Basically, in those days you couldn't be a doctor, unless you were married, that's all there was to it. And Graham's girlfriend at the time was an extremely intelligent, beautiful woman. I think he loved being with her when they were together but he was always off doing other things, extremely busy. I think she was genuinely taken aback when Graham had his coming out party in the summer of '67. He'd invited her along with some friends from Bart's who were kind enough to take her home when she realised that she'd had enough. It took an enormous amount of courage at the time and he had no idea what the reaction was going to be, so he decided to tell the person he thought would be most relaxed about it first, and that was Marty Feldman's wife Loretta, who howled with laughter and then said she would tell Marty. They were in bed at the time and he apparently fell out of bed. So, that over, Graham had his party where everyone was invited and lots of people were deeply surprised. I get the feeling that John [Cleese] was certainly more than a little shocked and surprised, and it took John a long time to get used to it. There is the silly story which Graham used to trot out, that he had to explain to Eric Idle what it was all about, and I actually think Graham regrets having made that comment, because Eric can be quite sensitive and in fact that became an issue in the weeks before Graham died. It came out again in an interview and Eric wrote a rather angry letter to Graham. Graham asked me should he reply to it, and I said, 'No, I think you've got far too much on your mind at the moment.'
