When Douglas Adams died of a heart attack on this day nine years ago, I imagine he would have said “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
Adams was a writer, dramatist, musician, environmental activist and an avid fan of technology who has been quoted extensively in the media.
When Douglas Adams died of a heart attack on this day nine years ago, I imagine he would have said “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
Adams was a writer, dramatist, musician, environmental activist and an avid fan of technology who has been quoted extensively in the media.
The title of his novel, So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish, has been used as headline or catchphrase in various media across the world.
Certainly in Grahamstown these words have adorned many news pages, from Grocott’s Mail to Cue and SciCue.
Adams entered the world on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge, England and obtained his BA and MA in English literature at Cambridge University.
He is best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which started off in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy, but was rapidly transformed into a series of five books which sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime.
The book became a television series, a computer game and a number of stage plays before becoming a major motion picture in 2005.
It received first place on the UK bestseller list and in 1983 Adams became the youngest author since Anne Frank to be awarded a Golden Pan award after the book sold one million copies.
Adams’ work includes The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980); Life,The Universe and Everything (1982); So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish (1984); Mostly Harmless (1992); Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (1988).
He also wrote The meaning of Liff in 1984 with British author John Lloyd. In 1990 Adams teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine to write his personal favourite Last Chance to See, which is about the search for rare and endangered animal species across the world.
Adams played the piano and guitar left-handed, and when he died he had a collection of twenty-four left-handed guitars.
His official biography borrows its title from the Pink Floyd song Wish you were here. Adams was friends with Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, who performed at Adams’ memorial service in 2001.
When Adams turned 42 in October 1994 he played guitar on the Division Bell tour as a birthday present. The fictional rock group Disaster Area in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is based on the extravagant stage shows of Pink Floyd.
Disaster Area was “not only the loudest rock band in the galaxy, but in fact the loudest noise of any kind”. Douglas Adams’ creativity and originality have had a great impact on the literature of his lifetime. He is often quoted by writers and journalists for having said, “I love deadlines.
I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” Evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins quoted Adams in his book The God Delusion: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”
Adams described himself as a“radical atheist”. When Adams died Dawkins delivered the following words: “Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender.”
Adams was cremated and his ashes were placed in the Highgate Cemetery in North London in June 2002.
Adams is survived by his wife, Jane Belson, his daughter Polly Jane Rocket Adams, and a great collection of words and memories to help us chase the meaning of life, and have fun while we’re at it.
