Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [9]
In 1966 my parents (Edward ‘Ted’ Palin and Mary Palin, née Ovey) retired to the village of Rey don, just outside Southwold in Suffolk. Southwold had already played a big part in my life, for it was on the beach here in 1939 that I first summoned up the courage to talk to a tall, slim, mischievous-looking girl called Helen Gibbins. This led to a holiday romance, which led to marriage, in 1966, and birth of son Thomas (now known to everyone as Tom). The different names I use for my father show, I suppose, how my relationship with him changed as I grew older and the children came along. In these early entries he is, as often as not, ‘Daddy’, as he had been throughout my childhood, but I was also trying out the more formal (and grown-up) ‘Father’, and later, seeing him through my children’s eyes, he was to become ‘Grandfather’.
Sunday, August 10th, Southwold
The weather again very fine and warm, and the lunchtime bathe was once more an enjoyment rather than a challenge. In the afternoon, Daddy and I walked from Potter’s Bridge, on the Lowestoft Road, across uncharted fields to the sea at Easton Bavents – the seaward limit of Reydon Smear. Here I bathed again. The sun was shining down, undiluted by any wind, as we walked back through the barley fields to the car, the road smelling of melting tar. In the evening D went to sing his second anthem of the day at S’wold Church – his activities as a chorister seem to be about the only outside activity he can partake in. He can’t swim, or pull the bells, or even ride his bicycle. Suddenly, from being very active, he is a spectator. Since his coronary in 1964 he has had confirmed Parkinson’s Disease (for which a possible cure, L-Dopa, was mentioned in the Sunday Times today), back ailments, etc, etc, and has aged very rapidly.
We ate salmon and drank a bottle of white wine for supper, and afterwards Helen and I walked along the sea front. For the record, it is ten years, almost to the day, that we first met here.
Monday, August 18th
Started off for the TV Centre in some trepidation, for this was the first day’s filming, and, in fact, the first day’s working, with John Howard Davies, our producer for the first three shows. However, as it turned out, the day could hardly have gone better.
John has an unfortunate manner at first – rather severe and school-prefectish – but he really means very well. He consulted us all the way along the line and took our suggestions and used nearly all of them. He also worked fast and by the end of the day we had done the entire ‘Confuse-a-Cat’ film, a very complicated item, and we had also finished the ‘Superman’ film. All this was helped by an excellent location – a back garden in a neat, tidy, completely and utterly ‘tamed’ piece of the Surrey countryside – Edenfield Gardens, Worcester Park.
Wednesday, August 20th, Southwold
At 8.30, John and Terry, in the Rover, and Eric and myself, in Eric’s Alfa Romeo, set off for sun, fun and filming in Suffolk.
Terry and I went round to the Lord Nelson, a pub almost on the cliffs. A step down took us into a warm, low-ceilinged room, which seemed to be mainly full of locals. The barman recognised us from ‘Do Not Adjust’, so we felt even more at home there. Ended up drinking about three and a half pints each and leaving at ten past eleven in the traditional convivial manner.
Back at the Craighurst (Hotel), Terry giggled so long and loud that Heather, the production secretary, thought I had a woman in my room.
Thursday, August 21st, Southwold
A very plentiful, well-cooked breakfast at the Craighurst, and then out to Covehithe, where we filmed for most of the day. The cliffs are steep and crumbling there and the constant movement of BBC personnel up and down probably speeded coastal erosion by a good few years.
Mother and Father turned up during the morning and appeared as crowd in one of the shots.
In the afternoon heavy dark clouds came up and made filming a little slower. We ended up pushing a dummy newsreader off the harbour wall, and I had to swim out and rescue this drifting newsreader,