0:00:02 > 0:00:05This programme contains some strong language
0:00:07 > 0:00:11As you may have heard on the news, earlier this evening, the comedian and writer Spike Milligan died
0:00:11 > 0:00:12at his home in Barnet, aged 104.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15Widely regarded as one of the country's true comic geniuses,
0:00:15 > 0:00:18the late Mr Milligan had only just completed recording a new series
0:00:18 > 0:00:21of his zany, wacky half-hour shows for the BBC.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24That's BBC TWO, of course, not BBC ONE,
0:00:24 > 0:00:27who tended to regard him as something of a light entertainment leper.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31And though millions will mourn the tragic passing of Mr Milligan's
0:00:31 > 0:00:35unique and eccentric talent, we have been asked by the trustee of his estate,
0:00:35 > 0:00:38a Miss Glenda Plunge of Latex Dungeons, Soho,
0:00:38 > 0:00:43to honour his memory in the way that he would surely have wished.
0:00:43 > 0:00:46BBC TWO is now proud to present
0:00:46 > 0:00:49George Formby in Spare a Copper.
0:00:49 > 0:00:53MUSIC: The Window Cleaner by George Formby
0:00:53 > 0:00:55# Now I go window cleaning... #
0:00:55 > 0:01:01Stop it, I said. Stop it! You're stealing my pride. Run telecine.
0:01:01 > 0:01:03Here's Spike.
0:01:03 > 0:01:05Good evening.
0:01:05 > 0:01:07It seems to be going all right so far.
0:01:09 > 0:01:11HE BLOWS RASPBERRY
0:01:11 > 0:01:12It's me 'usband...
0:01:12 > 0:01:15Suddenly, he can't talk proper like.
0:01:15 > 0:01:17SPEAKS THROUGH A KAZOO
0:01:17 > 0:01:19BAGPIPE MUSIC DIES OUT
0:01:20 > 0:01:25You once told me that you had the finest comic mind in the country.
0:01:25 > 0:01:27Oh, beyond that. In the universe.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30Spike Milligan - actor, Goon, singer...
0:01:30 > 0:01:32COMEDIC OPERATIC SINGING
0:01:32 > 0:01:35..is the godfather of British comedy.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39- 'ello, Sarge.- 'ello, Constable.
0:01:39 > 0:01:41Milligan, of course, never has been simply a comedian.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44- Musician, author, playwright... - He's an inventive man.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47Invective letter writer, crusader against bureaucracy, poet,
0:01:47 > 0:01:49illustrator and trumpet player.
0:01:51 > 0:01:53He is a national treasure.
0:01:53 > 0:01:57I don't want to know about thinking and all that about earning money. I just want to be an idiot.
0:02:00 > 0:02:05They actually call me a genius. If I am, I did not know it.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07I did not know that.
0:02:07 > 0:02:09I'd like to see some Spike.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23Tonight, a tribute to the late Sir Edward Elgar,
0:02:23 > 0:02:25whose favourite instrument was the...
0:02:25 > 0:02:26LAUGHTER
0:02:27 > 0:02:30..was the B-flat garden hose,
0:02:30 > 0:02:33for which he wrote many great pieces including...
0:02:33 > 0:02:34LAUGHTER
0:02:35 > 0:02:39..Underneath The Armpits, I Dream My Dreams Away.
0:02:39 > 0:02:40Right...
0:02:40 > 0:02:44SPLUTTERING SOUNDS TO THE TUNE OF UNDERNEATH THE ARCHES
0:02:44 > 0:02:47He was brilliant, beyond brilliant. He was unique.
0:02:51 > 0:02:56Spike developed a kind of comedy that had such delightful lunacy.
0:02:59 > 0:03:03Spike took comedy up a gear. He had a very strong sense,
0:03:03 > 0:03:05"I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it my way."
0:03:05 > 0:03:08- Well, 'orses don't play the piano. - No, he's not a real 'orse,
0:03:08 > 0:03:11there's a dog inside working him.
0:03:11 > 0:03:14Authorities should be able to be mocked
0:03:14 > 0:03:19and Spike, at his best, was a chief mocker.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22This government will pursue policies
0:03:22 > 0:03:25which will bring it within our grasp.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28BLOWS RASPBERRY
0:03:28 > 0:03:32I think he's incredibly important in the psyche of the nation, really.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36What are we going to do now? What are we going to do now?
0:03:36 > 0:03:38What are we going to do now? What are we going to do now?
0:03:38 > 0:03:41'Yes, what are we going to do now?'
0:03:46 > 0:03:48My first memory...
0:03:48 > 0:03:51I can't place where it was, though...
0:03:51 > 0:03:55I remember, and it had been haunting me all my life,
0:03:55 > 0:04:00I was looking through a porthole and there was a blue sea...
0:04:02 > 0:04:05..and a yacht going past with a reddish harbour brick wall
0:04:05 > 0:04:09behind it and I can't ever remember where it came from.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19Documenting his family history was really important to him.
0:04:19 > 0:04:21An archivist, that's what he was.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25He was really good at seeking out photographs
0:04:25 > 0:04:29and then very carefully putting them all in the family photo album.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32So, my grandparents' life was really well documented.
0:04:43 > 0:04:49My mother was singing in the choir at St Patrick's Cathedral, Poona.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52All troops used to attend church parades then,
0:04:52 > 0:04:55merely for the reason of being as close as they possibly could
0:04:55 > 0:04:58to the pretty daughters of these officers of the time.
0:04:58 > 0:05:00And that is exactly how it worked out.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03My father started talking to my mother
0:05:03 > 0:05:06and they eventually became engaged and got married.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17He was a frustrated actor. His father put in the Army at 14,
0:05:17 > 0:05:19but he always wanted to act and perform.
0:05:19 > 0:05:21And he did it all through his life,
0:05:21 > 0:05:23as a Soldier Showman, he used to call himself.
0:05:23 > 0:05:24He was very, very good.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37Together, my mother and father, they did shows for the troops overseas.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40They were great days. But then came World War I,
0:05:40 > 0:05:43it was a famous war, had a big cast and...
0:05:43 > 0:05:45LAUGHTER
0:05:46 > 0:05:50My father's regiment was sent to Mesopotamia.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54He was wounded and he was brought back to India on convalescence
0:05:54 > 0:05:58and he must've done something because...
0:05:58 > 0:06:00Because nine months later, I was born.
0:06:02 > 0:06:08My father was at a firing practice near Ooty Command.
0:06:08 > 0:06:13And he received a long envelope on 16th April 1918,
0:06:13 > 0:06:18saying, "Son born this morning, so far has refused to walk."
0:06:18 > 0:06:20- When did they first call you Spike? - In the Army.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24- So, when you were little, they called you, what, Terry or Terence?- Terry, yes. Terry.
0:06:24 > 0:06:27- You were Terry.- Yes. I didn't choose to be called Terry,
0:06:27 > 0:06:29but they abbreviated the name.
0:06:29 > 0:06:32I often wondered why people give you a real name and then abbreviate it.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42India was possibly the greatest experience of my life.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49I grew up in bright sunshine. I like bright things.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56I grew up with excitement, I grew up with animals,
0:06:56 > 0:06:59I grew up with tremendous space.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02MUSIC: Varnam by Rang Puhar Carnatic Group
0:07:05 > 0:07:09We had an Indian ayah, Indian cook, and Thumbi, our houseboy.
0:07:09 > 0:07:13And a maali, that's a gardener.
0:07:13 > 0:07:18We weren't rich, but in India, you became rich by reason of the fact that the labour was so cheap.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23We were living a lie. If we were back home in England,
0:07:23 > 0:07:27my father would have been living on a scale 50 times reduced...
0:07:27 > 0:07:29and no servants.
0:07:29 > 0:07:31And my mother would be back lighting the stove and the grate
0:07:31 > 0:07:33and whitening the step.
0:07:35 > 0:07:39I grew up believing that white people were superior,
0:07:39 > 0:07:41most superior to anybody else.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46I used to play with lots of Indian children and I remember
0:07:46 > 0:07:48that, when you played hockey, all these little Indian chokras -
0:07:48 > 0:07:52that's a Hindustani little boy - they would have hockey sticks
0:07:52 > 0:07:55made out of bits of wood and I would have a real hockey stick,
0:07:55 > 0:07:57but inevitably they would beat me.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01I did treat the servants as my parents used to talk to them,
0:08:01 > 0:08:05as being secondary people, which of course they weren't.
0:08:05 > 0:08:09I was being filled up with a load of gunge, imperical gunge.
0:08:09 > 0:08:11And deep down, I wasn't born to be that type of person,
0:08:11 > 0:08:13I was meant to be a liberal.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18I had to go to church every Sunday and I liked it
0:08:18 > 0:08:22because it had a sung Mass in Latin.
0:08:22 > 0:08:27And there's also an Indian priest who said the Mass in Tamil,
0:08:27 > 0:08:30and I used to get the giggles because it sounded just like this...
0:08:30 > 0:08:32Iggery-buggery, iggery-buggery.
0:08:32 > 0:08:36Iggery-buggery-iggery-buggery. Iggery-buggery-iggery-buggery...
0:08:36 > 0:08:39and I had to be suppressed many times.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41You were too young, weren't you, to laugh at that?
0:08:41 > 0:08:43I just thought it was funny sound.
0:08:43 > 0:08:47His humour was quite onomatopoeic, if you like.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50His use of language, certainly in his poems,
0:08:50 > 0:08:55is influenced by having been brought up with two languages in his childhood.
0:08:57 > 0:09:00I understand you're a great man to go to an Indian restaurant with.
0:09:00 > 0:09:01Oh, yes.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04- Haven't you got the Urdu?- The what?
0:09:04 > 0:09:07- The Urdu? I speak Hindustani, yes. - Hindustani.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10HE SPEAKS HINDI
0:09:11 > 0:09:14Do you order, do you order...? HE SPEAKS HINDI
0:09:14 > 0:09:16AUDIENCE MEMBER REPLIES IN HINDI
0:09:16 > 0:09:20THEY CONVERSE IN HINDI
0:09:21 > 0:09:23I started school about the age of five
0:09:23 > 0:09:26at the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Poona.
0:09:26 > 0:09:29And it was there, actually, that I got my first chance on the stage.
0:09:29 > 0:09:33They had a nativity play and the nuns are not notoriously good
0:09:33 > 0:09:35for moving heavy scenery in between scenes.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39So, they got me, they put me in front of the curtain
0:09:39 > 0:09:40while they were moving all the things.
