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Introduction

The concept of this book, as far as I was concerned, was a coffee table book, and that is how it started. After a few months, I was quite happily going along when Louise Haines, my editor, dropped a bombshell. She didn’t ‘want a book of articles. I would like a more chronological memoir.’

Let me tell you about Louise. What Louise wants, Louise always gets. She has a certain way of saying N-O-R-M-A, long-drawn out, very quiet. You know then she’s about to get you to do something you don’t want to do; in this case ten times more work than I had anticipated. However, she’s terrific and knows exactly what is needed, so I forgive her. And you know what – she was right again.

Throughout Spike’s illustrious career – thank God he’s not around to read that. I can hear him say, ‘What career? They’ll say Spike Milligan wrote The Goon Show and died,’ or ‘It’s all for fear of the bank manager,’ or ‘It’s just that Van Gogh couldn’t stop painting and I can’t stop writing.’ All these remarks were repeated to me many times over the years. Well, I think he had an illustrious career and throughout that career he made some friends, a lot of acquaintances and a few enemies.

In this book I’ve tried to capture the varied recollections of some of the people who did know Spike; so many professed to know him, but they didn’t know him at all. He was loyal, and his friendships, the true ones, lasted all his life. I can think of two, alas, no longer with us: Alan Clare, brilliant pianist and composer, and Jack Hobbs, his editor – friendships that lasted over forty years. There were ups and downs with Jack, but Spike never had a cross word with Alan. When he was down and feeling alone, he used to go to Alan’s flat in Holland Park and sit and talk to him for hours, or just go and sit in silence after asking Alan to play for him. When Alan died, Spike missed him terribly and said to me, in such a haunting tone, ‘Oh, Norm. We are all beginning to die.’ One week later, I was the one who had to tell him that Jack Hobbs had died.

The relationship with his brother, Desmond, was a love/hate one. It was either ‘I have a God-sent brother,’ or ‘That stupid brother of mine.’ His book Rommel? Gunner Who? was dedicated to Desmond:

To my dear brother Desmond

Who made my boyhood happy and with whom

I have never had a cross word

Mind you he drives his wife mad

Obviously written in a ‘God-sent brother’ period. The one thing that never changed was the wonderful memories Spike had of their idyllic childhood growing up in India and Burma, and Desmond’s memories of this time reflect the stories Spike had told me.

Eric Sykes was an established writer when he met Spike. He was writing the very successful Peter Brough and Archie Andrews radio shows, Educating Archie. Eric was lying in bed in the Homeopathic Hospital in Great Ormond Street awaiting an operation, the first of many for an infected mastoid. He was listening to the radio and a new comedy show which he thought was fast, furious and very, very funny. It was Crazy People written by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens. Eric wrote them a letter saying what he thought about the show. It was such an accolade for them, an established writer sending them such a letter of praise. The next day Spike and Larry paid a visit to Eric and that small incident of fate began an enduring friendship between Spike and Eric which culminated in sharing an office for over fifty years.

In about 1953, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, like Spike and Eric, had only just started their writing careers. They met Spike at a rehearsal of a Goon Show and they were introduced after the recording. Together they formed a company, Associated London Scripts (ALS), and stayed together until April 1968 when they went their separate ways, Eric and Spike staying together at Orme Court, their offices in Bayswater. Ray and Alan have wonderful memories of ‘the early days’ when they thought the world was full of laughter.

Friendships, laughter and writing scripts wove them together. It was new and exciting, breaking new ground, and that’s when Spike met Liz Cowley, a journalist and broadcaster. Another relationship that lasted fifty years, though relationship is the wrong word, it belies the love and affection they had for one another until his death. What was always amazing to me, apart from their love for each other, was their deep friendship, and he cared so much for her and her wellbeing. She is such a natural to share her memories with the reader.

Denis Norden is one of the great scriptwriters of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. With his writing partner, Frank Muir, he was responsible for the highly successful radio series Take it From Here which ran for twelve years. He also wrote and presented It’ll Be Alright on the Night for twenty-nine years. He is a great raconteur and has an immense fund of showbusiness stories and anecdotes of stars of the last sixty years.

Spike had great affection for Marcel Stellman. He was an A & R man and producer at Decca records. In the late Sixties Marcel approached Spike, having heard the Goon Shows, to ask him if he had any comedy songs as he was interested in recording him. The first song Spike gave Marcel was ‘I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas’ and he even had a B-side for him, ‘Bloodnok’s Rock ’n’ Roll Call’. Then came the famous ‘The Ying Tong Song’, still popular today, so much so it’s the ring tone on my mobile.

