Michael Palin: ‘We live life with our fingers crossed’
telegraph.co.ukMonty Python, then in his second career as a travel writer and explorer – it’s almost unsettling to see how much he still looks like the young actor who shaped the world of comedy in the 1970s and ’80s, despite being 79, a knight of the realm and a grandfather of four.The house is warren-like, slightly haphazardly arranged; Palin explains that it’s two terraced houses merged into one.
He has lived here with his wife, Helen, for more than 50 years. Upstairs, his study is large and bright and book-lined, slightly donnish with wooden shelves and the collected tchotchke of a long life.
He’s a serious reader and spends a while discussing favourite novels.I’d noticed a walking stick propped beside the stairs and Palin tells me that Helen, whom he married in 1966, has been suffering with ill health, pain that has not responded to medication.
She is in respite care nearby. ‘I don’t think you can cure it, but they will help her manage it,’ Palin tells me. ‘It’s such a bore.
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