0:09:40 > 0:09:42And they dressed me up as a clown -
0:09:42 > 0:09:45rather a prophetic vision, because that's what I became in the end, a clown.
0:09:45 > 0:09:49What my job was to do, was to go in front of the curtains like this and jump up and down.
0:09:49 > 0:09:51My first performance was exactly like this. I went....
0:09:53 > 0:09:56And everybody thought it was very funny for a boy of five.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00I remember a very poignant part of that story, was the fact that a nun said to me,
0:10:00 > 0:10:03- IN IRISH ACCENT:- "Now, Terry. When the crib's at the end
0:10:03 > 0:10:05"with Jesus in the crib, you mustn't go near there,
0:10:05 > 0:10:07"only the angels must go near the crib."
0:10:07 > 0:10:10And I thought that wasn't fair, so I actually had a touch,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13still had a touch of theatre about me.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16I waited... We're all around the crib...
0:10:16 > 0:10:18And I went there and took my hat off,
0:10:18 > 0:10:22my little clown's hat off, and got a round of applause for it.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24Little scene stealer, Jesus came second that day.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31Then we moved from there.
0:10:31 > 0:10:34My father posted to Rangoon in Burma.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38I was mixing with Anglo-Burmese school, you see.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42- I was called "white monkey". - HE TRANSLATES IN NATIVE LANGUAGE
0:10:42 > 0:10:45It didn't hurt me, though, to be called white monkey, at all.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47I didn't think it was hurtful.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50There was a brother born to me when I was eight years of age, in Rangoon.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54When my brother grew up, he used to play soldiers with me. We made a little army of our own,
0:10:54 > 0:10:58we formed our own country in our mind called Lomania.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00The Labour government at the time had made what they called
0:11:00 > 0:11:04a 10% cut, of the Army, Navy and the Air Force, which left us
0:11:04 > 0:11:09in that invidious position, when Hitler declared war, of having nothing.
0:11:09 > 0:11:13My father was cut out of the Army before his time
0:11:13 > 0:11:16and we came home on the SS Rajputana.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22The trouble is, when you make a 10% cut of staff,
0:11:22 > 0:11:25if you're one of those 10%, it says something.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27It says either you're too old
0:11:27 > 0:11:29or you can't do your job.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32That's it, really, isn't it?
0:11:32 > 0:11:36So, I think there may have been a bit of a black cloud over them,
0:11:36 > 0:11:39leaving that fantastic lifestyle
0:11:39 > 0:11:41and coming back to...
0:11:41 > 0:11:43IN COCKNEY ACCENT: South London.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50The difference between Rangoon and Catford has to be pretty considerable.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53- Were you unhappy? - I suddenly turned inward.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57I couldn't understand all the... Everybody seemed never to smile.
0:11:57 > 0:12:04They still don't. Sort of very sullen, dark, cold.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07We were in an attic room, with a gas stove in the bedroom with us.
0:12:07 > 0:12:10My brother and I used to play with our soldiers
0:12:10 > 0:12:13and play little records and pretend we weren't there.
0:12:15 > 0:12:17English teeth, English teeth
0:12:17 > 0:12:19Shining in the sun,
0:12:19 > 0:12:21a part of British heritage
0:12:21 > 0:12:23Each and every one
0:12:23 > 0:12:26English teeth, heroes' teeth
0:12:26 > 0:12:28Hear them click and clack
0:12:28 > 0:12:31Let's sing a song of praise to them
0:12:31 > 0:12:34Three cheers for the brown, grey and black!
0:12:34 > 0:12:36LAUGHTER
0:12:36 > 0:12:42I went to the South-East London Polytechnic to study metalwork,
0:12:42 > 0:12:44and started to hear of Bing Crosby,
0:12:44 > 0:12:47and getting very enamoured of Bing Crosby at that time.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52But I heard a record by Louis Armstrong
0:12:52 > 0:12:54called I'm Just a Gigolo
0:12:54 > 0:12:56and then I changed from Bing Crosby to real jazz,
0:12:56 > 0:12:57started to play the trumpet.
0:13:21 > 0:13:25And then I received a cunningly worded invitation from
0:13:25 > 0:13:28His Majesty's government to partake in World War II at, I think it was
0:13:28 > 0:13:32a thruppence a day, with the promise of a free burial if I was killed.
0:13:32 > 0:13:34I actually was thinking of being a pacifist.
0:13:34 > 0:13:37I was a gentle person, I wasn't into violence,
0:13:37 > 0:13:40and I said, "Well, I'm thinking of being a pacifist."
0:13:40 > 0:13:43He says, "What?! What will the neighbours say?!"
0:13:43 > 0:13:45I suppose he couldn't wait to tell people,
0:13:45 > 0:13:48"My son's been killed in action, you know." That sort of feeling.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51"What, you've come back and you haven't been killed?
0:13:51 > 0:13:53"What will the neighbours say?"
0:13:53 > 0:13:58I don't think he really wanted us to know how bad it was,
0:13:58 > 0:14:00but I also know that it would have done his head in,
0:14:00 > 0:14:03just because he wasn't a killer.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08He did tell me about losing his friend at Longstop Hill, Tony,
0:14:08 > 0:14:11who was blown up, and I just remember thinking,
0:14:11 > 0:14:13"God, this is awful", you know?
0:14:13 > 0:14:15It broke his heart.
0:14:16 > 0:14:20Young are our dead, like babes they lie
0:14:20 > 0:14:23The wombs they blest once, not healed dry
0:14:23 > 0:14:26And yet, too soon, into each space,
0:14:26 > 0:14:29A cold earth falls on a colder face
0:14:29 > 0:14:32Quite still they lie, these fresh-cut reeds,
0:14:32 > 0:14:35Clutched in earth like the winter seeds
0:14:35 > 0:14:37They will not bloom when called by spring
0:14:37 > 0:14:40To burst with leaf and blossoming
0:14:40 > 0:14:42They will sleep on in silent dust
0:14:42 > 0:14:45As crosses rot and helmets rust.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54Seeing blood spilled there, it was horrifying.
0:14:54 > 0:14:56I daren't think too deeply about it.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00The worst fear was not dying, but getting mutilated.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05Getting your innards blown out or something like that.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09When you saw it actually happening, you realised it could happen to you.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20I had got wounded at Monte Cassino.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24We were trying to carry up batteries for the OP...
0:15:26 > 0:15:30..and the fucking Germans must have seen us.
0:15:31 > 0:15:33They started to mortar us.
0:15:37 > 0:15:43One must have burst somewhere near my head and I got blown up.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51Were you invalided out of the army?
0:15:51 > 0:15:53No, they gave me some early tranquillisers, I think,
0:15:53 > 0:15:55which sent me to sleep.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58Sent me on the lines for seven days and sent me up to the guns,
0:15:58 > 0:16:02and as soon as I heard the guns go, I started to stammer.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05It was out of my mind, it had completely unbalanced me, you know.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07I was giggling and saying to the sergeant,
0:16:07 > 0:16:11"Can we have the next dance over the precipice together, darling?"
0:16:11 > 0:16:13And they took me to a first aid station somewhere
0:16:13 > 0:16:17and then I... I've never recovered since.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20When they saw the state I was in, I went to a psychiatrist
0:16:20 > 0:16:22and he said, "I'm sorry, it would be dangerous for you
0:16:22 > 0:16:24"to go up the line in this condition. It wouldn't be fair
0:16:24 > 0:16:26"to your comrades. We'll put you in a base camp"
0:16:26 > 0:16:28I went to a base camp
0:16:28 > 0:16:32and I had a couple of more breakdowns while I was there.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35The major stood me up and said, "You're a coward,"
0:16:35 > 0:16:37and that was an appalling thing to say to a man.
0:16:37 > 0:16:39No crime in being a coward, mind you.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42But I didn't think I was a coward in as much that
0:16:42 > 0:16:44I'd been in action all through the North African campaign
0:16:44 > 0:16:45and all the way out to Cassino.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48If I'd have been a coward, I'd have run away the first day, wouldn't I?
0:16:48 > 0:16:51- Tell me that. - Yes, I think that seems true.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55Well, I think I'd just run out of steam, that's all.
0:17:29 > 0:17:31Were you attracted by the formality of the Army
0:17:31 > 0:17:34and the way it rigidly controls your life?
0:17:34 > 0:17:37Yes, I've suffered Army discharge withdrawal symptoms
0:17:37 > 0:17:39ever since I left it.
0:17:39 > 0:17:44It was very secure, very funny, and if you don't get killed,
0:17:44 > 0:17:47- a very good life.- Did you ever think of going back into it?
0:17:47 > 0:17:49No, I never did.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53I wanted to try and make a go of the entertainment world.
0:18:15 > 0:18:17Dad was doing Variety Bandbox,
0:18:17 > 0:18:19as was Peter Sellers,
0:18:19 > 0:18:21erm, and shows like
0:18:21 > 0:18:23Educating Archie on the radio.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25Spike was trying to get his career off the ground.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28He was still playing with the Bill Hall Trio,
0:18:28 > 0:18:30but he wanted to write and do his own stuff.
0:18:30 > 0:18:32I used to work behind a bar in Westminster in London,
0:18:32 > 0:18:36and the chap who owned the pub, he was writing at the time,
0:18:36 > 0:18:38odd scripts for a chap called Derek Roy,
0:18:38 > 0:18:40who was big shakes in those days.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43I used to tell one or two jokes, and then, bit by bit, he said,
0:18:43 > 0:18:44"Do you know any jokes?"
0:18:44 > 0:18:47I said, "There's some more jokes", and then I'd ran out of the jokes!
0:18:47 > 0:18:50He said, "Will you do any more?" I said, "No, I'd make some up, I suppose."
0:18:50 > 0:18:54Then I started to write way out things and nobody ever used them, except when I met Peter Sellers,
0:18:54 > 0:18:56and then he laughed like mad at these jokes.
0:18:56 > 0:18:59I said, "Do you think they're funny?" He said, "Yes!"
0:18:59 > 0:19:00I thought that was praise enough at the time
0:19:00 > 0:19:03because he was quite a big name in radio when that happened.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07Jimmy started taping their bantering sessions,
0:19:07 > 0:19:11and so he tried to put a pilot show together.
0:19:11 > 0:19:18The BBC reluctantly, at first, let them broadcast it.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21It wasn't called The Goons then, it was called Crazy People.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28PHONE RINGS
0:19:28 > 0:19:29What? Yes, oh...
0:19:31 > 0:19:34Gentlemen, a mystery has been committed!
0:19:34 > 0:19:37It was like nothing we had ever heard before.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41It was four men who spoke in these funny voices
0:19:41 > 0:19:45and they were just these wild bunch of anarchists.
