Some would joke that ex-Python Michael Palin is the ideal choice to
launch the BBC's mental health season.  But since his sister's
suicide he, more than most, understands the darker side of the mind.

There is a poignant background to Michael Palin's introduction to one
of the first programmes in the BBC's nine-month mental health season
*states of mind*: his sister Angela, an aspiring actress, was a
depressive who committed suicide nine years ago, aged 52.  It is not
a subject he has broached in public often, but now he says: "Anything
that helps us know more is a good thing."  His usually cheerful nature
is subdued as he recalls Angela's death.  She had three grown-up
children, was separated from her husband and staying with him at his
north London home.  "We'd been to the cinema the night before.  The
next day she went to a garage, fixed rubber tubing to the exhaust of
the car and gassed herself.  I'll never know the reason why.

"She was so beautiful, extremely capable, bubbly, dressed well.  No
outsider would ever have realised how she felt.  Growing up she had
seemed all right, but in those days - after two wars when the whole
world had gone mad - a bit of odd behaviour in the home seemed
unimportant ans was treated by 'Snap out of it!  Pull yourself
together.'  But those who feel inadequate within themselves can get
into such depression they're incapable of saying 'Let's have a good
meal, see a film, or go on holiday.'  In fact, those suggestions rub
in the fact that there is a way of having a good time, but they're
not privy to it.  Seeing others enjoy themselves makes them feel even
more inferior and unable to cope.  It's not surprising the peak times
for suicide are Christmas and spring, when most of us are celebrating.

"I didn't notice the degree of her depression until about two years
before her death.  She went to therapists, but no one could tell her
what was wrong.  She'd had post-natal depression, and that may have
been the start of it, but I don't know.  I tried to do everything,
but it's not a clinical, physical illness where a reason can be found
from blood tests or observation, like cancer or a heart attack.  Even
after she died, no one gave any explanation.  I wanted to ask my
parents if there was anything in her childhood.  My mother couldn't
discuss it, which was her way of coping.  Obviously she was pretty
badly hurt and there was no comforting doctor to put his arm round her
and say, 'This has happened to lots of people, and here is what causes
it.'  One is left with a feeling it must have been some dreadful
mistake.  There can be a certain shame, but I didn't feel guilty,
which is sometimes the reaction.  I was confused and helpless and, in
retrospect, pretty ill-informed.  We need more research.  I don't even
know if it's hereditary or not."

If it does, does it worry him, I wonder, that she killed herself at
the age he is to become next month?  "Fleetingly, but I don't think we
had the same temperament."  She was also quite a remote figure to him
as a child, being nine years older, and the atmosphere at home was a
little strained anyway.  His father was a sales manager for an
engineering firm in Sheffield, whose dream was to be a musician.  "The
balance between my mother and father was interesting.  She was very
open and he seemed more closed, yet I know that wasn't the whole
truth.  He was difficult, not particularly happy and had a bad
stammer.  If only he'd had access to treatment he might have coped
better [Palin has put money into a school for stammer sufferers in
London].  It was never mentioned at home, but it made him short-
tempered and frustrated.  He'd fight with waiters as a matter of
course.  I'd cringe and go pink.  I was a shy boy.  I saw the way my
mother was agreeable and made friends, and he didn't.  And I thought
it's a hostile world out there and much better to have a few friends
rather than lots of enemies."

Although his own agreeable nature is infectious, he says he does get
"down" occasionally.  "I realise one can't understand why one should
be that way.  It doesn't always relate to an incident or circumstances
 - just a feeling.  I've occasionally contemplated walking to the end
of the plank, but never jumped off.  There are times in the middle of
the night when I wonder how I'm going to face the next day.  Then I
look out of the window and see it as another challenge.  Depression
doesn't last long with me because I'm generally optimistic.  It is
ironic, though, that my sister, who killed herself, looked sane and I
appeared mad because I was one of the Monty Python team.  I wrote
stuff like the Spanish Inquisition bursting into someone's living
room, which would not be considered the product of an ordered mind.
The Pythons were lucky because we were allowed to let our imaginations
run riot and were paid for indulging our subconscious.  It was like
group therapy.  We made various connections we wouldn't have dared on
our own."

Celebrity, he believes, creates its own madness.  "The more power or
fame you have the quicker you drift from reality.  Everyone is
terribly nice, not because of what you are, but because of who you
are.  The Royal Family is a supreme example.  They're human beings
after all, believe it or not, yet are treated in such an obsequious
way by hangers-on it's hardly surprising they lose touch.  Actors and
actresses are also required to conform to a certain image and often
believe their own legend.  When they break out, like Oliver Reed or
Vanessa Redgrave, they are condemned, but what I admire about those
two is they refuse to be made into some symbol.  It's so important for
us all to be ourselves, warts and all, even though you might be
considered a bit odd.  We're programmed to conform from a very early
age, which restricts us and causes more tensions than it relieves.
We're encouraged to suppress the subconscious and beware of
imagination because it's destructive to the behaviour codes we've
developed.  So most people lead fairly boring, monotonous lives and a
jester in society becomes quite a privileged figure.  But there's a
jester in all of us and it should be encouraged.  Repression is a
recipe for more problems than it solves.

