Spike Milligan - Milligans Meaning of Life

I wish to thank Will Hammond, my editor, aka Billy Liar, for his tremendous help and advice and that wonderful sense of humour. (Spike would have liked him.)

Eric Sykes for his support.

Niki Charlton, who believes in me and thinks I can do no wrong.

Mary (from the dairy) Kalemkarian for all her encouragement.

Jack Clarke, my old man, who puts up with me.

Lastly, that very special lady Janet Spearman, who organizes my life, for her undying loyalty.

My father had a profound influence on me he was a lunatic.

Spike on Spike, Memories of Milligan

Spikes mother, Florence Mary Winifred Kettleband, was born in Woolwich in 1893. Her father, Alfred, had been born in Agra, India, and enlisted as a boy soldier in the Royal Artillery. Her mother, Margaret, had been born at Gosport, England, the daughter of a Regimental Sergeant Major in the Royal Artillery. The family were interested in music, theatre and music hall, so it followed that they visited Woolwich Empire to see Alfreds favourite acts, G. H. Elliott, Eugene Stratton and Dan Leno. At the end of the Boer War, Alfred was sent to a military depot in Ahmednagar, India, where Florence and Margaret joined him. In 1903 they moved to Alfreds new posting in Kirkee.

Spikes father, Leo Alphonso, was born in Sligo, Ireland, in 1890. Leos father William was also in the Royal Artillery. In 1896 the family moved to Poplar, London. William was captivated by the theatre and got an evening job as a stage hand at the Poplar Hippodrome, which led to his appearing as an extra, eventually taking on major roles at the Queens Theatre in Poplar. He enrolled Leo into the Steadman School of Dancing and encouraged him to play the trumpet. He then forced him to join the army as a boy soldier in 1904, enlisting him in the Royal Artillery at Shrapnel Barracks, Woolwich. In 1906, Leo was promoted to trumpeter and took part in army concerts, dancing and singing, and became a champion at the soft-shoe shuffle. He adopted the stage name Leo Gann after he had won several talent contests. On 14 December 1911 he sailed on the SS Plassey, having been posted to India. He arrived in Bombay andtravelled to Kirkee.

So Kirkee became the meeting point for Spikes parents. There Florence and Leo fell in love, eloped and were married by registrar in Room 13 of the Poona Hotel. Florences family were appalled, and when Leo returned from Mesopotamia a year later they insisted on a church wedding at St Patricks Church in Poona. This took place on 19 August 1915. By then Florence had become an accomplished organist and trained contralto. Leo was appearing in army concerts and together they formed a duo entertaining the troops.

In 1917 Leo was posted to Ahmednagar, and there, on 16 April 1918, Florence gave birth to Terence Alan Milligan.

Spike looked back on his boyhood in India with great fondness: It was an ideal childhood. I loved the lakes, the beautiful colours and the gentle people.

It was here, too, that Spike got his taste for the military. Spike loved the army life, as he would, as the fourth generation of Royal Artillery soldiers.

In 1924 Leo Milligan was posted to Rangoon in Burma, and the following year, on 3 December, Spikes brother, Desmond Patrick, was born.

In 1926 Leo gave Spike a birthday present of his first gun-belt, and in 1930, at the age of twelve, Spike started his own army. It consisted of five soldiers: himself, his brother Desmond, Sergeant Taylors son, the Havaldars son and their servants son, whose name, truly, was Hari Krishna. Spike named his army the Lamanian Army and wrote an anthem, Fun in the Sun.

That same year he joined the 14th Machine Gun Company. According to his brother, Spike could dismantle a Vickers .303 machine gun and reassemble it. After practising it a hundred times he drove everybody mad, so to take his mind off the gun his father bought him a banjo, which he practised a hundred times, driving everybody mad. It was the beginning of his love of music.

His ideal childhood continued. Leo gave Spike and Desmond a pair of old muskets, with which they pretended to shoot birds, cats, dogs, lions and tigers. In fact, the whole family were interested in guns: the boys had their muskets, Leo had three or four pistols and Florence had her .44 Winchester rifle. As late as 1967, when Spike visited his parents in Woy Woy, Australia, one of the highlights of his visit was to spend time with his father in his gun room.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2. And darkness was upon the face of the deep; this was due to a malfunction at Lots Road Power Station.

3. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light, but Eastern Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.

4. And God saw the light and it was good; He saw the quarterly bill and that was not good.

5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night, and so passed His GCSE.

6. And God said, Let there be a firmament and God called the firmament heaven, Freephone 999.

7. And God said, Let the waters be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear, and in London it went on the market at six hundred pounds a square foot.

8. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and the earth brought forth grass and the Rastafarians smoked it.

9. And God said, Let there be lights in heaven to give light to the earth, and it was so, except over England where there was heavy cloud and snow on high ground.

10. And God said, Let the seas bring forth that that hath life, flooding the market with fish fingers, fishburgers and grade-three salmon.

11. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the sea, and let fowl multiply on earth where Prince Charles and Prince Philip would shoot them.

12. And God said, Let the earth bring forth cattle and creeping things, and there came cows, and the BBC Board of Governors.

13. And God said, Let us make man in our own image, but woe many came out like Spitting Image.

14. And He said, Let man have dominion over fish, fowl, cattle and every creepy thing that creepeth upon the earth.

15. And God said, Behold, I have given you the first of free yielding seed, to you this shall be meat, but to the EC it will be a Beef Mountain.

Bombardier Leo Sparrow was a very smart soldier in the Royal Regiment of Artillery. He was also a talented amateur stage performer; he could do the American Negro buck and wing dance, and would black up to do coon songs like Lily of Laguna. He was a good comic and clown and he had a pleasant singing voice. He had joined the Artillery when the family moved from Holborn Street, Sligo, in Ireland, at the time his father Sergeant William Sparrow was posted to Woolwich. Leo wrote in his journal:

My early recollections are of life in London. We settled into a flat in Grosvenor Buildings, 426 Manisty Street, Poplar, overlooking the Blackwall Tunnel, which was just being started. From our second-storey window, we watched the workmen in the street below cooking their eggs and bacon for breakfast on shovels over coke braziers and, from time to time, we would see a man who worked in compressed air conditions being carried on a stretcher from the tunnel to the Poplar Hospital.