This volume charts my attempts to steer an often bumpy course between the emerging potential of the television traveller and the reputation as actor and writer which I’d built up over twenty-odd years of a professional life that had begun in 1965.
Travelling To Work: Diaries 1988 – 1998, Volume 3
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Travelling To Work, Around The World In 80 Days, 1988
With Nigel Meakin, my cameraman. A working partnership that has lasted twenty-five years.
Travelling To Work, Around The World In 80 Days, 1988
Travelling To Work, Around The World In 80 Days, November 6th, 1988
Attack on my trousers in Bird Market, Hong Kong. ‘Well, all right, I had asked the parrot if he knew John Cleese’.
Travelling To Work, Around The World In 80 Days, November 6th, 1988
Travelling To Work, Around The World In 80 Days, 1988
Halfway round the world. The crew in Hong Kong harbour. At back: co-director Clem Vallance with our Hong Kong fi xers, MP, and Angela Elbourne, production assistant. Foreground: Simon Maggs, camera assistant, and Dave Jewitt, sound recordist.
Travelling To Work, Around The World In 80 Days, 1988
Travelling To Work, Around The World In 80 Days, 1988
Day 79: Weary warriors on the steps of the Reform Club, having made it round the world with seventeen hours to spare. Clockwise from back left: MP, Nigel Walters, cameraman on the second leg, Maggs, Jewitt, co-director Roger Mills, Ann Holland, production assistant. And they wouldn’t let us in.
Travelling To Work, Around The World In 80 Days, 1988
Travelling To Work, Around the World in 80 Days, March 19th, 1989
With Charlie Crichton, my director, collecting a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor for A Fish Called Wanda.
Travelling To Work, Around the World in 80 Days, March 19th, 1989
Travelling To Work, Edinburgh Film Festival, 1989
Being silly with Gilliam.
Travelling To Work, Edinburgh Film Festival, 1989
Travelling To Work, Parrot Sketch Not Included - 20 Years of Monty Python September 23rd, 1989
Python’s twentieth anniversary filming with Steve Martin.
Travelling To Work, Parrot Sketch Not Included - 20 Years of Monty Python September 23rd, 1989
Travelling To Work, Summer 1989
Mum on her terrace at Southwold.
Travelling To Work, Summer 1989
Travelling To Work, October 27th, 1989
John with a few deceased parrots I gave him for his fiftieth birthday.
Travelling To Work, October 27th, 1989
Travelling To Work, Around the World in 80 Days, December 15th, 1989
Publicising 80 Days at the Western Show at Anaheim, California. ‘Have your photo taken with Michael A Fish Called Wanda Palin’.
Travelling To Work, Around the World in 80 Days, December 15th, 1989
Travelling To Work, Ripping Yarns, January 25th, 1990
With Terry Jones, posing as characters from the Ripping Yarns as publicity for a new combined volume of the scripts.
Travelling To Work, Ripping Yarns, January 25th, 1990
Travelling To Work, Ripping Yarns, January 25th, 1990
Gordon Ottershaw in Barnstoneworth United strip. At The Complete Ripping Yarns shoot.
Travelling To Work, Ripping Yarns, January 25th, 1990
Travelling To Work, April 1990
On Michael Aspel’s show with Maureen Lipman (on his left) and Wendy James, founder member of Transvision Vamp.
Travelling To Work, April 1990
Travelling To Work, American Friends, 1990
As Reverend Francis Ashby (based on my great-grandfather) in American Friends, Oxford.
Travelling To Work, American Friends, 1990
Travelling To Work, August 1990
At La Residencia, Deyà, Mallorca, with Helen, daughter Rachel on the right, and her friends Kate and Sylvie Lewis.
Travelling To Work, August 1990
Travelling To Work, GBH, 1990
Dearbhla Molloy, MP, Julia St John and Mike Angelis, Derbyshire.
Travelling To Work, GBH, 1990
Travelling To Work, GBH, August 1990
Jim Nelson and his school kids, Bolton.
