Sir Michael Palin has announced the death of his wife, Helen, after 57 years of marriage.
Palin, 79, described his wife as “the bedrock of my life” and said they first met while holidaying in the seaside town of Southwold, Suffolk, and he fictionalised the encounter in a 1987 BBC drama titled East Of Ipswich.
The couple, who settled in Gospel Oak, north-west London, share three children – Thomas, William and Rachel – and four grandchildren.
Palin wrote online: “My dearest wife Helen died peacefully in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
“She had been suffering with chronic pain for several years, which was compounded a few years ago by a diagnosis of kidney failure. We first met on a summer holiday on the Suffolk coast when we were both 16 and we married in our early 20s.”
Noting the pair celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary last month, he added: “Her death is an indescribable loss for myself, our three children and four grandchildren.
“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.”
Last year, Palin disclosed that his wife had moved into respite care after she failed to respond to pain medication.
Palin is famous for his work with Monty Python and for his travel programmes, which have seen him visit locations including North Korea, Iraq and the Himalayas. The actor was knighted in 2019 for services to travel, culture and geography.
He also underwent surgery in September 2019 to fix a “leaky” heart valve, cancelling a UK-wide book tour to allow for three months of recovery.
In an interview with the Guardian in 2015 about a show based on his diaries, Palin was asked whether his wife had read them before.
He said: “No, and nor did my children – not because they didn’t want to, but because I would just write them and put them back in the drawer.
“Diaries are quite personal things, they’re not like a blog which anyone can see. Also, [my family] are there living the life around me, so they probably didn’t feel the need.
“When I decided to publish them about eight or nine years ago, a wonderful lady called Kath was transcribing the diaries – as they were all handwritten – and every time she sent a new section over, my wife became interested and I’d read her bits.
“She’s been such a long part of my life, we’d been married three years when I started the diaries.”
