...and needed to be rescued by my 86-year-old neighbour

Michael Palin has revealed he accidentally set fire to his house – and had to be rescued but 86-year-old neighbour 

The Monty Python star told how he was recuperating at home from the open-heart surgery he had in September, when a paper towel caught fire on his stove.

His neighbour –  who recently had a sextuple bypass himself – had to pull 76-year-old Sir Michael from the window of the burning kitchen.  

But Palin later said the story, which he told in Idler magazine, was pure fiction

By that published account, his  initial attempts to smother the flames with a hand towel only made things worse.

'As flames licked up towards the ceiling, I dialled the emergency services – but the moment we connected, the smoke alarm went off and I couldn't hear a word they were saying,’ he recalled.

'Just caught something about washing my hands which made me realise that, without my glasses on, I'd rung 111 instead of 999. 

'But I washed my hands anyway, and by a fantastic stroke of luck, the loose tap that we never had fixed finally came apart, dousing the ceiling and partially extinguishing the fire.’

At that point his neighbour stepped in, prompting the comic to muse: ‘Thank God he’d been told to take it easy, otherwise he’d have been out playing golf and my house would have been a write-off.’

Published: 2 May 2020