Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [20]
Saturday, May 23rd
4.00 a.m. A soft light in the sky, fresh smells, and the far-off sound of a car, then silence again. Shown out of the back door of the Links by a night porter, a quick cup of black coffee and one of last night’s sandwiches, then into the car and off to London. Even at 4.30, the roads coming south were very busy, but the Devonshire countryside at 5.00 looked so beautiful that I kept wanting to stop.
Hardly any traffic going my way, but plenty going west as I tore over the Salisbury Plain. Stopped at a lay-by overlooking Stonehenge, and drank more black coffee and ate the remainder of the sandwiches. By 7.45 I was on the outskirts of London. By 8.45, 270 minutes and 214 miles later, I was back home. Thomas was standing on the bathroom stool cleaning his teeth, with no trouser bottoms on. I just cried, I was so pleased to see him.
Sunday, June 7th
Terry and I had to spend the morning working on another of our small-earning sidelines. This time it was a rewrite of a film called ‘How to Use a Cheque Book’ for the Midland Bank.
Thursday, June 18th
General election day. Ideal polling weather, dry with warm sunshine. Every public opinion poll in the last two months had put Labour clearly ahead – the only possible shadow on the horizon was a 1½% swing to the Tories published in the latest opinion poll – taken after the publication of the worst trade figures for over a year, and Britain’s exit from the World Cup last Sunday. Nevertheless, everything looked rosy for Labour when I left Julia St at 10.00 to go down to Camberwell.
The morning’s work interrupted by the delivery of a large amount of dung. We were sitting writing at Terry’s marble-topped table under a tree sheltering us from the sun. All rather Mediterranean. Suddenly the dung-carriers appeared. Fat, ruddy-faced, highly conversational and relentlessly cheerful, they carried their steaming goodies and deposited them at the far end of Terry’s garden. As they passed I gleaned that they had come from Reading, that they had started loading at 5 p.m., that one of them was about to go on holiday to Selsey Bill – his first holiday for seven years. After about twenty-five tubfuls they were gone, but at least they left a sketch behind.1
When I turned on the election I heard that in two results there was already a confirmed swing to the Conservatives. I watched until about 2.30, when it was obvious that the opinion polls were wildly wrong – the country had swung markedly to the right. Edward Heath, perhaps more consistently written-off than any Opposition leader since the war, consistently way behind Wilson in popularity, was the new Prime Minister.
My feelings are mixed. What I fear is a shift to the right in the national psyche; there are many good and honest and progressive Conservatives, but there are many, many more who will feel that this election has confirmed their Tightness in opposing change, student demonstrations, radicalism of any kind. There are also those who will take the Tory victory as an encouragement to ban immigration (Enoch Powell doubled his majority), bring back hanging, arm the police force, etc, etc.
The Labour government was courageous and humane in abolishing hanging, legalising abortion, reforming the laws against homosexuals, making the legal process of divorce less unpleasant, and banning the sale of arms to South Africa. I am very sad that they are out of power, especially as I fear that it is on this record of progressive reform that they have been ousted.
To bed at 3.00. A long, hot day.
Friday, June 26th
Yesterday we recorded the first of the new Monty Python series.