0:19:45 > 0:19:47Eccles, I suppose,
0:19:47 > 0:19:52was really a combination of Goofy plus every idiot I've ever met.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56"There's somebody straining in a dark corner over there!"
0:19:58 > 0:20:01Bluebottle was a character that Peter Sellers saw in a school.
0:20:01 > 0:20:04He said anybody who brought a toy to school, this kid would
0:20:04 > 0:20:08always say, "Can I be the one that sees nobody touches it for you?"
0:20:08 > 0:20:11The freeform of the characters, the freeform of the story,
0:20:11 > 0:20:14the boldness, the audacity, the cheek, the silliness,
0:20:14 > 0:20:17the absurdity, it was just, no-one else was doing that.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20Everything was reasonably conventional up to that time.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25It's a sort of encapsulation of the war experience
0:20:25 > 0:20:27and I suppose a lot of the listeners
0:20:27 > 0:20:29who had been through the Second World War
0:20:29 > 0:20:31probably subconsciously locked into that.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35After the war, The Establishment wanted everything
0:20:35 > 0:20:38to be the same again, and, in a way,
0:20:38 > 0:20:40The Goon Show took the high ground
0:20:40 > 0:20:42because it just mocked everything.
0:20:42 > 0:20:48There's that sort of feeling that you had to behave, and The Goons,
0:20:48 > 0:20:49it was completely the opposite.
0:20:49 > 0:20:54These were people who were misbehaving, doing the most extraordinary things.
0:20:58 > 0:21:00It was a very patrician society, you know,
0:21:00 > 0:21:03"We know best, the ruling classes know best,
0:21:03 > 0:21:05"all you chaps, you just get on with it, all right?"
0:21:05 > 0:21:07And Spike was...
0:21:07 > 0:21:12And a lot of servicemen who had come back from the war were not happy,
0:21:12 > 0:21:14weren't content with that kind of thing any more,
0:21:14 > 0:21:20they weren't just going to slide back peacefully into their old roles and be told what to do.
0:21:20 > 0:21:21No, thank you very much.
0:21:21 > 0:21:24They'd seen the world, they'd seen worse than that,
0:21:24 > 0:21:25and they'd fought for their country.
0:21:25 > 0:21:27They deserved more than being told, you know,
0:21:27 > 0:21:30"Go on, go and get back to your plough."
0:21:30 > 0:21:31PHONE RINGS
0:21:31 > 0:21:35- Seagoon, answer the phone.- What? - I want to speak to you on it.- Oh.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39- Hello?- Is that you, Seagoon?- Yes.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42- This is Hercules Grytpype-Thynne. - Oh, just the man.
0:21:42 > 0:21:46- You owe me 10 weeks' wages.- You're fired, there's from 11 weeks back.
0:21:46 > 0:21:50It sort of warns you to be aware of people with enormous confidence
0:21:50 > 0:21:52and smoothness, doesn't it?
0:21:52 > 0:21:54Whereas the poor people like Bluebottle
0:21:54 > 0:21:56pay the price for what these other people are doing.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59It's quite socialist, really, when you think about it.
0:21:59 > 0:22:04But an interesting way of presenting a view of the world
0:22:04 > 0:22:07that's funny, but somehow, underneath,
0:22:07 > 0:22:09rather dangerous and disturbing.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13All these Goon Shows and so on, they're very gentle, aren't they?
0:22:13 > 0:22:17You're very... You're non-satirical in your work
0:22:17 > 0:22:20but you project a great satirical front.
0:22:20 > 0:22:24Well, I'm not an intellectual, therefore I cannot write satire.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27I feel violently against, about things, terribly violently,
0:22:27 > 0:22:30but I'm not a violent person. That's what I'm trying to say.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32My thing is... They say, "Oh, jolly funny!"
0:22:32 > 0:22:34"Wait a minute, was that jolly funny?
0:22:34 > 0:22:36"He had some pretty...
0:22:36 > 0:22:38"He pointed the finger at ME.
0:22:38 > 0:22:41"Wait a minute, he was doing a thing about the Ministry... That was me!"
0:22:41 > 0:22:43But they laugh at the time, but they reflect -
0:22:43 > 0:22:45it's a reflective sort of humour.
0:22:45 > 0:22:51It appealed to the anger, the latent anger in the younger generation,
0:22:51 > 0:22:54who thought, "No, we're going to do something different now."
0:22:54 > 0:22:57They wanted anarchy, they wanted to break out.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01It was certainly useful in terms of changing
0:23:01 > 0:23:04the shape of Britain, I was going to say, to make a big statement,
0:23:04 > 0:23:11because authority was moribund, and wherever it sort of crops up,
0:23:11 > 0:23:15it wants to establish itself and become holy,
0:23:15 > 0:23:17and Spike was having none of it.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41And she proposed to me. She said, "Will you marry me?"
0:23:41 > 0:23:44And I thought, "I don't want to disappoint her", so I said yes.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47- Had you known her long? - Oh, I'd known her about a year.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11There I was, with all this responsibility.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14I went on writing and writing. Well, I had to go on writing,
0:24:14 > 0:24:17I had to earn a living.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19I've just come in the front room and found him
0:24:19 > 0:24:22- lying on the carpet, there. - Oh, is he dead?- I think so.
0:24:22 > 0:24:25- Oh, hadn't you better make sure? - All right, just a minute.
0:24:25 > 0:24:27GUNSHOTS
0:24:27 > 0:24:29He's dead.
0:24:30 > 0:24:32I think it was Bentine
0:24:32 > 0:24:36who thought there had never been a big enough silence on the BBC,
0:24:36 > 0:24:38and he said, "Now, ladies and gentlemen,
0:24:38 > 0:24:40"we're going for the world record silence."
0:24:40 > 0:24:42And we just stopped.
0:24:42 > 0:24:46ROARING AUDIENCE LAUGHTER
0:24:46 > 0:24:47We didn't do anything,
0:24:47 > 0:24:49and it was the audience started to do it for us.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51They started to cry with laughter.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55We left it so long, we just went to the end of the show.
0:24:55 > 0:24:58Better get out while the going's good, I think.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01That was his own idea, and "Good night!", that was it.
0:25:08 > 0:25:10Now, the Bentine story is interesting,
0:25:10 > 0:25:14and no-one has ever seemed to be able to get to the bottom of it.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16The thing about Bentine
0:25:16 > 0:25:21was that he took quite a long time to build up to a punch line,
0:25:21 > 0:25:25whereas Spike would go...
0:25:25 > 0:25:27Take it or leave it.
0:25:27 > 0:25:29And they didn't see eye-to-eye, comically.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32I mean, there was a lot of friction between Peter and Spike as well,
0:25:32 > 0:25:36but that was a different sort of thing, that was like a marriage.
0:25:36 > 0:25:41Mike seemed to have come from a slightly different route, somehow.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13In the end, Mike just sort of thought,
0:26:13 > 0:26:16"Well, it's not worth the aggravation",
0:26:16 > 0:26:18and sort of stepped out of it.
0:26:18 > 0:26:20He was a lovely man, lovely man,
0:26:20 > 0:26:23there was never any kind of huge animosity.
0:26:23 > 0:26:26There was creative differences between them.
0:26:26 > 0:26:30- Who writes the scripts? - Spike, Spike writes them.- Yes.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33- Where do these ideas come from? - I have no idea.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36Methodically, it's... I don't write them on fag packets like people claim.
0:26:36 > 0:26:38Spike did a whole stream of consciousness, really,
0:26:38 > 0:26:41on and on and on. Draft, draft, on and on.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45Until you had to say to him, at the end of a Friday,
0:26:45 > 0:26:49"You've got to stop now because we've got to send it up for the show on Sunday."
0:26:51 > 0:26:55When you went to The Goon Show, you went to the Camden Theatre.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58It was full of excited people, you know,
0:26:58 > 0:27:00it was quite hard to get a ticket.
0:27:00 > 0:27:02Then they'd be up on the stage,
0:27:02 > 0:27:04usually looking a bit dishevelled, really.
0:27:04 > 0:27:09They'd read the script and frequently burst into fits of giggles themselves.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15There's somebody laughing outside the bedroom door.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17LAUGHTER
0:27:18 > 0:27:21And it was sort of wild, sort of irreverent,
0:27:21 > 0:27:23a bit like going to a party.
0:27:24 > 0:27:26We look forward to this incredible day, this Sunday,
0:27:26 > 0:27:31this sort of reunion for us. I mean, we used to live for that, didn't we?
0:27:31 > 0:27:33I mean, I did, and I know you did.
0:27:33 > 0:27:35I suppose Spike used to feel a bit weary,
0:27:35 > 0:27:38because during the week, he wrote most of it.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41The Sunday get-together used to sort of put a charge in Spike
0:27:41 > 0:27:44and the thing used to get off the ground.
0:27:44 > 0:27:47There were times when I was positively manic, gripped with this
0:27:47 > 0:27:51great fervour to write this stuff and to hear them do it every Sunday.
0:27:51 > 0:27:52I couldn't wait for them to do it.
0:27:52 > 0:27:55When it went down, I thought, "I've done it, I've done it!"
0:27:55 > 0:27:57Then I'd have to start it all over again,
0:27:57 > 0:27:58that was the awful part of it.
0:28:02 > 0:28:07It was a mad desire to be better than anybody else at comedy,
0:28:07 > 0:28:10and if I couldn't do it in the given time of eight hours a day,
0:28:10 > 0:28:12I used to work 12, 13 or 14.
0:28:13 > 0:28:15He was under a lot of pressure,
0:28:15 > 0:28:19it is a pressure to get out a show week after week after week.
0:28:19 > 0:28:25It's a constant striving, you almost beat yourself.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29Consequently, I was sometimes writing all through the night,
0:28:29 > 0:28:32which I was willing to do, but then somebody would want you
0:28:32 > 0:28:35to write all day for another script and write the following night.
0:28:35 > 0:28:37And this was happening.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40And because I was gentle and I didn't like to say no to anybody,
0:28:40 > 0:28:41I went on with it.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00My wife was suffering with postnatal fever
0:29:00 > 0:29:04and she collapsed on the night that the baby was brought home,
0:29:04 > 0:29:07and I had no idea how to handle the baby. I cuddled it
0:29:07 > 0:29:10and tried to make a meal for my wife, who had this high-temperature.
0:29:10 > 0:29:12I got the doctor, he said to keep her cool
0:29:12 > 0:29:14and to give her this every four hours,
0:29:14 > 0:29:16and the baby's screaming, and it's time to write.
