People often ask me if living with a comedian was stressful. The answer is yes. In the case of life with Graham Chapman it was also delightful most of the time. But what they are really asking is "Was he a tortured genius who hid his misery from the adoring public by making them laugh?" answering this question I would say the most important requirement for an enjoyable life is a sense of humour. This suggests an ability to see life as a farce rather than a tragedy. Although Tragedy may have been important to the Ancient Greeks I believe it is Comedy that sees all aspects of a situation. Western civilisation today needs a keen sense of irony and the ridiculous to survive and Graham was a master of both.
After Graham's second operation on his spine he was at a recording of an introduction for a Python TV Special. At this time he was completely paralysed from waist down and was in a wheelchair. As we crossed the floor at Twickenham Studios negotiating the cables and cameras, a technician whom he had known for years called across to him, Hi Graham, how you doing?" "Fine," he replied with a grin, "It's just this f-cking cancer that's the problem!"
Gray's immense enjoyment of life was legendary and infectious. His morning bathing rituals were punctuated by sounds that would not have disgraced a Brazilian rain forest and the house in Kent often resounded to the sounds of parakeet and macaw. The talking parrot in the film of Yellow Beard was mainly dubbed by Graham.
Graham always lived dangerously whether it was in a sporting capacity or socially and he started drinking beer when he first played rugby football as a teenager. It was his great love affair with alcohol coupled with tobacco that contributed to his early death. (There is a recognised link between cancer of the throat and hard liquor often in conjunction with tobacco.) For over half of our 23 years together Gray was a hard drinker and during that time, as anyone who has read his autobiography will know, he had some of the best and worst times of his life.
From my own observation I think that alcohol was used by Graham in two ways: he enjoyed its ability to suppress his inhibitions socially and it afforded him at times an adrenalin substitute. On coming down from Cambridge there was less opportunity as time went on for the physical outlets in rugby football or rock climbing that had been his great passion.
Although he became well known later as a keen advocate of sexual liberation he was, when I first met him in 1966, a rather shy and private man. It was over a year before I was formally introduced to his friends at a special 'coming-out1 party only after he had decided not to continue his medical training. Thus he began a most productive and happy period of his career at a time when it was exciting to live in London and pop stars were still the same age as their audience.
Gray added to his skills as a writer and performer those of being a homemaker and bon viveur. Living in North London, in Hampstead when it was a real village full of friends and good food shops, Gray soon became a superb cook and made even more friends. Some of his parties are the stuff of legend. It is not surprising that they are a recurrent theme in his life story.
With the awareness of sexual liberation in the late sixties and early seventies, a consciousness that a pleasant life was fine but that many others were unhappy and needed help made Graham look hard at himself. His involvement in the Gay Liberation Front, although slight, had a profound effect on us both. Gray became more open about his personal life with anyone who asked and his frankness, coupled with his shy charm, usually won them over. His inability to say 'no' to those in need meant that before long we were caring for two young men as part of a new social experiment called Radical Alternatives To Prison. They were a radical alternative to rock climbing as far as my adrenalin count was concerned!
It is never easy to repair the neglect or abuse of others but since no one else was prepared we did our best. But that was not good enough. We failed. In Gray's eyes only a one hundred per cent success was acceptable. But although one boy killed himself (once out of care), the other survived to emigrate to Denmark, learn the language and find himself a new life. The story of this is probably known to those of you who have read Gray's autobiography.
Gray's optimism about people was one of his great gifts and it never left him. The only enemies he ever had were those who would not face the truth about themselves and he had no need of them in his life. Luckily they were few. Graham's pleasure at meeting and talking to new people is I think evident on this tape of his visit to Georgia Tech. University in Atlanta, a year before he died. It was one of the last of many he had given on tours throughout the US and Canada and although the schedule was quite tough he really enjoyed himself.
Graham stopped drinking any alcohol in 1978 and died in 1989. He had been given two years to live unless he quit. He decided to live. He changed his life around and met the challenge in a variety of ways. One of them was his involvement with The Dangerous Sports Club. This was a disparate group of adrenalin-junkies who like to do very dangerous stunts very safely; or at least so they were in enough of one piece to do it all over again. I did not join. My adrenalin works just fine without those added stimuli and I never saw Gray do one single exploit. He obviously loved it as you will hear on this tape and it filled a particular need that in earlier days had been afforded by rugby, rockclimbing or alcohol.
It is a difficult task writing any sort of meaningful introduction for a man of Graham Chapman's calibre. Too much information seems to crowd the memory. Then when it is sifted and rejected for one reason or another, it suddenly seems rather trite. But I hope that, even in this imperfect rendition of one of Graham's talks, you will be amused and entertained by one of the kindest and most entertaining men it has ever been my privilege to meet.
In January 1990 I was in Los Angeles, California. I was there for a memorial celebration of Graham's life with some friends. A woman came up to me to say goodbye and patting mlife with some friends. A woman came up to me to say goodbye and patting my arm in a consoling manner said "Never mind, he's with Elvis now".
As I continue on with my life I cherish the though that somewhere any day now in a roadside diner in Tennessee someone will spot Graham and Elvis having breakfast together. And it makes me smile. A lot.

David Sherlock. April, 1997.

Thanks in one way or another go to: Will Ackerman, Douglas Adams, Brian Arbuckle, Bob Bailey, Matt Foster, Anne James & Mayday Management, Michele Marcombe, Danny Maughon, Jason Nesmith, David J. Sherlock, Mike Shelter, "Legs" Larry Smith, Rob Stadler, Gerald Talbot, John Tomiczek, Mike Wilson and John Yoakum.

Wave Frame Engineer: Mike Wilson -
Doppler Studios, Georgia.
Executive Producer: Jim Yoakum.
Concert Photos: Danny Maughon - PD Media.
All other photos from the private archives of David J. Sherlock.
Issued in Association with the Estate of Graham Chapman