War (and Peace) Memoirs Books
'At Victoria station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'This is your enemy'. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train'. Spike Milligan's on the march, blitzing friend and foe alike with his uproarious recollections of army life from enlistment to the landing at Algiers in 1943. Bathos, pathos and gales of drunken laughter, and insane military goonery explode in superlative Milliganese.
Rommel? Gunner Who?: A Confrontation in the Desert is volume two of Spike Milligan's outrageous, hilarious, legendary War Memoirs. 'Keep talking, Milligan. I think I can get you out on Mental Grounds.''That's how I got in, sir.''Didn't we all.' The second volume of Spike Milligan's legendary recollections of life as a gunner in World War Two sees our hero into battle in North Africa - eventually. First, there is important preparation to be done: extensive periods of loitering ('We had been standing by vehicles for an hour and nothing had happened, but it happened frequently'), psychological toughening ('If a man dies when you hang him, keep hanging him until he gets used to it') and living dangerously ('no underwear!'). At last the battle for Tunis is upon them... 'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times 'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese 'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard 'That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man' Stephen Fry Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.
Britain's looniest war hero completes the third volume of the Milligan memoirs. The nineteenth battery forge into Tunis, cocksure and carefree. They climb on aqueduct with no trousers on (the battery that is; the aqueduct was very well-dressed). Five hundred gunners try to dance with two girls and an old French matron...up there in Valhalla, Monty's laughing fit to burst.
Britannia rules the waves TA-RA, but on occasions she waives the rules and Spike is all set to liberate-gasp-Italy. In this fourth volume of war memoirs, Lance-Bombardier Milligan (Spike actually) continues his notorious sage of World War II - from the long remembered outbreak of crabs in monkey to the unfortunate ack-acking of and American killyhawk. Dio mio, is war is a game of cards, someone was cheating.
In response to popular demand, folks...the fifth volume of spike's uniquely amazing military memoirs of life in the ranks during world war 2.
In "Goodbye Soldier" the central pool of artists, now rechristened the combined services entertainment, complete with Gunner Miligan, now rechristened Lance-Bambardier, makes its way across Europe, via romantic Rome and verneral Venice, to Vienna where Spike continues to demoralize the troops from the stage despite frenzied protests from Eisenhower, Churchill and Stalin. Hastily discharged from the army in Austria, he returnes to naughty Naples for an interval of connubial bliss on Capri with Balerina. Maria Antoinette Fontana: 'All except for Eva Maria who I was keeping in reserve'. Finally, farewell to Rome, goodbye soldier and the prospect of return to dreary deptford where 'fortune, overdraft, income tax, mortgages, accounts, solicitors, house agents' awaited.
Milligan's War is the one-volume selected edition of Spike Milligan's war memoirs, published to celebrate the seventieth birthday of Britain's funniest old soldier on 16 April 1988. Adolf Hitler, Monty, Mussolini, Rommel (who?) - all played their modest parts in the Second World War and the shaping of human destiny, but we all know where the real action was... Milligan's war documents in words and pictures. The most scurrilous, bizarre and certainly the most hilarious military career embarked upon by any bombardier of the 56th heavy regiment, royal artillery, ever. 'The most irreverent, hilarious book about the war that I have ever read' Sunday Express 'Desperately funny, vivid, vulgar' Sunday Times 'Milligan is the Great God to all of us' John Cleese 'The Godfather of Alternative Comedy' Eddie Izzard 'That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man' Stephen Fry Spike Milligan was one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the twentieth century. Born in India in 1918, he served in the Royal Artillery during WWII in North Africa and Italy. At the end of the war, he forged a career as a jazz musician, sketch-show writer and performer, before joining forces with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe to form the legendary Goon Show. Until his death in 2002, he had success as on stage and screen and as the author of over eighty books of fiction, memoir, poetry, plays, cartoons and children's stories.
This volume of Spike Milligan's memoires begins in 1946 when he leaves the army and returns to a drab London to resume his career as a band musician. Eventually after several tours entertaining the troops in Germany, he turns to script writing for radio, then teams up with some other lunatics including Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers who decide to call themselves "The Goons".
Spike Milligan's acclaimed recollections of his part in Hitler's downfall Spike Milligan was born in India in 1918. He is most famous as an author, script-writer and actor in both films and broadcasting including the infamous Goon Show. He has written over sixty books, including his incomparable volumes of war memoirs. Most recently, Penguin has published his witty re-workings of the Bible and Lady Chatterley's Lover; Wuthering Heights is forthcoming. This volume comprises an extract from Milligan's War.