0:29:16 > 0:29:19After two days, I thought I'd go mad.
0:29:22 > 0:29:25The tension was so immense, I cracked up
0:29:25 > 0:29:28and I started to sweat profusely,
0:29:28 > 0:29:31and I got very hot and I had to go to bed.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34The doctor couldn't treat me,
0:29:34 > 0:29:37so what he did was to shut me up with sodium amytal.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42I was lying there for a month and a half,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45and I got worse and worse,
0:29:45 > 0:29:48and I knew if I didn't do something, I'd be lying there for ever.
0:29:48 > 0:29:50When all hope is gone,
0:29:50 > 0:29:54I suppose, your mind cracks or you commit suicide.
0:29:54 > 0:29:56I didn't want it to reach that stage,
0:29:56 > 0:29:59so I decided that I had to do something desperate,
0:29:59 > 0:30:03and I got a potato knife...
0:30:05 > 0:30:09..and I went out to Peter Sellers' front door -
0:30:09 > 0:30:14his flat was opposite - and I'm certain I walked through it.
0:30:14 > 0:30:17I remember I was cut, it was a glass door...
0:30:17 > 0:30:19You walk straight through it, I think I did that.
0:30:19 > 0:30:22And I remember shouting, "I've come to kill Peter Sellers."
0:30:39 > 0:30:43Thank God they gave me deep narcosis.
0:30:43 > 0:30:45I went to sleep for about three weeks,
0:30:45 > 0:30:51and that seemed to break the tension, but I was still ill.
0:30:51 > 0:30:52I wasn't getting any better.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55In fact, staying there, I could have actually got worse.
0:30:55 > 0:30:58They were just giving me pills, no emotional love, just pills.
0:30:58 > 0:31:00I thought, "Well, I can get these on prescription,
0:31:00 > 0:31:02"just carry them in my pocket."
0:31:02 > 0:31:05So, when I got up one morning, I packed my clothes
0:31:05 > 0:31:08and I went downstairs... They said, "Where are you going?"
0:31:08 > 0:31:10I said, "Well, I'm leaving."
0:31:17 > 0:31:19I was mentally ill, no two ways about it.
0:31:19 > 0:31:21I shouldn't have been working.
0:31:21 > 0:31:25But I had to hang on to this job, which was a very good job.
0:31:25 > 0:31:28I went in and out of mental homes about once every six months.
0:31:28 > 0:31:30But at this time, when you say you were ill,
0:31:30 > 0:31:35- you were turning out classic comedy material.- It's amazing, yeah.
0:31:35 > 0:31:38- Do the ideas still come under those circumstances?- Yes, they did, yes.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42They were manic. Absolutely manic, you know. I was slightly off my nut.
0:31:42 > 0:31:45- Were they usable ideas? - Oh, yes, they were usable.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48They became more abstract and more exquisite, you know?
0:31:48 > 0:31:51Like, you'd get a scene where Neddie Seagoon
0:31:51 > 0:31:54is saying, "We must get to the woods before the trees get there."
0:31:54 > 0:31:58It was trying to drive insanity to its limit, in the show.
0:31:59 > 0:32:01Bend down and I'll climb on your back
0:32:01 > 0:32:04- and I'll reach the leather box like that.- OK, up...
0:32:04 > 0:32:06No, it's no good, I can't reach.
0:32:06 > 0:32:09Well, you stay where you are and I'll get up on your shoulders.
0:32:09 > 0:32:12- Right...- Can I climb up yet?
0:32:12 > 0:32:15Stay there and I'll climb on your back.
0:32:15 > 0:32:17- OK.- Nearly there.
0:32:17 > 0:32:20No good, I'll have to get on your shoulders now.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23And that was Spike's genius, he could exploit radio
0:32:23 > 0:32:27to build those wonderful, like, Escher drawings,
0:32:27 > 0:32:30wonderful pictures in your mind which can't exist anywhere else.
0:32:30 > 0:32:35The fact that you could have a show in which you would hear
0:32:35 > 0:32:40someone knock on a door and then you'd have 30 seconds
0:32:40 > 0:32:43of footsteps, just footsteps, coming down, getting to the door.
0:32:43 > 0:32:47"Hello, who's that?" "It's Henry. Can you let me in?"
0:32:47 > 0:32:49"Yes. I'll go and get the key."
0:32:49 > 0:32:52And then another 30 seconds when he went upstairs again.
0:32:52 > 0:32:5590 seconds of nothing more than steps up and downstairs,
0:32:55 > 0:32:58and I thought it was just absolutely thrillingly wonderful
0:32:58 > 0:33:00someone could do this on radio.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03Spike is imposing the most difficult sounds to make,
0:33:03 > 0:33:06like a piano being played at high speed across the Atlantic, you know?
0:33:07 > 0:33:12VARIOUS ANIMAL NOISES
0:33:14 > 0:33:16Answer that phone.
0:33:17 > 0:33:21Spike, with the radio series, was continually up in arms
0:33:21 > 0:33:25at the BBC over the sound effects, because he said they were not...
0:33:25 > 0:33:29They would do very tatty sound effects
0:33:29 > 0:33:30to what he had in his mind.
0:33:30 > 0:33:35I was trying to shake the BBC out of its apathy.
0:33:35 > 0:33:39Sound effects were a knock on the door and a trunch on gravel,
0:33:39 > 0:33:40that was it.
0:33:40 > 0:33:43And I tried to transform it, and I had to fight like mad, and people didn't like me for it.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47I raged and banged and crashed, and I got it all right in the end,
0:33:47 > 0:33:49and it paid off, but it drove me mad in the process
0:33:49 > 0:33:52and drove a lot of other people mad and that's why I don't think
0:33:52 > 0:33:55I can be a success again on that same level because I couldn't go through all the tantrums.
0:33:55 > 0:33:59I remember Spike once wanted the effect of something being hit
0:33:59 > 0:34:01with a sock full of custard. Remember that time?
0:34:01 > 0:34:04And he got the lady at the canteen of the Camden Theatre
0:34:04 > 0:34:06to lovingly prepare this custard for him.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09She said, "Here you are, Spike, here's your custard."
0:34:11 > 0:34:13He took his sock off and poured it in.
0:34:15 > 0:34:17He went downstairs and he swung the sock around his head,
0:34:17 > 0:34:25hit it against the wall. It didn't have the effect he wanted.
0:34:40 > 0:34:42- CHILD:- Now, I'm telling you a story.
0:34:42 > 0:34:45Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Sile.
0:34:45 > 0:34:49The girl's a very little girl and she's very good, you know.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52Say "That was Miss Laura Milligan..."
0:34:52 > 0:34:54That was Miss Laura Milligan, if you like to know,
0:34:54 > 0:34:56so don't smack your bottoms and think you don't know.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59You talk too much, Miss Milligan.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03When I was little, I actually didn't listen to The Goon Show.
0:35:03 > 0:35:07We were getting the real thing at home, on a children's level.
0:35:10 > 0:35:13Peter would arrive up and they'd both start talking
0:35:13 > 0:35:16to each other in these ridiculous languages.
0:35:16 > 0:35:20CONVERSING IN SILLY GIBBERISH
0:35:23 > 0:35:26We were getting Bluebottle, all the characters.
0:35:26 > 0:35:29And I was totally unaware that he was famous.
0:35:48 > 0:35:51We couldn't use the word 'goon' because BBC owned it.
0:35:51 > 0:35:55So, three series - Idiot Weekly, Price 2d,
0:35:55 > 0:35:57the Show Called Fred and Son of Fred.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03Fred was a word that Spike and Peter found amazingly funny
0:36:03 > 0:36:06for some reason I've never been able to work out.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09I suppose it was just the antithesis of smoothness.
0:36:16 > 0:36:18It's Monte Carlo!
0:36:18 > 0:36:21Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23The count of Monte Carlo!
0:36:23 > 0:36:25THEY SPEAK FRENCH
0:36:27 > 0:36:30- After you, Ricardo. - Right... Ride, ride!
0:36:30 > 0:36:34'HORSE' HOOVES CLAP I'll master you yet, proud black beauty.
0:36:36 > 0:36:38Come dear, let's go home.
0:36:41 > 0:36:45He had images, great, great ideas and he had them
0:36:45 > 0:36:49genuinely like fireworks going off.
0:36:54 > 0:36:59And he was so desperate to mould the medium of television
0:36:59 > 0:37:04to his ideas that we were left trailing behind, saying,
0:37:04 > 0:37:07"I think I know how I can do that."
0:37:09 > 0:37:10Fire Torpedo One!
0:37:14 > 0:37:18# When your friends forsake you, and you can't find romance,
0:37:18 > 0:37:21# Jump into a dustbin and dance
0:37:25 > 0:37:29# Throw out all that rubbish, show them you don't care
0:37:29 > 0:37:32# When they come to empty it, it won't be there
0:37:32 > 0:37:36# When you've got no trousers, with ragged underpants,
0:37:36 > 0:37:39# Yes, leap into the dustbin and dance! #
0:37:39 > 0:37:45The response to the first two of the three series was very, very good.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52The difficulty is that he then leapt forward with the third series.
0:37:53 > 0:37:55Well, hello folks.
0:37:55 > 0:38:00- We're just seeing if our old ship is still rail-ready, eh, Dellis?- Ya.
0:38:02 > 0:38:04- All is good.- All is good.
0:38:04 > 0:38:09By Son of Fred, it was a form of visual rather than verbal surrealism.
0:38:11 > 0:38:15It confused the hell out of the audience, but he was really,
0:38:15 > 0:38:19really pushing to see what was possible in comedy.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23I think this is insult. I play Verdi's Caravaggio.
0:38:23 > 0:38:25I know, but I've told you, I'm sorry,
0:38:25 > 0:38:27we do need a camera. Now, close in tightly, that's right.
0:38:27 > 0:38:29Swing it over here, that's lovely and tight.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31Now then, change lenses over.
0:38:31 > 0:38:36There is a terrible tendency in television to be very happy
0:38:36 > 0:38:39repeating a previous success.
0:38:39 > 0:38:43And they thought it was wilful of us all
0:38:43 > 0:38:45to try to do something that we didn't know
0:38:45 > 0:38:49whether it would work or not, and it probably didn't work,
0:38:49 > 0:38:52but there were bits in it that were brilliant.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56Now, ladies and gentlemen, I will play Verdi's Caravaggio.
0:39:24 > 0:39:27I think there was a lot of discord going on between my mother
0:39:27 > 0:39:29and my father on the trip.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36I was very aware of bad tensions going on.