Another lasting friendship for over fifty years was with Sir George Martin. George was best man at Spike’s second marriage, to Paddy, and Spike was godfather to George’s son Giles, not that you would know. He was a very bad godfather and when I reminded him of this he’d say, ‘I know, Norm, but Gentle George [Spike’s favourite name for George] will forgive me. I just forget and I’m getting to be an old man.’ He wasn’t an old man until the last two years of his life when his body started to fail him. He was just an old fake. And Gentle George always forgave him. For Spike, Gentle George could do no wrong. In the late Sixties I’d just taken over as Spike’s manager and Spike was going to a recording session with him. I hadn’t then met George. In my green years and trying to be efficient, I told Spike that I hadn’t seen a contract for the recording session. Very indignantly, Spike replied, ‘I don’t need a contract with George. He’s my friend,’ and for the rest of their working lives together it remained so.

The early Sixties had established Spike as a writer with The Goon Show and his first poetry book, Silly Verse for Kids, with the inevitable plethora of fans turning up at the studios and, of course, fan letters. One from Alan (Groucho) Matthews led to another fifty-year friendship. He and Spike corresponded until about two years before Spike’s death. And to this day I still see him.

Also in the late Fifties Spike had flown to Australia to see his mother and father and while he was there he went to the theatre to see Barry Humphries in his one-man show. He never forgot that wonderful performance. Long before Dame Edna was even thought about. My memory of Barry was when he came to Orme Court to see Spike in 1966/1967. He was so flamboyantly dressed – that picture of him waiting in the hall to go upstairs to see Spike still remains with me – tall, large black coat, which might have been a cloak, and wearing a fedora. After his visit I asked Spike, ‘What was that?’ Spike’s reply: ‘That was talent. You watch and wait, he’ll really hit the big time.’ How prophetic.

It was in 1959 that Spike had the most fun with Peter Sellers and the director Richard Lester. Richard made the first film in which Spike and Peter appeared together – The Running, Jumping & Standing Still Film. Spike thought this young American director had the right idea about comedy. How many times did he relate to me, ‘Dick and Pete and I went into a field with a camera. Dick shot it and it was one of the best times of my life, free and easy, no worries. Just Pete and me.’ I heard the same story from Pete. No doubt they drove Dick Lester mad, but their memories were pure gold.

In 1961 Private Eye was founded by Richard Ingrams and after the magazine’s initial success Peter Cook became involved. They were two men Spike admired. It was inevitable that he would support them with spoof advertisements, jokes and cartoons. It was such a loss to Spike when Peter Cook died. ‘Of all of us,’ Spike said, ‘Peter was the most talented.’ In the early days Peter would come to the office and they would sit upstairs in Spike’s office chatting and laughing for hours though I remember quite clearly one day Spike saying to me, ‘Peter needs to watch it. He wanted to go out and have a drink. I told him not to start drinking at this time.’ It was four o’clock in the afternoon. What a tragedy he didn’t heed Milligan’s advice, all that wonderful talent wasted because of alcohol.

Richard, on the other hand, was so down to earth. I always found him to be such a gentleman. Quietly spoken, always looking something like a dishevelled retired Classics master from a public school. He looks forgetful but don’t be fooled: his mind is as incisive as a well-honed, old-fashioned razor.

How did Jimmy Verner survive? He spent seven years as an entrepreneur, taking Spike on tour with his one-man show. There were heartaches and people at the box office demanding their money back when Spike had done a ‘no show’, with Jimmy trying to keep the money and offering tickets for other performances. Then there were the tantrums when a false nose was missing from the prop basket. And yet, Jimmy recalls, ‘Underneath it all he was a good human being.’

Now, I have to explain at the outset that Peter Medak can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. In this business you meet hundreds of people but there are very few ‘you would walk through fire for’. Peter said this of Spike, and I’m saying it of Peter. He directed Spike in Ghost in the Noonday Sun in 1973, and although the twelve-week filming in Kyrenia was a nightmare, with Peter Sellers behaving abominably, my memories are of the laughter between Spike and Peter Medak. Their friendship grew out of what can only be described as hell on location. Their respect and admiration for each other remained until the day Spike died. When it comes to Peter, I’m just biased.

