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| Home is where Palin’s heart
is |
HE may have travelled the globe from the Himalayas to the Sahara
but Michael Palin still has a special place in his heart for somewhere
closer to home: Sheffield.
Talking to a packed audience at Heath Library in Keats Grove, Hampstead
on Thursday – where it was standing room only – the former
Monty Python star revealed close ties to the town, once famous for
its steel industry and for producing heavy metal rockers Def Leppard.
Mr Palin, from Gospel Oak, said: “I lived there for the first
20 years of my life so I feel very strongly that Sheffield is my
home. I still feel very close to it. When I go back, it feels rather
like a homecoming.”
The globetrotting TV star, who kept the audience entertained with
tales of elephant-washing in Assam and meeting the Dalai Lama in
Dharamsala, also revealed the true reason behind his travel bug.
“I just had an urge to travel very early on,” he said.
“When I was very young, I always wanted to find out what was
behind the sofa or the door.”
Adding that he was still curious about the world – “otherwise
you get stuck in this tiny world where your own issues are the only
thing that matters” – he added: “Also, my wife insists
I go away.”
President Peggy partys on
I RAN into the indefatigable Peggy Jay last week as she turned
up at Burgh House to celebrate the season at the Heath and Hampstead
Society’s Christmas party.
The life president was on good form and heard current chairman Tony
Hillier ask members for funds towards restoring a playground off
East Heath Road, which will be named after her.
She used to walk her children Peter – the broadcaster and former
Ambassador to Washington – and his siblings Martin and twins
Helen and Catherine there and still lives a short stride away in
Gayton Crescent.
Pictured from left: Peggy Jay, Tony Hillier and Peggy’s daughter
Catherine Jay.
The country’s only illegal carol
service?
I ATTENDED what was probably the country’s only illegal
Christmas Carol service last night (Wednesday).
In the biting cold I found 150 people gathered in Parliament Square
– and all of them, it seemed, had forgotten to inform the police.
Naturally, you might say. But, in fact, under the latest terror
law any group of people gathered together in the Square could be
accused of staging an illegal demonstration.
I asked a couple from Kilburn whether they thought they were putting
at risk their children who might be carted off by police and thrown
into a West End Central cell for the night.
“I don’t think so,” said Amanda Cadwell, clutching
her baby Edwin. Her partner Richard added: “I think the police
realised that they had better things to concentrate on.”
He knew why he and the family had gone to the square – to “express
solidarity” with Brian Haw who has been camped there for more
than four years in protest against the Iraq war.
Pictured from left: Richard Cadwell, Richard Wilson, Helen Bulckens
and Amanda Cadwell with Edwin.
Bar staff rise and shine to serve stars
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Leslie Phillips
Peter O’Toole
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ONE of Peter O’Toole’s best-loved stage roles saw him
locked alone in a pub overnight playing the legendary drunk and
journalist Jeffrey Bernard in Keith Waterhouse’s Jeffrey Bernard
Is Unwell.
But the veteran actor, 74, didn’t touch anything stronger than
hot chocolate when he rolled up to Auntie Annie’s pub in Kentish
Town Road at the somewhat unsociable hour of 8am this week.
Starring with Leslie Phillips in director Roger Michell’s latest
movie, Venus, he has been filming in and around Kentish Town for
the last five weeks.
Barmaid Tina Chambers, who lives above the bar, said the cast and
crew came in to keep warm and rehearse.
She told me: “They came in about eight in the morning, and
sat around drinking hot chocolate.
“They were quite lively – there was a bit of banter but
it was a bit too early for me to be starstruck.”
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