0:39:36 > 0:39:39The marriage was already faltering, so...
0:39:41 > 0:39:44Dad was on manic highs and playing up.
0:39:49 > 0:39:53I think he became quite down on the trip,
0:39:53 > 0:39:57and I actually wanted to get off, but I was only about...
0:39:57 > 0:39:58I think I was quite small.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04I don't think June was happy, so, you know,
0:40:04 > 0:40:10you pick up on your mother's sadness. I mean, she was only young.
0:40:12 > 0:40:14You know, imagine you're on a boat and you've just found out
0:40:14 > 0:40:17"I really have married a lunatic.
0:40:17 > 0:40:19"This is not what I planned."
0:40:27 > 0:40:32He was highly popular in Australia, where they treated him like a god.
0:40:32 > 0:40:34He really was put on a pedestal.
0:40:36 > 0:40:42I think he liked all that fame when he was younger. He was very humble.
0:40:42 > 0:40:46He didn't like a fuss made of him but he liked to be recognised.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52So, I think him coming to Australia, and the fact that he actually
0:40:52 > 0:40:56had family on the ground there, was quite a big thing.
0:40:56 > 0:41:00And in the news tonight, the ABC brings you Spike Milligan.
0:41:00 > 0:41:03Do you find any basic differences in the humour of, say,
0:41:03 > 0:41:05Australia and Britain?
0:41:05 > 0:41:07I thought there might be until, when I arrived here,
0:41:07 > 0:41:11I discovered that the old Goon Show was quite popular.
0:41:11 > 0:41:18So, I presume humour of a certain pitch is pretty universal.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21It's all in the mind, you know.
0:41:21 > 0:41:23- SILLY VOICE:- It's all in the mind!
0:41:39 > 0:41:42- You trod on me. Oh, dear, my man. - What are you doing in the gutter?
0:41:42 > 0:41:45I was meditating in it.
0:41:47 > 0:41:48There's a place for that...
0:44:56 > 0:45:00I got custody of the children through a very dodgy lawyer,
0:45:00 > 0:45:01who kept threatening her.
0:45:01 > 0:45:03And I got the custody in court.
0:45:03 > 0:45:05Very unusual, wasn't it, Spike?
0:45:05 > 0:45:09It was unusual, but she had committed adultery.
0:45:09 > 0:45:12Yeah, but that doesn't mean, even in those days...
0:45:12 > 0:45:15Yeah, but I'd got them before the court case.
0:45:15 > 0:45:18The judge said, "What do you do for a living?" I said, "I'm a writer."
0:45:18 > 0:45:21He didn't seem to go very deep. He thought, "That's good enough."
0:45:21 > 0:45:24And he said, "Right, well, custody granted for the children."
0:45:24 > 0:45:28I'm still haunted by the fact that I deprived them of a mother.
0:45:28 > 0:45:30And it was my fault.
0:45:31 > 0:45:33My first wife was a very fine woman
0:45:33 > 0:45:37and I was in the middle of a terrible nervous breakdown
0:45:37 > 0:45:38and I was awful.
0:45:38 > 0:45:40I must've been actually abominable.
0:45:40 > 0:45:42And she couldn't stand it. That's all. And she left.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44And it's one of those things,
0:45:44 > 0:45:46an unfortunate fact of life that happened.
0:45:46 > 0:45:50Later on in life, I was so proud of my father
0:45:50 > 0:45:55because he never said one bad word against June.
0:45:55 > 0:46:00He said, "She was a beautiful woman, a lovely nature."
0:46:00 > 0:46:03He said, "It was all my fault.
0:46:03 > 0:46:06"And I wouldn't want you to think it was anything to do with her."
0:46:06 > 0:46:07He said, "It was all me."
0:46:07 > 0:46:10And, God, did I respect him for saying that.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13When your first wife left you, in fact, you brought up
0:46:13 > 0:46:15the first three children on your own, I think, didn't you?
0:46:15 > 0:46:17Yes, with the aid of a housekeeper, yes.
0:46:17 > 0:46:20Do you look back on those as good days?
0:46:20 > 0:46:25Well, I was pretty tortured by the fact that they didn't have a mother.
0:46:25 > 0:46:29That hurt a lot. It still does, in fact.
0:46:29 > 0:46:31And I think it hurt them.
0:46:32 > 0:46:36Unfortunately, their mother never came to see them, for some reason.
0:46:37 > 0:46:40There's a terrible photograph of all of us sitting around
0:46:40 > 0:46:42with Dad just leaning over a cake.
0:46:42 > 0:46:46And just looking as miserable, as miserable, as miserable...
0:46:48 > 0:46:50Not a good time.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56I was overwhelmed by this. And I thought, "What can I do?"
0:46:56 > 0:46:59So I thought, "I'll do something.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02"I'll write a book of poetry for my children,
0:47:02 > 0:47:05"so they know that I love them." That's how I was thinking.
0:47:05 > 0:47:07And I wrote Silly Verse For Kids.
0:47:10 > 0:47:12Oh-ho!
0:47:12 > 0:47:15What's... What's this behind this tree?
0:47:15 > 0:47:18'How's that for ham acting? Untrained, too.'
0:47:18 > 0:47:19What a bit of luck!
0:47:19 > 0:47:20'That's what I said.'
0:47:20 > 0:47:24It's the Silly Book Of Verse For Kids by Spike Milligan.
0:47:24 > 0:47:27"'I've never felt finer,' said the King of China,
0:47:27 > 0:47:28"sitting down to dine.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31"'He fell down dead, he died, he did.
0:47:31 > 0:47:33"'It was only half past nine.'"
0:47:33 > 0:47:35I was so excited when it was...
0:47:35 > 0:47:39I loved it. I love the humour, the drawings.
0:47:39 > 0:47:41"'Are you sure there's a Bongaloo, Daddy?'
0:47:41 > 0:47:43"'Am I sure, my son?' said I.
0:47:43 > 0:47:47"'Why, I've seen it, not quite on a dark, sunny night.
0:47:47 > 0:47:50"'Do you think that I'd tell you a lie?'"
0:47:51 > 0:47:53Buy! Buy! Buy!
0:47:53 > 0:47:54Buy!
0:47:54 > 0:47:57More money!
0:47:57 > 0:47:59'Yes, children, buy this book at once.
0:47:59 > 0:48:01'And beat your parents until they do!'
0:48:01 > 0:48:05When we were younger and it was just Dad at home, we had nannies.
0:48:05 > 0:48:08In fact, we had a lot of nannies,
0:48:08 > 0:48:11because I think we drove them absolutely round the bend.
0:48:13 > 0:48:14RASPBERRIES BEING BLOWN
0:48:14 > 0:48:17I blew a raspberry in one nanny's face,
0:48:17 > 0:48:20and she went and reported me to my father.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23And he said, "If you can't take a raspberry,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26"I think you'd better go downstairs and pack your bags
0:48:26 > 0:48:29"because you're not going to last very long at all."
0:48:29 > 0:48:30# Let it go... #
0:48:30 > 0:48:31BLOWS RASPBERRY
0:48:34 > 0:48:36And now a little poem I wrote for my son, Sean.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39Hello, Mr Python, curling round a tree,
0:48:39 > 0:48:43Bet you'd like to make yourself a dinner out of me
0:48:43 > 0:48:47Can't you change your habits, crushing people's bones?
0:48:47 > 0:48:50How can you eat a dinner that emits such fearful groans?
0:48:50 > 0:48:52LAUGHTER
0:48:53 > 0:48:56He sort of just took us off into this innocent place
0:48:56 > 0:48:58where only children can go.
0:48:58 > 0:49:03And we used to receive pixie and fairy letters
0:49:03 > 0:49:04that were tiny, tiny, tiny.
0:49:04 > 0:49:06All handwritten by Dad.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09Obviously, we didn't know at the time.
0:49:09 > 0:49:11You'd find them and write back.
0:49:11 > 0:49:13And he had us putting invitations
0:49:13 > 0:49:16into bunny warrens and squirrels' holes
0:49:16 > 0:49:19to invite them to parties with the pixies and fairies.
0:49:19 > 0:49:21So we were like...
0:49:21 > 0:49:24We were the events management for the pixies and fairies
0:49:24 > 0:49:27and all the natural creatures in the woods.
0:49:27 > 0:49:28It was fantastic.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34He just liked children to have imaginative games
0:49:34 > 0:49:37and be and become whoever they were.
0:49:37 > 0:49:40Any he liked just spending time in the garden.
0:49:40 > 0:49:44He used to say, "People, they pay a fortune for van Goghs
0:49:44 > 0:49:46"you know, to put on the wall..."
0:49:46 > 0:49:50He said, "..when it's right under your feet. This is it.
0:49:50 > 0:49:52"This is the beauty right here."
0:50:07 > 0:50:12# Will I find my love today?
0:50:12 > 0:50:17# How I wonder where we'll meet
0:50:19 > 0:50:24# In the park or on a street
0:50:26 > 0:50:29# Will she come my way? #
0:50:31 > 0:50:32You married again.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35Paddy, yes. She was very strong, very powerful,
0:50:35 > 0:50:38and gave my children,
0:50:38 > 0:50:41who were sort of social orphans at the time, gave them a mother.
0:50:41 > 0:50:44She gave up her own career. She was a superb singer.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47# In some quiet night... #
0:50:47 > 0:50:48And she gave it up to look after my children.
0:50:48 > 0:50:50And I'm eternally grateful for her.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54# Will she come my way? #
0:50:54 > 0:50:58She was only 25 when she married Dad.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01And she took on three children, ten and under.
0:51:02 > 0:51:04I mean, she's a saint, really.
0:51:04 > 0:51:12# I wish that we were married
0:51:14 > 0:51:19# So we'd never, never, never, never say goodbye
0:51:21 > 0:51:24# I'm glad we... #
0:51:24 > 0:51:27Just after he married Paddy, he wanted to see his parents.
0:51:27 > 0:51:30And he wanted Paddy to stay with us.
0:51:30 > 0:51:34But Paddy was a new, young bride. She wanted to be with him.
0:51:34 > 0:51:40# I wish that we were married... #
0:51:40 > 0:51:42He went for six months for a honeymoon with Paddy
0:51:42 > 0:51:45and we all got to go and live in the convent
0:51:45 > 0:51:47where we went to school for six months.
0:51:51 > 0:51:53He took us in Old Min,
0:51:53 > 0:51:56which was a vintage car that, actually, he got from Peter Sellers.
0:51:56 > 0:52:00And put us all in it and said, "It won't be for long."
