Former Monty Python star Michael Palin said he still mourns the loss of his childhood sweetheart, Helen Gibbins last year – just weeks after their 57th wedding anniversary.
Sir Michael, 80, described his wife as the ‘bedrock of his life’. The pair met aged 16 while on holiday with their parents and got married in their 20s, spending almost six decades together.
He said he struggles with the ‘foreverness of it’ and said life without his lifelong companion feels ‘unreal’.
The couple had three children. She was 80 when she died on May 2, 2023 having battled with kidney failure for several years.
A chance meeting while on holiday with their families aged 16 led to a lifelong love affair.
Former Monty Python star Sir Michael Palin, pictured right, has said he is still struggling to come to terms with the death of his late wife Helen Gibbins, pictured left, who died last year aged 80
The TV legend, pictured, said he hopes to continue recording his travel documentaries while in good health
Sir Michael, pictured, has been interviewed by John Wilson for BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life on Thursday at 11am
He told The Mirror: ‘We were both 16, and we married in our early 20s… Helen was the bedrock of my life. Her quietly-wise judgment informed all my decisions and her humour and practical good sense was at the heart of our life together.’
He continued: ‘It is kind of dealing with the foreverness of it.
‘That it is forever.”
In an interview broadcast later this week on BBC Radio 4, Sir Michael explains that he and his fellow Python stars are still good friends – despite reports of a feud.
Former Python star Eric Idle has publicly criticised their manager Holly Gilliam, daughter of Terry Gilliam.
‘We see each other but not as often. I see Terry Gilliam as he lives close by. John lives in various parts of the world, I am not quite sure where, and Eric lives in America.
‘We are not that close, but when we get together, we talk about “that thing” as if it was like a long affair from years ago, and we get rather tearful. Python is still selling around the world, not what it used to, [but] it achieved success that none of us would have dreamed of.’
Now Sir Michael is better known for his epic travel adventures which he hopes to continue.
Sir Michael married Helen Gibbins in 1966
Michael Palin, pictured with his wife Helen at the Bafta Awards on March 19, 1989
The couple had three children, pictured here at home in 1980
‘I have always kept fit, and especially with the travel, you really have to be,” he explains. “I had open heart surgery in 2019. I had a little problem with the valves being loose. I have got a pacemaker in and all sorts of wonderful stuff. It is like one of the machines in one of the Python films that went “Ping!”
‘So as long as I can, I will use my good health to carry on being able to travel, or write.
‘I am 80 now and there has to be a point where you to sort of leave it to the younger generation.’
Sir Michael’s interview with John Wilson will broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life on Thursday at 11am.
During the interview, Sir Michael discusses his early influences and the impact of radio comedy with shows such as Spike Milligan’s The Goon Show.
He also describes his work on David Frost’s satirical The Frost Report – where he first met John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle.
Sir Michael, pictured, said he plans to continue working on travel documentaries while in good health
Sir Michael and Helen met as teenagers when they were both on summer holidays in Southwold, Suffolk, where they were staying in neighbouring cottages with their families.
He described Helen as a ‘vision of rebellion’ when he first met her and admitted their romance quickly blossomed, according to The Telegraph.
Michael was living in Sheffield at the time while Helen was in Cambridgeshire, but the pair remained in touch by writing letters and met again the following summer.
They were then reunited on Michael’s first day at Oxford University, where Helen was visiting her friend for the weekend, with fate bringing them together once again.
Recalling the reunion, Michael said: ‘You can see fate was actually tightening the screws on us very hard at that time.
The couple first met when they were 16 years old in the seaside town of Southwold, but thanks a shared sense of humour, Sir Michael said that their relationship ‘got better as time went on.’
In recent years Sir Michael would regularly be asked in interviews about the secret to a long and happy marriage and his heartwarming answers would usually focus on how well they got on.
‘What we liked about each other then we still like now. I can’t imagine life without her,’ he told the Telegraph in 2018.
It was a whirlwind romance which he later used as the basis for his loosely autobiographical 1987 drama East of Ipswich, which is set to air tonight on BBC Four.
Speaking on The Jonathan Ross Show in 2019, Sir Michael recounted the sweet moment he first met Helen, who would go on to be his life partner.
He said: ‘I met his girl on holiday when I was 15 years old, she was 16. We had a holiday romance.
‘A year later, she was back in the same little Suffolk town and the romance got a bit more intense, we held hands.
‘And then the third year she wasn’t there, we didn’t see each other during the year because we lived in separate parts of the country.’
‘We did write each other lots of letters and I was very much in love with her.’
Announcing Helen’s death, Michael described her as the ‘bedrock of my life’ in an emotional tribute (he is pictured with his kids William and Tom in September 1973)
Helen and Sir Michael meet at the age of 16 and were reunited during a chance meeting at Oxford University
Teacher Helen pictured joining her husband on some of his incredible ventures including Around The World in 80 Days (pictured)
Despite another chance encounter the following year, the pair lost touch for many years but in a twist of fate, were reunited on Michael’s first day at Oxford University, where he studied modern history.
He explained that Helen was visiting her friend for the weekend, and as the pair saw each other again rekindled their romance which would lead to five decades of happy marriage.
He continued: ‘The first man I met there had a girlfriend who worked at a Teacher’s Training College in London and he said, ‘come up to Oxford’.
‘And she said, ‘can I bring my friend?, she’s called Helen and I think she says ‘she knows Michael from way back’.
‘So she came back and the whole relationship started again and we’ve been married 53 years.’
Away from showbusiness, the couple lived in the same house in Hampstead, north London, for more than 50 years, enjoyed watching Scandi detective dramas together and would holiday in Mallorca every year.
Together they welcomed three children, Thomas, 54, William, 52 and Rachel, 48 – and four grandchildren.
Helen starred with her husband on his travel documentary Around The World in 80 Days