The Sixties and Seventies saw a broadening of Spike’s remarkable and diverse talent. His first novel, Puckoon, published in 1963, sold over a million copies and was followed by his play The Bed-Sitting Room, later made into a film directed by Richard Lester. Then in 1964 came his memorable theatre performance in Son of Oblomov at the Comedy Theatre. This had been a failure as Oblomov at the Lyric, Hammersmith, but Spike rewrote it as Son of Oblomov. It ran for eighteen months and he ad libbed throughout each performance, and broke all box office records. A torrent of talent!

In 1971 at the age of fifty-three he wrote the first volume of his war memoirs Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, followed by a further six volumes. Then came his first serious poetry book, numerous records and the first of the Q series for television. Also a milestone, on 30 April 1972, The Last Goon Show Of All was recorded at the Camden Theatre, at Spike’s insistence, because that is where most of the Goon Shows had been recorded.

This burgeoning period brought him many new admirers and some became friends. At times he drove the jovially philosophical Terry Wogan almost to despair, but I think nothing or nobody could do that, Terry has such a personality that his warmth and mischievous character will always have shone through anything that Milligan could have thrown at him. Spike also joined forces with Joanna Lumley and together they set about saving the animal world. He greatly admired Joanna and it is my regret that he didn’t live to see her successful fight for the Gurkhas. He would have been so proud of her and rightly so.

Spike’s talents have been applauded by some remarkable people. Alan J.W. Bell, producer and director of some of the most prestigious BBC television shows, directed him in There’s a Lot of It About, and one of the Q series. He remembers how hard Spike worked, as well as the laughter they shared. According to Alan, there were no tantrums, just laughter. I find that hard to believe – a TV series with no tantrums? Who is Alan talking about?

Dick Douglas-Boyd was the marketing director of Michael Joseph who published many of Spike’s books, including the seven volumes of his war memoirs. I think at first Dick was very apprehensive with Spike and didn’t know how to handle him. Mind you, who did? But as the working relationship progressed they found common ground, because they had both been through the war, and a friendship was built on mutual respect.

The fiercely intellectual Jonathan Miller, who takes no prisoners, directed Spike in Alice in Wonderland. Although he didn’t like Spike as a person I found his comment very illuminating. ‘His work is as important as The Pickwick Papers.’

Michael Palin was hooked on the Goon Shows as a schoolboy. He and Spike became friends and Michael has some wonderful memories of Spike. I recall a memory that Spike had of Michael. He was on holiday in Tunisia, nothing to do with the fact that the Monty Python team were filming Life of Brian there. Naturally, they met up and on his return to the office we exchanged the normal pleasantries: ‘Good hotel, food OK, wine lousy,’ he said. Then, ‘I met Michael Palin out there. You’d like him. He’s very funny, a warm person, and something unusual about him, he’s a good human being.’ It wasn’t until months later I discovered the whole team had been in Tunisia and that Spike had appeared in the film. This was so typical of Spike. Filming meant nothing to him – it was something to be dismissed but the fact that he had taken a liking to Michael Palin was the one thing he thought worth mentioning.

For Stephen Fry it was not just Spike’s originality that he so admired, it was ‘the fact that he was afraid of nobody. And the fact that he didn’t toady to anyone.’

I wanted to include Eddie Izzard in this book although he didn’t really know Spike, was neither a friend nor an acquaintance. But I wanted to know from Eddie, as a more recent newcomer, what he thought Spike’s legacy would be. I knew he had memories of Spike, but more importantly Spike had asked me whether I had seen Eddie perform. At that stage I hadn’t and told him so and Spike said, ‘Go and see him. Out of this new breed he’s going to be the one that will last. He’s original and going to be around a long time. Most of the others are flash in the pan compared to him.’

So, Memories of Milligan, some good, some not so good, but that’s what he was like – the little girl with the curl. When he was good he was very, very good but when he was bad he was horrid. But aside from all this was his unbridled talent – an original, a free spirit. He genuinely didn’t care what people thought of him and if he didn’t like someone he would dismiss them. He just didn’t want to know anything about them.

Within an hour he could be mean, cruel, hateful and despicable, then generous, compassionate and understanding – a most complex man. In business he could betray me without a second thought and I would remind him, ‘I’m not your enemy.’ A typical Milligan reply would be, ‘Well, don’t act like one.’ And yet in my personal life he was a true friend. He was always there when I needed him and he never let me down.

Life is not so much fun without him in my world. I miss the old sod.

Norma Farnes, 2010