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The spirit of Terry Jones is still with us despite his dementia, says Michael Palin
The “spirit” of Terry Jones is intact despite dementia robbing him of his ability to speak, according to his Monty Python colleague, Michael Palin.
Jones was diagnosed in 2015 with a form of the disease in which sufferers retain their reasoning function but lose the power of speech.
“Terry has a progressive form of dementia which is not going to get any better. But the spirit of Terry is still there. It’s rather wonderful,” Palin said.
Palin visits Jones at his home by Hampstead Heath in north London. “He goes on long walks on the Heath. He has lost the ability to communicate, really, which is very, very sad for a man of words, a man who lived on debates and jokes and arguments and all that.
“But there’s something in there still working. We smile. I can make him laugh every now and then,” Palin told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“I feel very fond of him still and I think that’s reciprocated. I suppose a time will come when that will close down, but at the moment I’m pleased to see him always.”
Jones, 75, first began showing signs of the condition in 2014, while performing in a series Monty Python reunion shows in London. He was unable to remember all of his lines and had to rely on a teleprompter.
He was diagnosed a year later with progressive aphasia, a form of frontotemporal dementia which affects the parts of the brain that control speech and understanding of language.
In an interview last year, his daughter, Sally, has said: “Friends often ask, ‘Will he recognise me?’ I tell them, of course he will. It is his speech that has gone. In fact, he loves seeing friends. His only problem is that he longer has the ability to tell them how pleased he is to see them.”
Jones has two adult children and became a father for the third time in 2009, aged 67.