “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.”

Sir Terry fought Alzheimer's by never stopping writing. I think he's had maybe 10 books out since we did that interview eight years ago.

He told me how he kept himself going: "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 was utterly lovely and charming, and didn't even look at me like I was an idiot when I offered him two of my own books to take away with him. He even asked me to sign them before giving them to his ever-present assistant, Rob.

Yesterday, Sir Terry died, and there isn't going to be a next book. We have lost a wonderful writer and a lovely chap, and a man who - quite rightfully - was angry at the Alzheimer's.

But, sword or no sword, it didn't take him without a fight, and it never robbed him of what he loved doing the most - writing.