Now, Eric, going back to your boarding school with all these fatherless boys, did you make firm friendships?

We became a gang.

I think we became feral.

I think we were out of control.

And it's a boarding school, so there's a lot of hours of night and things to run amok on and climb over the wall and escape.

And you needed to get out to have any decent time, so...

I became subversive, actually.

Does it sort of say things that

So what did you learn through this process? And how did you keep the relationship together? Patience

is the first thing you learn when you're trying to do a wreck.

But we didn't have electricity for eight years.

So you learn to live without electricity, which in some ways is fine.

because you have the oil lamps and you have Cala gas to cook.

So it's perfectly lovely.

And it was just a tiny little house that we had to find water.

So for people that are watching right now and figuring out what books, what are people going to get out of this? And why do you think it's important for them to read it?

up and down the mountain.

Carrying a heavy bowl of pink powder.

Of course, yeah.

It sounds like the storylines for a film that you could have written.

I think it's an interesting one, because I sometimes think to myself, I went through every stage of civilisation.

Yes.

I've figured out how you get that, how you do that, you know.

So, Robin Williams went to your beautiful place in France.

And you go, ta-da! And she's gone, ta-da, what?

Well, the first Mrs.

Idle found it because we loved the place and when we were first down there in July, it was beautiful, and stayed there for a week's holiday from a friend of a friend, I said to her, you know, I think I could write as badly here as I can in London.

Lovely.

And she agreed I probably could.

LAUGHTER It sounds like the storyline to a film that you could have written.

I think it's an interesting one because I sometimes think to myself, I went through every stage of civilization.

so give me so robin williams went to your beautiful place in france

Oh, yes

...

they weren't demobbed.

Well, they're bored stiff at the end of a war, you know, been under great danger, and now they're there.

Anyway, so they told them to hitchhike home 'cause it's Christmastime, and the railways are full, so he, they, they'd always stop for the boys in blue.

And so he did, and he got picked up by a lorry.

I think it was just outside, like a stop or somewhere.

Right.

out

how you get that, how you do that, you know.

And I think that's kind of nice.

And also, you know, I had a proper life, you know, where I'm doing Python all the time, and we were working very early, a lot, for two years and things, at least, you know, when I bought it in 71.

And so it was a kind of getaway from that, kind of...

Lovely while filming, but then the fans were quite bizarre.

And nobody shouted, is your wife a goer? In the village.

Yes.

well, he was

a historical figure, you know, he's like Isaac Newton or something, bumping into an incredible man.

And of course, he had no affect.

So you had to get used to that.

It was something with no affect, because we read everybody's faces all the time, and what they think of us, and are we making a good impression and all that.

But the other thing was they came after us, the rock people, because they like Python.

And, you know, they're always on their tour buses and they always play comedy.

Tell us about that.

Right.

And they'd come on with a brown paper bag on their hands, and they had to guess who it was, you know, Stephen Fry, they're all comedians, you know, and I was trying to get Robin to appear on the last show, because he's such a big fan.

Yeah.

So I vaguely saw it, and he said, I can't come, man, I can't come.

And so I didn't really think much about it, because we were doing the show, and then, so I think...

You know, we had somebody else come.

And then about two weeks later, I was at home in France and the phone rang.

LAUGHTER

Oh.

I mean, in my recollection, uh, Terry Gilliam and I were in Amsterdam.

We were all in Amsterdam for the opening of Holy Grail, the Dutch opening.

And, uh, Terry and I went out to a small bar and got completely legless, and, and then [laughs] we started to do these jokes about Christ, 'cause it was taken, the idea of being that Christ is a carpenter And these idiots have put up the very bad join at the bottom of the cross, so he keeps falling face forward into the mud.

And he's like saying, "No, no, no, you need a four by two.

Look, put a little 10 in there." And it's just the idea of Christ being, trying to be crucified, and these idiot carpenters [laughs] who are fucking up, and his cross kept falling over.

And we became hysterical.

And we seemed to be up there for ages.

What did that do for the bonding process or the dynamics, social dynamics of the school? It

made you into gangs.

Our form was very, you know, we'd climb over the wall and get beer and chase girls.

And they never took a straight exam, ever, because we'd always break into the master's studies, take the back off their, you know, cupboards, get the exam papers, and then exam paper itself, and we'd write out the answers and take them into the exam.

So the only straight exam they ever took was O-level at 16.

And when I came back from that, there were only six of us left.

They'd all gone because they didn't really learn anything.

Oh, it

Can you tell me about how you came to ship off to boarding school full time?

Well, I was...

I was born in World War II, and at the end of World War II, in 1945, my father was still in the RAF.

He'd been since 1941, and they told everybody to hitchhike home for the holidays.

And he got a ride, and he was in a truck which swerved off the road, and the load crushed him, and he actually died in hospital on Christmas Eve, which is a kind of poignant scene for anybody.

I was only two and a half, so that's something that I only experienced afterwards and through the absence of my mother's extraordinary grief and reaction to that.

I think she disappeared into a depression for a while.

with your mom when you were a kid and teenager?

Did you, when you first conceived it, did you not foresee that sort of trouble that it might cause?

Yeah, but we were very careful.

We decided that really you can't laugh at Christ because his things he says are fine.

You know, forgiveness and love each other, things that they don't do anymore.

But that wasn't funny.

What was funny was people following people.

And so really it's a sort of tragedy of this poor bloke.

had pancreatic cancer?

So for all, for all you knew, nobody was watching?

Well, at first, absolutely nobody knew, and then nobody was watching, and then bit by bit, you know.

So, and we were very fortunate that we'd actually finished doing the show before w- it, it was actually played on, on American television.

So we didn't have to suffer the same fate as people on Saturday Night Live and that.

You know, we were, we were quite anonymous and surprised by it all.

When did you know that, uh, Monty Python had become, like, a phenomenon, something that, like, everybody knew and everybody treasured pretty much, well, certainly in America, if not the whole world?

I, I think we were pretty surprised when we opened the Holy Grail in New York and there, there was suddenly, there was Pythonmania, and we were trapped in the cinema, and it was, it was very surprising to us and, and quite funny.

I mean, in Canada we were known, and we were surprised then.