Geoffrey Palmer loves walking through France, but not in the shooting season
Geoffrey Palmer, 78, has appeared in several British situation comedies, including The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Butterflies, As Time Goes By and Fawlty Towers. He is currently playing Stephen in Frederic Raphael’s The Glittering Prizes on Radio 4, and stars in The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, which will be shown this Friday at 9pm on BBC2. He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife and has two grown-up children.
I RECENTLY went to India for the first time, to do what I suppose you would call the golden triangle. People warn you about the poverty, so I was prepared for that, but what nobody tells you about is the sheer volume of people. And the contrasts are enormous. You get guys in western-style dress next to men wandering around in dhotis with sticks. We went to Varanasi, where the holy east bank is covered in funeral pyres. That really was a culture shock. People burn bodies and then throw the remains into the river. From where we were, I got splashed by a black lump that looked a bit like a Jack Russell terrier. The guide said it was probably a bit of head and shoulders, but that bodies would usually be burnt better than that. Seeing the Taj Mahal for real was hugely emotional — it was created with such love. But I don’t think India captivated me like it does most people.
We love Italy more than anywhere, really.
One of my favourite holidays there was about 10 years ago, when, for the first time in years, we went away with our children again. From the terrace of our villa you could look across the valley to Orvieto cathedral and see the sun shining on the beautiful facade. That was everything I needed: a beautiful spot; in Italy; with my family.
It was certainly a lot more enjoyable than a previous visit. You know the saying “Don’t buy a car from a friend”? Well, I would also say “Don’t rent a holiday home from a friend”. My wife and I once rented a nice house in Umbria from someone we knew. But when we arrived, we found that the swimming pool was almost empty. Someone came to have a look and the verdict was that we had to choose between having water for the loo and the bath or in the pool. So my wife valiantly swam every morning in two feet of water. We should have asked for our money back, but as it was friends, we never did. Terribly British of us, really.
We once had acquaintances who owned an apartment on a farm near Avignon. They had invited us to stay there while they were away on holiday, but when we arrived they were still there. There had been a mix up with the dates, which was embarrassing because they probably didn’t want to be lumbered with us any more than we did with them. They found another room on the farm for us. It was the depressing end of the season and people were being arrogant in a French way and telling us their restaurants were closed. We tried to go for walks but were told to be careful because it was the shooting season. And there seemed to be French boys in bushes everywhere, literally shooting at anything that moved. It wasn’t one of our favourite holidays.
When I was a child, we invariably went to Norfolk on holiday and stayed in a B&B on the coast near Happisburgh. In 1938, I remember a funny little old woman who sat outside her house. Every time we walked past she said, “Do you think Mr Hitler will come with his bombers, madam?” That’s all she said, over and over again. And, of course, he did come.
Just after the war, when I was 19, I hitchhiked around Brittany, thinking I was some kind of great pioneer. I did the whole holiday, including the ferry crossing, for £12. In those days you could just thumb lifts and nobody thought you might be a terrorist or a rapist. But there were very few cars, so I ended up walking a lot. At one point, on a country road, a black-suited man started walking alongside me. We couldn’t really understand each other, but it dawned on me that he thought I was German. When I told him I was “anglais”, he became much friendlier. He had been in the French resistance and he told me about what they used to do to the Germans when they caught them.
On the same trip I remember I’d been dropped off and was waiting for another ride, but nothing came and it started getting dark.
An old couple came out of a house and asked if I wanted to stay. I can’t remember much except that they gave me a wonderful meal and that I tried to pay them, but they wouldn’t take anything.