0:52:00 > 0:52:02And waved.
0:52:02 > 0:52:04And we didn't see him for six months.
0:52:04 > 0:52:07So he was a bit of a coward in a lot of ways
0:52:07 > 0:52:11in that he didn't want to let us know that he was leaving us there.
0:52:11 > 0:52:13And that was a hard six months.
0:52:13 > 0:52:16We used to get letters. And "when's he coming back?"
0:52:16 > 0:52:19And suddenly realising "is he going to come back?"
0:52:23 > 0:52:27And I remember running away from the school
0:52:27 > 0:52:30and back down to my house in Holden Road.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33And running around the back and wanting to get in.
0:52:33 > 0:52:36And there were another family sitting at the kitchen table eating.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39And I was just standing in the back garden sobbing.
0:52:41 > 0:52:43They were very sad times.
0:52:45 > 0:52:48And Sean got pretty distressed.
0:52:48 > 0:52:49And Sile...
0:52:49 > 0:52:52Sile was just, dee-de-de-de-de-deee!
0:52:52 > 0:52:53Dee-de-de-deee!
0:52:57 > 0:53:01So, in a way, she saved us. She had a very happy little personality.
0:53:01 > 0:53:02I came back to England.
0:53:02 > 0:53:07And by now, of course, Peter Sellers had become famous as a film actor
0:53:07 > 0:53:10and Harry was playing the Palladium and playing it very well, I hear.
0:53:10 > 0:53:13And I was wowing them at Finchley Labour Exchange.
0:53:13 > 0:53:15Because I was absolutely skint.
0:53:15 > 0:53:17And I remember getting a letter from my bank.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20He wrote, "Dear Mr Milligan, have you possibly overlooked the fact
0:53:20 > 0:53:24"that you're overdrawn by £410?"
0:53:24 > 0:53:27So, I wrote back and said, "No, I haven't overlooked it."
0:53:27 > 0:53:28LAUGHTER
0:53:28 > 0:53:30"Can you?"
0:53:30 > 0:53:31LAUGHTER
0:53:32 > 0:53:34- WOMAN'S VOICE:- Hello, Harrods?
0:53:35 > 0:53:37- MAN'S VOICE:- Hello? Hello?
0:53:37 > 0:53:38Britannia One calling Ground Control.
0:53:38 > 0:53:42- WOMAN'S VOICE:- Hello, Harrods? Hello, Harrods?
0:53:42 > 0:53:45- MAN'S VOICE:- Hello? Get off the line, madam. Hello, Ground Control?
0:53:45 > 0:53:48You've now, however, written a play, with John Antrobus.
0:53:48 > 0:53:49With John Antrobus.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52Yes, I can't help feeling a play is a very long thing
0:53:52 > 0:53:55for a man with your kind of mind.
0:54:06 > 0:54:10I had not really written much of The Bedsitting Room.
0:54:10 > 0:54:12Spike loved the idea.
0:54:12 > 0:54:17And he would elaborate upon it and care passionately about the work.
0:54:17 > 0:54:20Right now, gentlemen, can you tell us something about this play?
0:54:20 > 0:54:21It's about the H-bomb dropping.
0:54:21 > 0:54:25It does hold sort of good news, you know, for the British.
0:54:25 > 0:54:29Because it does deal with what is indestructible.
0:54:29 > 0:54:33- Although, after an atomic war, the sort of, the ignorance...- Yes.
0:54:33 > 0:54:35- The prejudice.- All that, yes.
0:54:35 > 0:54:39- The concern with class. Status symbols.- Yes. Yes, sir.
0:54:39 > 0:54:42And this man is going to typify them in the play, aren't you?
0:54:42 > 0:54:46Yes. Yes, sir. I'll be doing the typifying.
0:54:46 > 0:54:48I'll be typifying the character.
0:54:48 > 0:54:51The ignorance. And you're proud of it, as well, aren't you?
0:54:51 > 0:54:53I'm very proud of my typifying, yes.
0:54:53 > 0:54:57It was received ecstatically by everybody.
0:54:57 > 0:54:59You know, it was fantastic.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02- Well, gentlemen, thank you very much indeed.- Huh, is that all?
0:55:02 > 0:55:03- That's all.- What about the money?
0:55:03 > 0:55:05- Was theatre important to you? - Well, it was to me.
0:55:05 > 0:55:07Firstly, it was a means of livelihood.
0:55:07 > 0:55:10And I had sort of lagged behind my confederates
0:55:10 > 0:55:11that had remained in the writing seat.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13I think I'm a good writer.
0:55:13 > 0:55:15I've yet to prove myself as an actor.
0:55:15 > 0:55:18But I like writing most, you know?
0:55:18 > 0:55:20But there was no work going as a writer.
0:55:20 > 0:55:22He was asked as an actor, really,
0:55:22 > 0:55:26to do this play called Oblomov,
0:55:26 > 0:55:29which they showed in the theatre at Hammersmith.
0:55:29 > 0:55:33It started as quite a straight play.
0:55:33 > 0:55:38And it got quite ordinary, you know, sort of OK notices.
0:55:38 > 0:55:43But then Spike began improvising more and more.
0:55:43 > 0:55:48His head would appear on the floor, sticking out from the curtain.
0:55:48 > 0:55:51Just his head. He said, "Ah, who's taken my body?"
0:55:51 > 0:55:52And things like that.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55Which I don't think were in the original Russian script.
0:55:55 > 0:55:58I started to clown it up and ad-lib it.
0:55:58 > 0:55:59And I'm a very good ad-libber.
0:55:59 > 0:56:00In fact, I had liver for lunch.
0:56:00 > 0:56:02LAUGHTER
0:56:04 > 0:56:06Er...
0:56:08 > 0:56:10And I started clowning it up and people liked it,
0:56:10 > 0:56:12they liked me taking the mickey out of this cast, you see?
0:56:15 > 0:56:17I clowned my way out of what was a very bad script,
0:56:17 > 0:56:20even though Goncharov might disagree with me.
0:56:20 > 0:56:22I clowned it into a West End success
0:56:22 > 0:56:25and we kept changing it all the time.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37- What do you get the biggest kick out of?- I like to hear people laugh.
0:56:37 > 0:56:39That's the biggest kick in the world.
0:56:39 > 0:56:41Spike turned the play into a riot of humour.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44Stand up when you're spoken to or I'm going!
0:56:44 > 0:56:47From being something that might have had a little run
0:56:47 > 0:56:50and then come off, it became a huge hit.
0:56:52 > 0:56:55- Did you lay on a special royal performance?- No, no.
0:56:55 > 0:56:57Just as it came, man, you know?
0:56:57 > 0:57:00But, at one point, you shouted, "It's the Tower for me tonight!"
0:57:00 > 0:57:03- That's right.- Weren't you intimidated by royalty at all?
0:57:03 > 0:57:05No, it was the Tower of Blackpool I was talking about.
0:57:07 > 0:57:10It became the hit show of London of the '60s.
0:57:11 > 0:57:13People came from Hollywood to see me.
0:57:13 > 0:57:16Barbra Streisand came. People like that.
0:57:16 > 0:57:18Charlton Heston.
0:57:18 > 0:57:21And I thought they would take me onto Broadway and I'll do it there.
0:57:21 > 0:57:23But it never happened.
0:57:23 > 0:57:27Spike's hope to be taken more seriously as an actor
0:57:27 > 0:57:31was jeopardised by a reputation that he had,
0:57:31 > 0:57:35which sort of served him well in one area, being unpredictable.
0:57:35 > 0:57:39But they'd say, "What's he going to do if we give him this role?
0:57:40 > 0:57:43"He'll start playing around."
0:57:43 > 0:57:46And so I think that sort of...
0:57:46 > 0:57:49The thing that worked for him also worked against him.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52NEWSREADER: Few thoughts were given at Clydebank
0:57:52 > 0:57:53to conquest of the air or space
0:57:53 > 0:57:57by the great crowd of nearly 50,000 at John Brown's shipyard.
0:57:57 > 0:58:00I got a call from Norma Frances' manager,
0:58:00 > 0:58:03if I would go and see Spike at Orme Court.
0:58:03 > 0:58:06And Spike said, "They've offered me a series."
0:58:06 > 0:58:08Dominating the scene, the Q4.
0:58:08 > 0:58:12Culmination of an immense team effort by designers and builders.
0:58:12 > 0:58:16The boat that was being built in the John Brown shipyard
0:58:16 > 0:58:17was known as the Q4.
0:58:19 > 0:58:21And so we became Q5.
0:58:24 > 0:58:273 is Harrington of Cambridge and 4 is Cambridge of Harrington.
0:58:27 > 0:58:29They're getting ready now. Set...
0:58:29 > 0:58:30They're off!
0:58:30 > 0:58:33It's Harrington on the inside lane who's making the going.
0:58:33 > 0:58:36Bradley's pushing him. Cambridge is the backmarker.
0:58:36 > 0:58:39They are neck-and-neck as they are about to come to the tape.
0:58:39 > 0:58:41And it looks like Thomas. No, it's Bradley.
0:58:41 > 0:58:43Is it Bradley? Thomas?
0:58:43 > 0:58:44No, it's Bradley and Thomas!
0:58:44 > 0:58:46No, no, it's Bradley and Thomas!
0:58:46 > 0:58:47No, I think it was Bradley.
0:58:47 > 0:58:49But it's a photo at second and third. And fourth.
0:58:49 > 0:58:54When BBC TWO started, they had a lot of very unusual programmes.
0:58:54 > 0:58:57And the most unusual of them were these Q series.
0:58:57 > 0:58:58Help!
0:58:59 > 0:59:03Because they didn't really fit anything you'd ever seen before.
0:59:05 > 0:59:06Yes?
0:59:08 > 0:59:11- Erm... Good morning, madam. - Good morning, madam.
0:59:15 > 0:59:17It was very bracing to watch.
0:59:17 > 0:59:20You knew you were always going to be shocked by something that was going to happen.
0:59:20 > 0:59:22That's not always the same as enjoying it.
0:59:22 > 0:59:26But you'd say, "Wow! They tried to do that? Hey, that's great!".
0:59:26 > 0:59:28That is the end of that bit.
0:59:28 > 0:59:31Terry Jones and myself, particularly, we loved that.
0:59:31 > 0:59:32Reveal yourself!
0:59:37 > 0:59:38Mother!
0:59:38 > 0:59:40We'd worked in television for two or three years.
0:59:40 > 0:59:44And we knew there were certain things you were not allowed to do.
