Terry Jones' widow slams first family for contesting will

Terry Jones’ widow has insisted she isn’t a gold digger.

Anna Soderstrom was stunned shortly after the ‘Monty Python’ star’s funeral last February when she was told the 77-year-old comic’s first wife, Alison Telfer, and their adult children Sally and Bill were contesting his will because they had doubts over his mental capacity when he added his spouse to his mortgage in 2015.

She told the Mail on Sunday newspaper: “‘I have lost my 30s to Terry’s illness and then this legal fight. I have a good education and I have always worked. I was always able to support myself…

“I was with him when he died. It was just me at the end and then I had to tell Siri that her daddy had gone.

“That was bad enough, but I had no idea what was coming with the will. I wish more than anything we could just sit down together and talk about it – and show some respect for Terry.”

Anna – who met Terry in 2003 when she was 22 and he was 63 – is particularly concerned about the impact the dispute will have on her and her late husband’s daughter Siri, 12, who suffers from autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

She said: “He would be turning in his grave, seeing what they are doing to me and his daughter. This is the last thing Terry would have wanted.

“He lived for making people happy, not ripping lives apart. He would have stopped this, he would not have allowed this to carry on.

“Poor Terry, it is so sad to see the disrespect that he is being shown. They have forced me to sell my home, I had to borrow money from friends. I don’t know what else they want to do to me.”

In Terry’s will, he left his company Fegg Features – which handles the royalties from his work – to Alison, Sally and Bill – while the London home he shared with Anna and Siri was given to his wife, and she sold it for £2.8 million in March.

However, the comedian’s family from his first marriages have argued they should receive a share of the profits because Terry didn’t understand what he was doing.

But Anna insisted that wasn’t the case as he was working on directing ‘Absolutely Anything’ and a theatre project when he added her to the mortgage, and she claimed he had to do so because of his advancing years.

And she also pointed out that Terry had undergone dementia tests before signing the mortgage papers after struggling to remember his lines during the Monty Python comeback shows in London in 2014.

She recalled: “Terry was struggling to remember his lines which was very unusual for him and it frustrated him. So I took him for a dementia test with our local GP where he was asked questions such as what the Queen’s name is, and to count and spell backwards. He passed with flying colours, which was such a relief to him.”

He then underwent more tests in September 2015 and was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, which affects communication and behaviour control, but doesn’t typically impact on the ability to reason.

Anna – who married Terry in 2012 – is currently living in a two-bedroom flat in Camden, north London, with her daughter and worries she’ll have to sell up if the High Court rules against her. She’s also using the remainder of the proceeds to fund Siri’s boarding school place.

She said: “They were so close. They would do everything together, they were inseparable. She was the only person allowed to go into his study, he would scoop her up and sit her on his lap while he worked.

“They had a lovely relationship. Siri would call him Daddy Toad after the character in his version of Wind In The Willows, so he would be so devastated to realise that if this money goes, she will suffer.

“Sally and Bill will literally be taking money from their sister’s care, that’s the truth of this.”