Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [69]
Took a day and a half’s break in Southwold – having time off from immediate commitments. On the train at Liverpool Street – a late start, but the train tore through Essex to make up time. I ate breakfast and read the paper. Peace, perfect peace.
Met by Mother and Father in the car. Now he doesn’t drive long distances. A few weeks ago he had a skid on the way home, and it clearly worries him greatly. He is also very worried about being left at home alone. Apparently he watched a TV programme about Parkinson’s Disease, and at the end was almost in tears, and kept telling Ma how lucky he was to have her.
He is now definitely thinking of himself as an invalid, the times when he tries to make out how incredibly active and busy he is are getting fewer. I think he knows now that taking an hour to dress is a long time for an active man. He is aware of his mind and his concentration drifting. He cannot grasp any concept, statement, idea, argument that isn’t utterly straightforward.
My mother looked well, I think she is almost happier now that she knows that all she can do for him is just to look after him. When he was fit and well, it must have been more difficult for her to accept that there was hardly any sympathetic contact between them, now he is more an invalid, their relationship is at least clear-cut.
Thursday, March 1st
In the afternoon we went to see Mark Shivas at the BBC. He hopes to have either James Cellan Jones or Ted Kotcheff to direct our’Black and Blue’script. Talking of the future, he showed considerable interest in the Pythons’ second film – and suggested a man called David Puttnam1 as a source of money. Terry afterwards thought Shivas himself might have been interested in the producer’s job. He seems very confident in us – when we mentioned to him about the waiter script which we have been working on, he said he could almost certainly get a ‘Play for Today’ slot for it – which is the kind of talk we’re not yet used to.
Saturday, March 3rd
I went out shopping in Queen’s Crescent market before lunch. In many ways it’s a sad place – you notice especially old, shuffling ladies, poorly dressed, with twitching mouths. You hardly ever see them in Hampstead or Belsize Park. These are people who make a complete and utter mockery of ‘democracy’ and ‘equality’ – they’re the casualties of the primitive rules of competition which run our society, and the welfare state just keeps them alive. That’s all.
Take Thomas and William on to Parliament Hill. It’s the English cross-country championships, quite a sight. Over 1,000 runners streaming round the Heath. It was like a Boy’s Own story. David Bedford – the hero who failed at Munich – was leading the field, as he ran lightly down the hill a foot or so away from us.
Behind Bedford trailed hundreds of runners with no hope. Men whose chins were already flecked with white dried spittle, small, bespectacled balding men with shoulders smartly back, lank, long-haired boys striding down the hill like Daddy-Long-Legs. We moved up to the top of the hill to watch the second lap, and Thomas was running all over the place in his little green duffel coat, trying to emulate the runners. The sun came out as they ran around the second time, and the Heath suddenly seemed small as the long line of multicoloured vests stretched as far as the eye could see. Bedford was pipped in the second lap by a New Zealander. It was an exhilarating feeling to have been present at a big national sporting event, without having to pay any money, squeeze through any turnstiles and sit where one’s told.
Sunday, March 4th
My parents have been married forty-two years. I wonder how many of those were happy.
Sitting writing my diary up in the afternoon when there is a noise outside. A parade with banners passes up Lamble Street towards the new blocks at Lismore Circus – a loudspeaker van follows up. It urges non-payment of the extra 85p a week rent, made necessary by the government’s Fair Rent Act. Camden was one of the last boroughs in the country to give in to this act. It’s good