Travelling To Work, GBH, August 1990
Travelling To Work, GBH, September 10th, 1990
Rain acting with Dan Massey. ‘The rain was such a surprise to Dan that his voice rose several octaves’ - Ulverston.
Travelling To Work, GBH, September 10th, 1990
Travelling To Work, 1990
Comparing pencils with Basil Pao’s daughter Sonia, London.
Travelling To Work, 1990
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, Summer 1991
The last months of the Soviet Union. With two Lenins in Leningrad.
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, Summer 1991
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, Summer 1991
Preparing to take on the white waters of the Zambesi.
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, Summer 1991
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, December 8th, 1991
Journey’s End. Me and various poles at the South Pole on the last day of Pole to Pole.
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, December 8th, 1991
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, May 1992
Early selfie. Polaroid taken before the North Pole trip.
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, May 1992
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, August 13th, 1992
Pole to Pole sheets ready for cutting and binding at Richard Clay.
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, August 13th, 1992
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, 1992
Pole to Pole book-signing in Sheffield with John Hall, my geography teacher at Birkdale School, on my left, and Michael Hepworth, the headmaster, on the other side.
Travelling To Work, Pole to Pole, 1992
Travelling To Work, 1992
Thinking up another ridiculous journey with Clem Vallance.
Travelling To Work, 1992
Travelling To Work, A Class Act, 1992
A chance to extend my repertoire.
Travelling To Work, A Class Act, 1992
Travelling To Work, A Class Act, 1992
Mr Pilsworth and daughter: MP and Tracey Ullman.
Travelling To Work, A Class Act, 1992
Travelling To Work, The Dresser, February 1993
With Freddie Jones as ‘Sir’, my director David Blount (behind me) and the cast and crew of The Dresser, at the BBC.
Travelling To Work, The Dresser, February 1993
Travelling To Work, May 5th, 1993
Trying out the pipe and slippers, presents from my office on my fiftieth birthday. Longueville Manor near Mallow, Ireland.
Travelling To Work, May 5th, 1993
Travelling To Work, 1993
With Helen and big friend in Thailand.
Travelling To Work, 1993
Travelling To Work, February 1994
Research trip to Africa for my never-completed novel Uganda. At the Equator with my guide, George Byomhumuza, Uganda.
Travelling To Work, February 1994
Travelling To Work, The Weekend, March 26th, 1994
Sunday Times photo for The Weekend. ‘The photographer has some odd idea of me sitting in a dressing room and eating Mars Bars. The effort of not doing it is so much more draining than just getting on with it, so I borrow a dressing gown... and sit and eat Mars Bars.’ Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford.
Travelling To Work, The Weekend, March 26th, 1994
Travelling To Work, The Weekend, May 4th, 1994
One of the two good reviews of The Weekend. And we made the most of it. Strand Theatre, Aldwych.
Travelling To Work, The Weekend, May 4th, 1994
Travelling To Work, Elena’s L’Etoile, 1994
With Elena Salvoni, my all-time favourite maîtresse d’, at Elena’s L’Etoile.
Travelling To Work, Elena’s L’Etoile, 1994
Travelling To Work, An Evening with Michael Palin, April 17th, 1994
With Lena Rustin, the speech therapist whose work on stammering in children inspired the Michael Palin Centre.
Travelling To Work, An Evening with Michael Palin, April 17th, 1994
Travelling To Work, An Evening with Michael Palin, April 17th, 1994
With Travers Reid, who got me involved, at An Evening with Michael Palin at the Cambridge Theatre, London.