"But maybe nearly everyone is mad today because of the competitiveness
of life.  Our society is pretty crazy.  We hurtle around quite
cheerfully at 80mph in objects that could mow people down.  We eat and
drink too much. We're led to believe there is an upward curve of
progress that will deliver us a more content, fulfilled and happy
life, but it doesn't seem to be happening.  One set of pressures is
traded for another.  The positive side is that creativity can arise
from what we call madness.  It is 'mad' people who create the most
beautiful classical music, write the best novels or poetry, and
provide some of the greatest comedy.  Look at Tony Hancock - he killed
himself, didn't he? - or dear Spike Milligan.  Both depressives.  But
at the same time as he was being driven mad by the pressure of writing
Goon shows, I was on the receiving end, being liberated, encouraged
and inspired by them.  People used to call the Pythons mad and then
write saying, 'All those laughs you gave me when I was feeling down
preserved my sanity.'"

Even so, he was known as the "normal" Python and Clare McGinn,
producer of *Don't Fence Me In* [then Radio 4 documentary in which
Palin examines the stigma and myths of madness], says she chose him to
present "because he has a reputation as the most normal person around."
"The 'normal' Python?" he says.  "That's like being called the less
violent of the Kray twins.  That dread word 'normal'.  There's a
little bit of madness in me, I'm glad to say.  It's prevented me doing
responsible things, like being head of house at school or working in a
bank.  It's why I've been able to earn my living as a writer for 30
years."  I tread gently here, because it is such a cliche, but one has
to mention his nice guy image which, he says with relied, began to
wane last year when his first stage play, *The Weekend*, starring
Richard Wilson, was heavily criticised.

"I got the feeling that newspaper editors were fed up with the image
of a man who never lost his temper - which they had created anyway,
and which my family regard as being blatantly untrue.  There was a
feeling of 'shake him up a bit' and 'find out what annoys him'.  Like
most people, I'm a combination of cantankerous and unhappy and happy
and pleasant.  I prefer to like people rather than waste time hating."

He is still happily married to Helen, the girl he met on a Southwold
beach when he was 16, and has lived in the same house for 25 years
(although he has bought the adjoining two).  Books and videos from his
two BBC travel programmes (*Around the World in 80 Days*, and *Pole to
Pole*) have made him a multi-millionaire and given him a higher
profile than his Python colleagues.  "People identify with me since
the travels.  It's not something I set out to achieve, but it's part
of the appeal.  I'm not some remote star figure.  I'm a person who
gets dirty and has diarrhoea on dhows.  I think people like me can
help in beneficial causes, which is why I'm glad to be talking about
something useful, rather than when I'm normally interviewed flogging
my wares."

His next travels take him to the Pacific rim - "I don't know why.  It
certainly isn't the money.  I have enough to retire on.  The books
have sold so well I feel slightly guilty.  You have to make up your
mind when you earn that sort of money whether you want to live in
Tuscany, buy a yacht or build swimming pools.  The family [he has
three children, the youngest is 20] laugh when I go into that mode.
They keep my body on the ground, not just my feet.  It's a constantly
changing relationship, with children growing up, Helen and I becoming
more set in our ways.  You think you see yourself clearly, but you
never really know.  I notice how much like me my children are, and it
worries me dreadfully.  I think they ought to be themselves and
wonder, 'Have I been that dominant?'  There's a dialogue between all
of us, which is excellent, but they're slightly embarrassed by a Dad
with loot."

Soon he starts filming a sequel to *A Fish Called Wanda*, provisionally
titled *Death Fish Two*, and earlier this month he published his first
novel, *Hemingway's Chair*.  "It's good", he says, in a sudden
uncharacteristic outburst of self-praise.  "I've done modesty," he
explains.  "People didn't believe it because they think I'm just trying
to be nice.  Oh, please don't use that word.  Working is my therapy
and keeps me sane.  It does me good to have a bit of shock treatment
now and again, to try to become a playwright, a novelist, or travel to
a part of the world I've never seen.  Varying my routine keeps my mind
reasonably clear and fresh."

And avoids the need for psychiatrists, about whom he is a little
sceptical.  "There's a lot of jargon that tends to be spread quite
thinly as justification for the serious activities of social workers
who can, for example, take children from their parents in the middle
of the night and allege sexual abuse.  You have to be so careful about
that sort of thing.  Psychiatrists were unable to help my sister.
It's a very young science and the best ones are still asking questions,
rather than delivering certainties.  I think that's the most one can
do: keep asking questions."

Transcribed from Radio Times, 15-21 April 1995, pp 17-20.