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Michael Palin opens up about his grief two years on from the death of his beloved wife Helen Gibbins and says he still talks out loud to her
Michael Palin has opened up about his grief two years on from the death of his beloved wife Helen.
The Monty Python star, 82, was married to Helen for 57 years after meeting as teenagers on holiday in Suffolk.
The mother of their three children — Thomas, 56, William, 53, and Rachel, 49 — had been suffering chronic pain for several years and then developed kidney failure.
She passed away at the Marie Curie Hospice in Hampstead, north London, on May 2, 2023.
Speaking to Saga magazine, Michael said he feels grief now and is able to focus on keeping the spirit of Helen around.
'I can see why people say it takes two years or so before your response gradually changes,' he said. 'It becomes less about loss and more about the spirit of that person being around, so that's very nice.
'I feel less grief now, and more that I've got to keep on doing things, looking after the children we made together.
He continued: 'I talk to myself as if she's there. I'll show some spectacular bit of incompetence that I know she would have found funny, then I'll hear myself saying something in the way she would have said it and I'll laugh, even though I'm the only one there.
'Imagining her being there makes me laugh.'
Asked if he thought finding love again was on the cards, Michael said: 'We were a unit for so long. You can never begin to replace a relationship which lasted 60 years.
'I'm OK living on my own, then I go off to Venezuela or somewhere. I'm not moping.'
On living alone, he added: 'I didn't want to be dependent on the family to come around every day. I don't cook, unfortunately. There were various areas like that where I thought I might be a bit vulnerable.
'But it turns out I'm quite good at being on my own. The other person who guides me through that is actually Helen.'
Sir Michael and Helen met at the seaside town of Southwold when they were 16.
They reconnected by chance in the actor's first year at Oxford University, before marrying at the age of 22.
While the BBC TV director was suffering from kidney failure, Sir Michael was travelling to make documentaries about North Korea and Iraq for Channel 5 after he left the BBC in 2012.
But in September, Sir Michael expressed regret over this, saying: 'I don't have regrets really. Perhaps towards the end, when I was doing the later travel journeys like North Korea.
'I don't think she particularly wanted me to go away then, but she knew that my interest in travel and other people was very deep-seated, it wasn't because I wanted to get away from home — it wasn't that at all.'
The Pole To Pole author recently released a book, There And Back, of his diaries which he said helped him cope with his wife's health issues.
He said: 'Helen was ill for a couple of years, so it wasn't a sudden death, and I was helping her and caring for her through a lot of pain.
'Writing this down helped me to deal with it. I needed to remember all that.'
Last year the actor heartbreakingly admitted that his late wife's clothes were still hanging 'in the cupboard' as they make it feel as if she was 'still here'.
Almost two years since his agonising loss, Michael told how he likes to see her belongings around their home as it reminds him of the time they spend together, with the star adding that it's the reason he will never move.
Speaking in an interview with The Times, Michael said on the possibility of moving: 'I don't feel that way - at the moment, anyway. Everything around me has a story or something that reminds me of time we spent together, not in a maudlin way'.
'Just they are the props of your life. Get rid of all those props and I'd be in a different play, playing a different character. And I don't want to do that.
'I know it seems odd, but I carry on as though Helen is still here. Her clothes are still in the cupboards. I don't want to change my life, because I feel she wouldn't want that either. It's still a nice house to come back to. I feel her presence here.'
After almost six decades of marriage to the love of his life, Michael went on to say that he couldn't imaging starting a relationship with anyone new as he was still 'bereft' over losing Helen.
He shared: 'I shared my life with someone for so long that I find it impossible to think of sharing it in the same way with anyone else again. So in a way, I'm sort of freer.'
The TV personality said he found it 'odd' with her not around, especially when coming home from the theatre or dinner and wanting to tell her about his experience.
He added that he misses 'the little things' about their relationship, adding that he still finds it 'very difficult' without her - especially when it comes to cooking.