Travelling To Work, An Evening with Michael Palin, April 17th, 1994
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, 1995
Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait. Where we started our journey round the Pacific Rim on August 28th, 1995 and ended it on August 14th, 1996.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, 1995
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, 1995
Spectacular, almost unreal turquoise lake in the caldera of one of the many volcanoes in the Kamchatka Peninsula, eastern Russia.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, 1995
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, September 1995
On the Sado Island ferry.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, September 1995
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, September 23rd, 1995
On one of the longest, busiest fi lming days, I try my hand with the Kodo drummers. I’d already been running with them at 5 a.m. Sado Island, Japan.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, September 23rd, 1995
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, November 23rd, 1995
Filming in the monsoon is not to be recommended. Hue Station, Vietnam.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, November 23rd, 1995
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, January 1996
With Iban elders (and one-time head-hunters) in a communal longhouse, Nanga Sumpa, Sarawak.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, January 1996
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, January 1996
Getting in the way of the tea harvest, Java.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, January 1996
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, January 1996
The one and only time I’ve looked down into an active volcano - Mount Bromo, Java.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, January 1996
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, March 1996
Helicoptering onto the Cook Glacier at the end of our long voyage down the western rim of the Pacific.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, March 1996
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, June 1996
El Tatio geyser fi eld. Spectacular steam effects at 4,500 metres. Calama, Chile.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, June 1996
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, August 2nd, 1996
My morning in Alcatraz – with two men who’d spent a lot longer than that here. Now they take guided tours. ‘A day described as “almost fl awless” by Fraser at dinner’- San Francisco.
Travelling To Work, Full Circle, August 2nd, 1996
Travelling To Work, Fierce Creatures, August 9th, 1995
As Bugsy in Fierce Creatures. With Robert Lindsay and our tiger.
Travelling To Work, Fierce Creatures, August 9th, 1995
Travelling To Work, Fierce Creatures, August 23rd, 1996
Me as a bee with Jamie Lee, on the Fierce Creatures re-shoots.
Travelling To Work, Fierce Creatures, August 23rd, 1996
Travelling To Work, November 7th, 1996
Gumby brain surgeons. One of them really is a brain surgeon. With Michael Powell, the man who saved my wife, National Hospital, London.
Travelling To Work, November 7th, 1996
Travelling To Work, April 1989
Pythons in the 1980s. This turned out to be the last group photo with Graham in it. Taken by Chris Richardson at our office in Camden Town, April 1989. Graham died six months later.
Travelling To Work, April 1989
Travelling To Work, April 1989
Taken by Chris Richardson at our offi ce in Camden Town, April 1989. Graham died six months later.
Travelling To Work, April 1989
Travelling To Work, Pole To Pole, 1996
With my indispensable travelling companions: leather and canvas bag with lots of pockets, notebook and pen.
Travelling To Work, Pole To Pole, 1996
Travelling To Work, Friends United, New Year’s Eve 1998
Palin’s New Year Party team wearing a selection of my travel hats. Left to right: Phillida Albury, Ian Davidson, Anthea Davidson, Ranji Veling, Mary Burd, MP, Helen P, Simon Albury (where’s his hat?) and Edward Burd.
Travelling To Work, Friends United, New Year’s Eve 1998
Travelling To Work, Friends United, Christmas 1998
Family visit to Greenwich, Christmas 1998. Back row: Will, Tom. Middle row: Helen, Rachel, MP, brother-in-law Edward. Front row: Helen’s mother, Anne Gibbins, and two sisters, Cathy and Mary.
Travelling To Work, Friends United, Christmas 1998
Travelling To Work, Friends United, 1997
New York pals. Left to right: Merron and Julian Schlossberg, Nancy Lewis/Jones, MP, Simon Jones, Sherrie Levy.
Travelling To Work, Friends United, 1997
Travelling To Work, Friends United, October 27th, 1998
Alan Whicker presents me with Best Documentary Award for Full Circle at the National Television Awards: ‘... that Whicker should have to present me with the award does sort of bring things, well, full circle’.
Travelling To Work, Friends United, October 27th, 1998
Travelling To Work, Friends United, November 6th, 1998
Pointing out my hero. With Spike Milligan at the Talkie Awards. The Goon shows were an inspiration and he was given a special award for The Last Goon Show of All.
Travelling To Work, Friends United, November 6th, 1998
Travelling To Work, Friends United, 1988 – 1998
With my tall, funny friend. Almost anywhere.
Travelling To Work, Friends United, 1988 – 1998
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