Although Robert Ross had penned the Python a teenage fan letter – and was thrilled to get a reply – it was decades later that they met at the Hand and Racquet near Leicester Square.
By then, Ross had written books about comedy legends such as Sid James and Marty Feldman, plus the Monty Python Encyclopaedia.
“As a teenager I watched reruns of Monty Python and once sent a fan letter to the BBC,” he says.
“Fast forward twenty-odd years and they were celebrating 30 years since Python after a screening of Life of Brian. Terry popped in for a drink and was very gregarious. We connected and kept in touch – Terry never let friends down or let them go.”
Their friendship grew, and when the comic moved to Highgate after the break up of his marriage, they would share a pint in various village pubs before heading back to Jones’ for a slap-up dinner.
“Everybody’s relationship with Terry was pub-related!” says Ross.
“He loved the pub culture of conversation and meeting new people. He loved his real ale – my editor joked the Red Lion & Sun should get a credit in the book!
“Terry also liked The Wrestlers and The Bull – and towards the end when he was unable to communicate, he would walk up to The Gatehouse a lot.”
The two words Ross uses to describe Jones are “polymath” and “passionate”.
“He was a good cook and would throw wonderful extravagant dinner parties with a brilliantly eclectic bunch of friends,” says Ross.
“There would be other Pythons like Michael Palin or Terry Gilliam, and a round-the-world yachtswoman, all at the table with brilliant thinkers and writers. He would get fired up banging the table because he was so passionate.
“He was also horrendously stubborn and uncompromising at times. But despite the many things he achieved there was never a trace of ego. He had all these gifts and was annoyingly good at everything, but he never came across as big-headed.”
One evening over a pint Ross urged Jones to write his memoir, but was told: “I simply don’t have time, when I’m dead, you write it for me.”
And so it proved, after years suffering frontotemporal dementia, Terry Jones died in 2020 at the age of 77. His funeral was held in Golders Green Crematorium followed by a wake in a Highgate pub.
Seriously Silly is Ross’ tribute to his generous-spirited friend who was “such a brilliant enabler and so generous with his time”.
“He was always reticent to look back,” adds Ross. “He had a very forward looking brain, always thinking about the next project.
“He wanted me to do this and it’s been very emotional and personal, I knew him so well, he wasn’t Terry Jones any more, he was a mate.”
The book follows Jones’ early years in Colwyn Bay in the 1940s, the move to Surrey, then years at Oxford University where he met fellow Python and lifelong friend Michael Palin.
They started writing and acting in comedy troupe The Oxford Revue, before penning scripts for programmes like The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set.
“He felt a bit of a fraud at Oxford, coming from a lower middle class background. His father was a bank clerk and he lived in the suburbs, but then he met Michael Palin and realised he felt the same. He held his own at Oxford, he was very bright and inquisitive, like a sponge of knowledge.”
Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a sketch comedy series that first aired in 1969 and saw Palin and Jones hook up with Cambridge graduates John Cleese, Eric Idle and Graham Chapman.
Along with American animator Terry Gilliam, their brand of satirical, absurdist humour became a cult hit, expanding into films such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which Jones co-directed, and The Life of Brian, which he directed alone.
Ross says Jones brought visual gags, sharply observed characters and a love of the surreal to the mix along with comic acting skills.
“He loved Buster Keaton – mime and slapstick and was very much inspired by the surrealism of Spike Milligan and the Goon show,” he added.
The later chapters cover Jones’ last 15 years, leaving wife Alison in 2005 for a fan 41 years his junior whom he met giving a talk on Chaucer at Oxford University.
Jones and Anna went on to marry and have a daughter, but by 2014 he was experiencing outbursts and mental gaps.
Michael Palin tells Ross that Jones had a weakness for a pretty face, and while there had been affairs in the past, none had previously threatened his home life.
“Those were the most difficult chapters, the divorce, meeting Anna, dementia – you can’t shy away from that, they were a big part of the last few years but it’s a complex situation and not for the lay person to judge,” says Ross.
“It was tough times, it still is, but everyone has been supportive with the book – including all four surviving Pythons, Anna, Alison, who was caring for him a great deal at the end, his children Bill and Sally.
“It’s testament to Terry that everyone stuck with him because we all loved him so much.”
By the end Jones was left speechless, watching endless repeats of his favourite films, Top Hat, Guys and Dolls, Some Like it Hot and Laurel and Hardy.
“He was such an erudite person; to be robbed of his voice was a cruel last act,” says Ross.
“He was aware of what was going on but couldn’t join the conversation. This intelligent character no longer had that wonderful glint in his eye.”
Despite his illness, Jones would still dress immaculately and take daily walks across the Heath – including once leaving Barry Cryer for dust somewhere near Kenwood House.
“He kept pretty fit and always found his way back like a homing pigeon,” says Ross
In the book’s afterword, Terry Gilliam describes Jones at their last meeting as a “beautifully dressed shell,” while his friend Annabel Leventon says he was “a deeply serious man who danced through life”.
Palin says “Terry’s greatest achievement was to live life so thoroughly – that talent to enjoy life so very much. Life with Terry was never boring.”
His twin legacies were flash freezing his brain for medical research and the unveiling of a statue next April in Colwyn Bay – depicting Jones as the Nude Organist from the Python sketch.
Ross says: “Terry died just before lockdown so there were no BBC specials or memorial service – this will be a lovely tribute and a celebration.”
Seriously Silly: The Life of Terry Jones by Robert Ross is available now.
