Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [262]
But I enjoyed being out with William. He’s good fun. They all are. And they are at the stage when they respond with an infectious over-enthusiasm to everything new. Willy is absolutely dying to go to America. He says he wants to live there now.
Dropped in to see Graham in Southwood Lane. He came out of hospital yesterday and is not supposed to drink ever again. He looked sallow and tense. It’s going to be a great struggle for him. Barry Cryer was there too. We sat and sipped tea and Barry and I joked rather forcibly. It seemed the only thing to do at the time.
If the next few entries sound a little different in tone – a little forced, a little self-conscious – it’s probably because they were deliberately written for publication. As a way of garnering material for the book of the Life of Brian, it was agreed that all of us would keep a daily diary of our time in Barbados. The six different accounts of the same working holiday would then be interestingly compared and contrasted. In the end, however, only Terry Jones and myself (both diarists already) played the game.
Saturday, January 7th, Barbados
On the flight out, a sensational game of Scrabble with Dr Chapman.
Graham, after some deliberation, led off with the word ‘fep’. I didn’t challenge it immediately, thinking either that it was possibly the prelude to a longer word – feppicle, fepid, fepidicular – or perhaps a medical term which it would betray appalling ignorance to challenge. But it was Graham who looked most puzzled by it and after a while replaced the ‘p’ with a ‘w’.
The game then surged on by ‘ys’ and ‘ands’ until Graham selflessly dropped his letters. All were retrieved, apart from the ‘z’, which is wedged for eternity between the seats of the upstairs lounge of a jumbo jet. Stewards and stewardesses with torches and screwdrivers tried to help out, and to anyone who came up the stairs for a quiet read and saw a large group of people clustered on the floor around a seat which had been entirely removed from its base, we smiled and assured them we were just playing Scrabble.
We reached Barbados an hour before sunset – a little after half past five their time. Drove along lanes with sugar cane plantations on either side and neat, white signposts with names on long arms.
Our way wound up the west coast of the island and from Bridgetown north it was a dense collection of hotels, shops, clubs, some discreetly set away behind shrubberies and palm groves.
Down one such turning is Heron Bay, built by Sir Ronald Tree. Our first sight of our home for the next two weeks is a sensational surprise. Its scale is breathtaking – wrought iron gates, marble floors, piano nobiles – the full Palladian bit. All built in 1947.
Through the hall, a table is set for dinner beneath an enormous hanging lantern. Mighty columns thirty-feet-high rise above us and balustraded staircases lead up to the piano nobile. On either side of the main house run two colonnades, off which are our bedrooms. All furnished and decorated tastefully and individually. In the centre of the courtyard are three huge spreading trees which cover the whole area in lush greenery.
John spreads himself across a huge, soft, cushion-filled sofa and declares ‘This is what my whole life has been leading up to.’
We are greeted by servants, one an old, leathery-faced Barbadian who is introduced to us as ‘Brown’, but the two Terrys prefer to call him ‘Mr’ Brown, which is probably a terrible insult.
Churchill has stayed here and there’s a photo of Eden and signed photos of impressive looking men in medals and uniforms. Perhaps a Richard Avedon photo of the five nude Pythons would look a little out of place among such company.
Whilst John, Eric, Terry J and myself are lying disbelievingly amongst fine things and wondering whether to set up a preparatory school here (John wants to be maths master), Terry Gilliam (whom we have designated as sports master) is eating the local apples. They’re very small, they fall with sharp little whacks from the spreading trees in the courtyard,