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Spike MilliganIrish Humorist/Writer - [1918-2002]Baby-BiographyTerence Alan Milligan is born on 16th April 1918 in Ahmednagar, India, where his father, Leo Milligan, is serving with the British Army in India. He receives his first education in a tent in the Hyderabad Sindh desert and graduates from their, thorugh a series of Roman Catholic schools in India and England, to the Lewisham Polytechnic. In adolescence, he makes his first forays into the world of show business playing the trumpet in a succession of jazz bands. Within months of the Second World War commencing, Milligan is himself called up to the British Army. On the 2nd June 1940, he arrives at Bexhill-on-Sea to join up with the 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery, D Battery, as Gunner Milligan, 954024. On the 8th January 1943, the Regiment sails from Liverpool and arrives in Algiers ten days later. Campaigning successfully across North Africa, the regiment moves to Italy, landing at Salerno on 24th September 1943. On the 20th January 1944, Milligan is severely traumatised during a German bombardment of Dimiano. Suffering with shell-shock, he is despatched from the front line to a psychiatric hospital, then onto a rehabilitation camp in Afragola. After regrouping, he eventually joins the Army Welfare's Central Pool of Artists, where he meets the extraordinary L/Bdr Harry Secombe. Upon leaving the army, Milligan and Secombe are joined by Peter Sellars and Michael Bentine in 'The Goon Show', scripted by Milligan and first broadcast on B.B.C. Radio in 1951. The over-the-top anarchic style takes comedy into new territory and proves an enormous hit in England. Such is their success that the pressure of writing fresh material every week causes Milligan to suffer a nervous breakdown during the third season. He is diagnosed as manic-depressive - an illness which is to dog him all his life. The Goon Show ends its run in 1960. After radio, Milligan concentrates on writing, finding great success with children's books (notably 'Silly Verse For Kids' in 1959), novels (his first is 'Puckoon' in 1963) and his war memoirs (beginning with 'Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall' in 1971). In the late Sixties, he pioneers comedy for television by producing his first 'Q' series for the B.B.C.. A series of sequels follow, culminating with 'Q9' in 1980. Despite frequent and lengthy manic-depressive relapses, Milligan continues to produce comic literature and heart-felt poetry for the remainder of his years, until his death from kidney failure on 27th February 2002. He is universally acclaimed as the founding father of all modern radio and television comedy. Phespirit's HeroWhilst Phespirit doffs his hat fully to the floor out of respect for 'The Goon Show', it is Spike Milligan's literary output which earns him a place in Phespirit's gallery of heroes. 'Silly Verse For Kids' and 'A Book Of Milliganimals' were among Phespirit's earliest and most treasured books. Later in childhood, books such as 'A Dustbin Of Milligan', 'The Little Pot Boiler' and 'A Book Of Bits Or A Bit Of A Book' were cherished. Ultimately, however, it is Milligan's war memoirs which Phespirit keeps coming back to, reading and re-reading, time and time again. The seven volumes are:
The humour within the writing can only be Milligan - the same can be said for the style of war reporting and commentary, the accounts of friendship, suffering, kindness and vulnerability, and the underlying despair at man's tireless pursuit of self-destruction. When Spike Milligan died the world lost its greatest genius.
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