0:59:44 > 0:59:47For instance, never go onto the set of a drama
0:59:47 > 0:59:52with your label from the costume department still stuck on your coat.
0:59:52 > 0:59:55You know, that had happened once and people had been fired.
0:59:55 > 0:59:58And never, never, never again. So, what's Spike's take on it?
0:59:58 > 1:00:02Everybody in the entire show has a little label on their coat.
1:00:02 > 1:00:04It must've been inexplicable to most people.
1:00:04 > 1:00:07But, those who knew it, it was very, very nice.
1:00:07 > 1:00:11It's a great day for the grandmother hurling finals here at Beachy Head.
1:00:11 > 1:00:13And the last three eliminations over,
1:00:13 > 1:00:16100 grandmothers were successfully thrown out to sea.
1:00:16 > 1:00:19After which, only two returned back
1:00:19 > 1:00:22in the penalty time of one and a half minutes.
1:00:22 > 1:00:25I think Spike thought that we just pinched the Q idea
1:00:25 > 1:00:26to make Monty Python.
1:00:26 > 1:00:27It wasn't quite like that.
1:00:27 > 1:00:32But, certainly, we admired Q5 and the risks it took enormously.
1:00:32 > 1:00:36And this is Mr Arthur Grainchurn and his 80-year-old grandmother.
1:00:36 > 1:00:38- Er, Major.- I beg your pardon.
1:00:38 > 1:00:41- A grandmother and a teacher...91. - 91?
1:00:41 > 1:00:43Well, well, well! Goodness me!
1:00:43 > 1:00:46You couldn't nick Spike's stuff, really. It was so distinctive.
1:00:46 > 1:00:49You could take the spirit of Spike, but you couldn't take the detail.
1:00:49 > 1:00:52The Major is just making sure that the straps are...
1:00:52 > 1:00:55- Put your fingers in your ears, Granny.- Put my fingers in my ears?
1:00:55 > 1:00:57And clench your teeth or they'll go pop.
1:00:57 > 1:01:00- She's clenching her teeth now and... - See the rocks?
1:01:01 > 1:01:02Flatten out.
1:01:02 > 1:01:04He has instructed her...
1:01:04 > 1:01:07He has instructed her now to flatten out over the rocks when...
1:01:09 > 1:01:10..as she's about to go.
1:01:10 > 1:01:11Now...
1:01:11 > 1:01:13- Are you ready, dear?- I'm ready.
1:01:16 > 1:01:18I think he's ready now.
1:01:18 > 1:01:19Looking at his watch, he's...
1:01:34 > 1:01:40The sweep of the illness was almost lunar in its cyclical nature.
1:01:40 > 1:01:44You could almost predict to within the day whether he would be up
1:01:44 > 1:01:46or whether he would be down.
1:01:52 > 1:01:56He was at his most brilliant and most creative
1:01:56 > 1:01:59when he was about three quarters of the way up,
1:01:59 > 1:02:02the upswing, if you like.
1:02:02 > 1:02:04He was brilliant.
1:02:04 > 1:02:07Beyond brilliant. He was unique.
1:02:07 > 1:02:08He was Spike Milligan
1:02:08 > 1:02:11as Spike Milligan would always like to be.
1:02:11 > 1:02:14And the ideas flowed and he was creative
1:02:14 > 1:02:15and it was a joy to be there.
1:02:15 > 1:02:20When he got to the top of the swing, everything was so fast...
1:02:20 > 1:02:21HE JIBBERS
1:02:25 > 1:02:28And it was like a kaleidoscope of comedy.
1:02:28 > 1:02:31And you were grabbing at things wherever you could.
1:02:31 > 1:02:35And then he'd slowly start the move down again.
1:02:35 > 1:02:36And, erm...
1:02:38 > 1:02:41Again, he was very good until we got towards the bottom.
1:02:41 > 1:02:46And then it was slide off and no more writing again.
1:02:47 > 1:02:48He was a beautiful father.
1:02:48 > 1:02:52But we did have to cope with his moods.
1:02:53 > 1:02:57I was very aware, very young, of his depression.
1:02:58 > 1:03:00And it was hard.
1:03:00 > 1:03:02I go under.
1:03:02 > 1:03:04And I...I sort of break down.
1:03:04 > 1:03:08And I just have to say, "Sod it! Leave me alone."
1:03:08 > 1:03:12And I...just stay in the room on my own, that's all.
1:03:12 > 1:03:13Listen to some music.
1:03:13 > 1:03:17We always knew if he was in his room and it said, "Do not enter",
1:03:17 > 1:03:20that he was having a down time.
1:03:21 > 1:03:24The door would open and it would be a shadow of the man
1:03:24 > 1:03:28who would sit by our bed and tell us stories.
1:03:28 > 1:03:31It would be awful to see this six-foot-something man
1:03:31 > 1:03:34just shrivel in front of your eyes.
1:03:36 > 1:03:37And he'd shrink.
1:03:37 > 1:03:41He practically looked like a little elf by the end with hollow eyes.
1:03:43 > 1:03:47You can tell a lot by the eyes when they go into darkness.
1:03:49 > 1:03:54Mental pain is worse than any physical pain.
1:03:56 > 1:03:57It's invisible.
1:03:57 > 1:04:00That's the awful part of it, you know?
1:04:00 > 1:04:04An invisible pain aggressing you all the time.
1:04:04 > 1:04:07Calling you to vacillate in your moods.
1:04:07 > 1:04:12And I've spent so much time in bed under tablets I can't remember.
1:04:12 > 1:04:15Which would add up to a year.
1:04:17 > 1:04:20I do remember men in white coats coming.
1:04:20 > 1:04:25And I do remember them taking him in his pyjamas to the bathroom.
1:04:26 > 1:04:29I had no idea what was going on.
1:04:29 > 1:04:32Then I found out it was electric shock treatment.
1:04:34 > 1:04:38TV PRESENTER: ECT is one of the most controversial treatments in modern medicine.
1:04:38 > 1:04:42Many doctors swear by it. Others think it's greatly overused.
1:04:44 > 1:04:47I was in a great depression. I was helpless in bed.
1:04:47 > 1:04:49A man put these electrodes on my head. Put me to sleep.
1:04:49 > 1:04:51When I came out, I was crying.
1:04:51 > 1:04:54And crying, itself, was a relief, you know?
1:04:54 > 1:04:55And so, quite obviously,
1:04:55 > 1:04:58it produced something which created a condition of relief.
1:04:59 > 1:05:02He would be lying on that bed for two days
1:05:02 > 1:05:04and nobody would get into the room.
1:05:04 > 1:05:09I once tried the old British standby...
1:05:09 > 1:05:11"Pull yourself together, man!"
1:05:11 > 1:05:14And, of course, that was just rubbish. "Go away! Go away!"
1:05:16 > 1:05:18You, like so many people who suffer from this, get very irritated
1:05:18 > 1:05:21with people who say, "Snap out of it."
1:05:21 > 1:05:22- Oh, that's silly.- Yes.
1:05:22 > 1:05:24It's like saying to a man with a broken leg,
1:05:24 > 1:05:27"Come on, walk, and you'll be all right."
1:05:27 > 1:05:28But most people get depressed.
1:05:28 > 1:05:32I can tell you've never been this deep down yourself. I can tell it.
1:05:32 > 1:05:35It's just like a... Well, you just can, that's all.
1:05:36 > 1:05:42He still didn't feel like people understood what depression was.
1:05:43 > 1:05:48And especially as he'd been in a coma in the war for three weeks,
1:05:48 > 1:05:50people related it to that.
1:05:50 > 1:05:54But I, personally, actually believe he was just born like that.
1:05:54 > 1:05:58Because it runs in small fractions through my family.
1:05:59 > 1:06:03And he'd spent a lifetime trying to explain to his mum and dad
1:06:03 > 1:06:06about how he gets depression.
1:06:06 > 1:06:08But, I suppose, it was the era.
1:06:09 > 1:06:11I want to tell you a story.
1:06:12 > 1:06:19It concerns a man who had once been a dashing cavalry officer
1:06:19 > 1:06:22in one of His Majesty's crack Indian cavalry regiments.
1:06:24 > 1:06:27He was a devil-may-care sort of man,
1:06:27 > 1:06:29with no time for women.
1:06:29 > 1:06:30Except one.
1:06:38 > 1:06:39His father used to say to him,
1:06:39 > 1:06:43"Well, son, you know, you've just got to get on up there,
1:06:43 > 1:06:45"get back on the horse and pull your socks up."
1:06:47 > 1:06:48And then Dad said to me,
1:06:48 > 1:06:52"You'll never believe it, Laura, two years before my father died,
1:06:52 > 1:06:55"he sent me a letter telling me
1:06:55 > 1:07:01"that he'd suffered the same illness his whole life."
1:07:03 > 1:07:07And that really upset my father.
1:07:10 > 1:07:15That his own father couldn't admit it to him.
1:07:16 > 1:07:17It was all held in.
1:07:19 > 1:07:21The... The darkness.
1:07:35 > 1:07:37LEO MILLIGAN, CHUCKLING: But what does it matter?
1:07:37 > 1:07:42It all soon will end with the sentinel's, "Who goes there?"
1:07:43 > 1:07:48And, to death, I will cheerfully cry, "A friend!"
1:07:48 > 1:07:53And he'll say, "Pass, devil may care."
1:08:09 > 1:08:10Who helps you?
1:08:10 > 1:08:13The children help me. Involuntarily, they help me.
1:08:13 > 1:08:15By their sheer simplicity
1:08:15 > 1:08:18and their not wanting anything except love or a story, you know?
1:08:23 > 1:08:25# The birds and beasts were there
1:08:25 > 1:08:28# The old baboon by the light of the moon combing his auburn hair... #
1:08:28 > 1:08:30Jane is the youngest now.
1:08:30 > 1:08:33And I feel saddened that she's sort of the last kid we'll have.
1:08:33 > 1:08:34I'd like some more,
1:08:34 > 1:08:37but it just wouldn't be fair on the world, you know?
1:08:37 > 1:08:40When I'm busy and I say, "I'm sorry, Daddy's reading the newspapers."
1:08:40 > 1:08:43What's in the newspapers that's so interesting?
1:08:43 > 1:08:47When there's a real, live fairy next to you.
1:08:49 > 1:08:50It's very bad. I...
1:08:50 > 1:08:53It does tell me...make me think anew.
1:08:53 > 1:08:55"Come on, Daddy, let's play cowboys in the garden."
1:08:55 > 1:08:56I don't feel like it.
1:08:56 > 1:08:59But when I analyse it, I go out and I do play cowboys in the garden.
