At the beginning I’m a lowly-paid writer/actor working on a new and very experimental TV series called Monty Python’s Flying Circus. By the end of this particular decade I’ve recorded 45 TV shows and made three films with the Pythons, and still had time to father three children, take the lead in Terry Gilliam’s first film Jabberwocky, and produce, with Terry Jones, nine Ripping Yarns.
'Discover for the first time the full story of my great-grandfather, Edward Palin, who married Brita Gallagher, an orphan of the Irish potato famines of the 1840s.'
'Sorted through an old chestful of Grandfather's papers... In the Shrewsbury and India days much evidence that he was quite a character: "always looks as though he has done something wicked but never has" - school report from Shrewsbury.'
'In 1966 my parents, Edward "Ted" and Mary Palin, retired to a village just outside Southwold in Suffolk.'
With Ian Davidson at a Python rehearsal in the tank-top days.
Charity football and experimental beard.
Pythons at play, Germany.
Filming 'Kamikaze Scotsmen' at Norwich Castle. With Eric Idle and Hazel Pethig.
Helen and our friend Ranji, Amsterdam.
With 'Auntie' Eric. 'The Cycling Tour', Python.
'Almost two years and nine months to the day since we shot our first feet of Python film, we were at Windsor to shoot what is probably our last: With Ian MacNaughton.
Helen attempts a circumcision, local fete.
Helen's mother and her grandsons, Willy and Tom, Abbotsley.
Helen's sister, Cathy, with Tarquin at Abbotsley.
Heyday of the flares. With Tom at home.
'John turned to me and said "No".' The unconventional end of the 'Dead Parrot' sketch on my thirtieth birthday.
'The first TV play written by Terry and myself... had been given a blaze of pre-publicity.' The launch of Secrets.
'How do you know he's a producer? He's the only one who hasn't got shit all over him.' Eric, myself (as Mud Eater) and Mark Forstater, Holy Grail.
How can you react without laughing to a broad Glaswegian accent saying "Of course I'm French, why do you think I am using this outrageous accent?"
'First day of filming. Graham got vertigo... and Eric and I and John sat around listening to stories from the mountain rescue boys about how many people perish on the mountains each year.'
'The longest day and my father's three-quarter century: My mother had baked him a cake in his house colours from Shrewsbury School.
Graham as the lecturer, Terry G, Terry J and myself take up positions for the 'Custard Pie' sketch.
'The Surprise Pie.' Terry and me at Drury Lane.
'John is, on a good night, one of the world's greatest corpsers.' And I am not far behind. 'Silly Walks' at Drury Lane.
Passport photo, 1975: big collars and mad, staring eyes. Why did anyone allow me in their country?
On Central Park South, first New York publicity trip, March 1975. I am reading from the guidebook, which always used to annoy Graham.
Fans in America. Graham lights up behind me.
Terry, Ma, Jeremy Herbert, Al and me, Carnberwell.
Helen, Rachel, Will and Tom with friends Diana and Sean Duncan on their boat, Pilcomayo, on the River Dee.
Summer of '75, Three Men in a Boat. Stephen Moore, me, Tim Curry and Montmorency the dog.
Prelude to disaster. The photograph sequence (followed by the boat getting trapped in the lock gate). Three Men in a Boat, June 1975.
Python publicity photo with Neil Innes selflessly standing in for Terry Jones.
'Peter Cook, who apologised for his slightly glazed state saying he was recovering from a long night... discussing Lenny Bruce's drug problem - steadfastly refuses to learn the words of the Condemned Man in our "Court Sketch".' Amnesty show at Her Majesty's.
My vocal nemesis, 'Gumby Flower Arranging' at full blast. City Center, New York.
'You're Pythons. Do something funny for me.' An unpleasant little episode at the Bronx Zoo, New York.
Next generation. Miles Innes and Tom Palin became good friends during Live at City Center, New York.
Rachel, Helen and the back garden, Gospel Oak, London.
With Ma and sister Angela at Dulwich.
'Really quite enjoy flashing a naughty part of the body in a public place - and getting paid rather than arrested for it.' Jabberwocky filming at Chepstow Castle.
'I like my gear. At least it's going to be a deal more comfortable than the armour of Holy Grail.' As Dennis Cooper in Jabberwocky.
Perks of being a director of Shepperton studios; submarine cannon from the film The Land That Time Forgot is saved from the rubbish tip and ends up in my back garden.
Worlds collide, restoration drama meets John Belushi.
'The Chilites dance routine does not please Lorne and is cut just before dress rehearsal. "You'll thank me in years to come;' says Lorne. I'm thanking him now.' Garrett Morris (left), Bill Murray, myself and Dan Aykroyd.
'An awful, monumentally awful moment.' Dancing with live cats down my trousers, Saturday Night Live, New York.
'An awful, monumentally awful moment.' Dancing with live cats down my trousers, Saturday Night Live, New York.
Eric and Carey, me and Rachel, Life of Brian, Tunisia.
'Tom decided he would like to appear in the afternoon's filming... It was one of the less comfortable scenes but graced by the presence of the visiting George Harrison. So at least he can say he was in a scene with Pythons and Beatles.'
Holidays at Roques. Helen and me, Tom, Anthea, Ian Davidson and Edward Burd.
Happy Family. Coach House, Sag Harbour, NY.
'1979 comes in cold. Very cold.' On the pond at Abbotsley.
My childhood friend Graham Stuart-Harris.
'I have to open a fete at William Ellis School... I smile and sparkle and fail to hit anything with seven balls.'
Mary and Edward Burd, Roques.
Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels hypnotises me before the show.
'Mikoto comes to cook us a Japanese meal. The preparation is a painstaking and delicate business - as indeed is communication with Mikota.'
Al Levinson, my American friend, with Rachel, Sag Harbor, NY.
'They gave us grapefruit segments, beef in a brown and unexciting sauce... and a trifle which looked like the remains of an unsuccessful heart-swap operation.' With Donald Carroll (left), Jilly Cooper, Steve Race and Katharine Whitehorn at a Yorkshire Post literary lunch.
Gospel Oak, with Will, Rachel and Tom.
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