Happy Hogswatch and a Special Guest Announcement!
25 December 2017
Greetings and Happy Hogswatch to one and all! On behalf of everyone at ConCom please allow me to wish you a very merry festive season, no matter what or how you are celebrating.
With the festivities and merriment in full sway, we won't keep you long but we have one more important announcement to make—the aforementioned Special Guest Announcement. As those who have read the Hogswatch Newsletter for Members may be aware, we are most delighted to confirm that Bernard Pearson will be a Guest at the 2018 Convention!
A close friend of Sir Terry himself—who named him as the Cunning Artificer—Bernard has always been a much beloved figure, long regarded as much of the life and soul of the Convention. Indeed, he holds the honour of being the only guest so popular that, in the rush to fit into a reading of Where’s My Cow, he brought down the house1 in a slightly more literal fashion than is usually intended!
Together with his wife Isobel, in 1980 he opened a pottery in Suffolk and named it 'Clare Craft Pottery’. Ten years later, through their work as potters and makers of things they met up with Terry Pratchett. Already fans of the books, the opportunity they were given to bring to life some of the characters from Discworld was like a dream come true. A range of figurines produced by Clare Craft was just the beginning and Bernard then went on to create as many Unreal Estate buildings and artefacts as Terry had space for. He then developed the ‘Pre-dribbled candle for the wizard in a hurry’ and too many other curiosities to list. Having filled keen collectors houses to bursting point with all manner of Discworld paraphernalia Terry’s suggestion that he might make something smaller that required less dusting coincided with the publication of Going postal and thus in 2004 the phenomenon of Discworld stamps was born.
In 2000, Bernard and Isobel established The Discworld Emporium in Wincanton. Now run by their dear friends and partners Reb Voyce and Ian Mitchell, it has become a meeting place for Discworld Fans from all over the world.
These days, Bernard’s life has taken more of a retiring role; he draws a bit, reads a lot and misses with heavy heart the phone calls, the convivial lunches and the companionship of someone who changed his life and made it such fun.
1 Well, a door at least.