I still hear the voice of my deceased wife

Sir Michael Palin said he still hears his late wife’s voice telling him to “carry on”.

The 81-year-old Monty Python star announced in May 2023 that his wife Helen Gibbins, with whom he was married for 57 years, had died from complications of chronic pain and kidney failure.

The couple met on a beach in Suffolk when he was a teenager.

He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “It’s like you’re one unit and suddenly you’re not one anymore. It’s a bit like losing a body part and not knowing exactly where you are anymore.

“I listen to her and she had a great sense of humor. Sometimes I would do something and then come back and tell her about it.

“Even though she is not there, I know her answer and it makes me smile.

“I find myself standing in the living room all alone and thinking, ‘Oh yeah!’ So that’s good.

“She was great and we have great memories.

“You invest so much of your life into that one person, so there’s a huge part of my life that I can’t access in the same way now.

“But we have family, children, grandchildren, they kind of take control, but it’s not the same, not quite the same.

“It’s only been over a year, but I’m continuing to work, that’s the thing.

“And I hear Helen saying, ‘Keep going, keep going, stop fooling around.'”

Sir Michael met his future wife while on holiday in the seaside town of Southwold in Suffolk and later made the encounter into a 1987 BBC television drama entitled ‘East Of Ipswich’.

The couple had three children and four grandchildren and celebrated their wedding anniversary just two and a half weeks before her death.