Remembering Douglas

Twenty-one years ago everything changed when Douglas Adams, my friend and my boss, died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack, aged just 49. 

I had worked as Douglas’s personal assistant since 1996, and, when he moved to the US to focus on the Hollywood movie of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I divided my time between my flat in South London and his beautiful family home in a suburb of Santa Barbara.

On May 10th 2001, I flew home from California, having first accompanied Douglas on a keynote event in the weird and very wonderful town of Sedona, Arizona and spent the following day enjoying catching up with family and friends in London. It was a gorgeous, warm blue-sky Spring day. 

Then came the incomprehensible call from Douglas’s wife, Jane, to tell me he had died. 

I had to break the news to various close colleagues and friends. My mobile went crazy – calls from news agencies around the world wanting to confirm the tragic rumours. I flew straight back to California, where I stayed for several weeks.

The death of a close friend is horrific, but nothing prepares you for the death of your job. Your reason for getting up every morning, your daily routine, the boring bits, the fun times – the payslip at the end of the month. It all but vanished overnight. 

I was fortunate enough to be involved in various posthumous projects – a book of previously unpublished works, a biography and a documentary, but a bit like a funeral, the one person, the pivotal person everyone wants there, isn’t. And that leaves a permanent gaping hole.

Working with Douglas wasn’t your typical nine to five and what followed was months – years actually - of short-term contracts, sleepless nights spent, trying to work out where my skillset really lay and eventually finding my feet again. 

Twenty-one years later, Douglas would, I’m sure, be so pleased that I’ve established myself as a writer - nothing even close to his calibre or genre of course, but every day I get to write for clients of all types and sizes - and I love it.

I think of Douglas often, especially on this dreadful anniversary, and I still miss him, but how lucky we are to have been left with his incredible writing and so many memories of his humour, his passion for music, good food and wine, conservation - and conversation.