1:08:59 > 1:09:01And I do feel like it.
1:09:01 > 1:09:04There! They're over there, burning their fires. See? Keep quiet!
1:09:04 > 1:09:08All right, get a bucket of water and put their fire out, shall we?
1:09:08 > 1:09:10Shush... Follow me now.
1:09:10 > 1:09:12Very quiet. Shush...
1:09:13 > 1:09:15Oh! An arrow's gone into me!
1:09:15 > 1:09:17Quick! Quick! Aw! Quick!
1:09:17 > 1:09:21Children just seem to bring him that peace,
1:09:21 > 1:09:23that inner peace that he needed.
1:09:25 > 1:09:27There's always been a child running through my head,
1:09:27 > 1:09:29laughing, all through my life.
1:09:29 > 1:09:32I just don't seem I can get old.
1:09:32 > 1:09:33Not old enough to get away from it.
1:09:33 > 1:09:37I have a childish charisma inside me.
1:09:37 > 1:09:39And I... I love it.
1:09:40 > 1:09:43What's it like being Mrs Spike Milligan?
1:09:44 > 1:09:46Erm...
1:09:48 > 1:09:50Interesting.
1:09:51 > 1:09:54I don't really... I wouldn't know how to answer that question.
1:09:58 > 1:10:00You recognise him when you see him on television?
1:10:00 > 1:10:03Is that the same chap that you're married to?
1:10:03 > 1:10:06Oh, yes. He's not somebody who alters very much, is he, you know?
1:10:07 > 1:10:09He doesn't, erm...
1:10:09 > 1:10:11He's not the great actor that puts on the great...
1:10:11 > 1:10:14I mean, you know, he's just Spike, isn't he, all the time.
1:10:14 > 1:10:16Well, is he larking around most of the day
1:10:16 > 1:10:17or is he a sad and unhappy man?
1:10:18 > 1:10:20He doesn't lark around.
1:10:20 > 1:10:22He's a quiet person. He's serious.
1:10:22 > 1:10:25He's often sad, yes.
1:10:28 > 1:10:30Well, he seems to, erm...
1:10:31 > 1:10:34..feel that the world's responsibilities are his.
1:10:35 > 1:10:36He takes them on his own shoulders
1:10:36 > 1:10:39and he makes them his own responsibilities.
1:10:39 > 1:10:41You think that's good?
1:10:42 > 1:10:43To a certain extent, yes.
1:10:44 > 1:10:47It's inhuman. It's anti-Christian.
1:10:47 > 1:10:50It's against all that we stand for in the world of progress.
1:10:50 > 1:10:52It's a backward step.
1:10:52 > 1:10:54We are right! They are wrong!
1:10:54 > 1:10:55Let us go on being right!
1:10:57 > 1:10:59If he cared passionately about something,
1:10:59 > 1:11:02he would go and talk for it and do it.
1:11:02 > 1:11:05I think he was always completely uncowed
1:11:05 > 1:11:08and unafraid of speaking his mind.
1:11:08 > 1:11:09Look at that! Look at that!
1:11:09 > 1:11:13It was Spike who told us to use less petrol,
1:11:13 > 1:11:15who tried to save trees,
1:11:15 > 1:11:19and just did all green things, which was very ahead of its time.
1:11:19 > 1:11:23But there's no shortage of men or women or children. We are prolific.
1:11:23 > 1:11:27In fact, we are the cause of the crush upon the animal population.
1:11:27 > 1:11:29I love my fellow man. But I don't have any worry about him.
1:11:29 > 1:11:33He's plentiful. He's too bloody plentiful, if you know what I mean.
1:11:33 > 1:11:35Sometimes people would say Spike spoke his mind too often
1:11:35 > 1:11:38or too quickly or about the wrong thing.
1:11:38 > 1:11:42But he completely refused to be browbeaten by anybody.
1:11:42 > 1:11:44And I really...I really admire that in him.
1:11:44 > 1:11:47Now, this programme that you're about to see
1:11:47 > 1:11:51is a re-creation of an experience I had when I was in a mental home.
1:11:56 > 1:12:00One of the nurses used to come in at night. I remember that.
1:12:00 > 1:12:01And she used to mock me.
1:12:01 > 1:12:04Still feeling sorry for yourself?
1:12:04 > 1:12:06A lot of people worse off than you are, you know?
1:12:06 > 1:12:08Think of the starving in Africa.
1:12:08 > 1:12:10Are you bloody finished?!
1:12:10 > 1:12:12You bloody cow!
1:12:13 > 1:12:15Just a few years earlier,
1:12:15 > 1:12:18he would have been, you know, rejected by society.
1:12:18 > 1:12:21He would have been in an asylum.
1:12:21 > 1:12:24He made it a subject that could be discussed and talked about publicly.
1:12:24 > 1:12:29All right, you've been watching all that. So I'll ask you a question.
1:12:29 > 1:12:31Do you think I'm normal or abnormal?
1:12:32 > 1:12:34Better still, are you abnormal or normal?
1:12:36 > 1:12:42He was brave in telling the world that "I suffer with this illness."
1:12:42 > 1:12:45It was quite nice that, actually, some of my girlfriends
1:12:45 > 1:12:48thought that, maybe, my father wasn't just a total lunatic,
1:12:48 > 1:12:50but he might, actually, have a mental issue as well.
1:12:50 > 1:12:55It did make it easier for other people to identify with that
1:12:55 > 1:12:58and say, "Well, if he can talk about it, then I can talk about it."
1:12:59 > 1:13:02- Eccles...? - Hello?
1:13:02 > 1:13:03It's me, Thin Buttons.
1:13:03 > 1:13:05Oh, my friend!
1:13:05 > 1:13:08I'm your friend. You remember me?
1:13:08 > 1:13:10- I remember you.- Yeah.
1:13:10 > 1:13:12'They did something amazing, didn't they?
1:13:12 > 1:13:15'The fusion of those two rocked the world a bit, didn't it?
1:13:15 > 1:13:17It was a bit Lennon and McCartney, wasn't it?
1:13:17 > 1:13:19APPLAUSE
1:13:21 > 1:13:24Honestly, they were like the ugly Romeo and Juliet.
1:13:24 > 1:13:26I would have thought they were gay, the way they behaved.
1:13:26 > 1:13:30I'm going to take the risk of putting these two together.
1:13:30 > 1:13:32Mud and Min, Mud and Min...
1:13:32 > 1:13:35Because they hugged and held each other's hands
1:13:35 > 1:13:38and kissed each other and...
1:13:38 > 1:13:40Yeah, they had a great time together.
1:13:42 > 1:13:43Now, Spike Milligan...
1:13:43 > 1:13:45# I want to be unhappy,
1:13:45 > 1:13:49# But I can't be unhappy till I make you unhappy, too. #
1:13:49 > 1:13:52LAUGHTER
1:13:53 > 1:13:56I remember Dad and Peter disappearing up to Dad's room.
1:13:56 > 1:14:00They'd always ask nanny to bring up the special honey and toast.
1:14:00 > 1:14:03And, after 10 or 15 minutes,
1:14:03 > 1:14:07there would be hysterical crying laughter
1:14:07 > 1:14:09coming out from Dad's bedroom.
1:14:09 > 1:14:11LAUGHTER
1:14:11 > 1:14:14They'd be playing the static on an old gramophone for half an hour.
1:14:14 > 1:14:17You could hear them going, "It's great! It's great!"
1:14:17 > 1:14:19And laughing and...
1:14:19 > 1:14:21You'd hear it as crying laughter.
1:14:21 > 1:14:24And I just thought, you know, I'm a seven-year-old thinking,
1:14:24 > 1:14:26"God, you're such a twat, Dad."
1:14:27 > 1:14:30No, but then, years later,
1:14:30 > 1:14:34I found out that the honey was produced in Mexico.
1:14:34 > 1:14:36LAUGHTER
1:14:36 > 1:14:40And the bees were fed off marijuana plants.
1:14:40 > 1:14:42So it was like marijuana honey.
1:14:42 > 1:14:44LAUGHTER
1:14:45 > 1:14:48And that went on for ages.
1:14:49 > 1:14:51"Can you get me my special honey?"
1:14:52 > 1:14:55I just thought Dad had a sweet tooth!
1:14:56 > 1:14:59Lift up your trousers, laddie.
1:14:59 > 1:15:00CLATTERING
1:15:00 > 1:15:02- Oh-ho-ho...! - LAUGHTER
1:15:02 > 1:15:04Who pulled those trousers down?
1:15:04 > 1:15:07LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
1:15:11 > 1:15:14It was a chance for them to get back together
1:15:14 > 1:15:16and sort of lay the ghost, I suppose.
1:15:16 > 1:15:19Here, who's that snoring in that frock?
1:15:19 > 1:15:22- That's... - LAUGHTER
1:15:24 > 1:15:25That's the loose hound.
1:15:25 > 1:15:27'The occasion was just fantastic.
1:15:27 > 1:15:31'And to see them all up there, doing their stuff, was wonderful.'
1:15:31 > 1:15:32Laddie...
1:15:32 > 1:15:35'But it was interesting to see Spike on radio.
1:15:35 > 1:15:37'Because you could see the cogs working, thinking, "Is this funny?
1:15:37 > 1:15:40"Is this funny? Is this working? Do we need to go back on that?"
1:15:40 > 1:15:42LAUGHTER
1:15:42 > 1:15:43Harry was Harry.
1:15:43 > 1:15:47Harry, you know, would just get on and it would be a great laugh.
1:15:47 > 1:15:51And Spike had his other interesting new concerns
1:15:51 > 1:15:53or worries or angers.
1:15:54 > 1:15:56So, I think it probably,
1:15:56 > 1:16:00in that way, Peter was the one that would have loved them to come back and do it.
1:16:02 > 1:16:04- Eccles...- Yep?
1:16:04 > 1:16:06Let us play a game...
1:16:06 > 1:16:09- SNORING - ..and push him down the well.
1:16:09 > 1:16:10Yeah.
1:16:11 > 1:16:14Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!
1:16:14 > 1:16:17LOUD SPLASH
1:16:17 > 1:16:18LAUGHTER
1:16:18 > 1:16:20He's fallen in the water.
1:16:20 > 1:16:22LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
1:16:22 > 1:16:24'Spike was trying to move on to other things.
1:16:24 > 1:16:27'Fed up with the whole kind of...
1:16:27 > 1:16:29The Goon Show was the only thing he ever did.
1:16:29 > 1:16:30Oh...
1:16:30 > 1:16:35You know, trying to claw his way away from the thing.
1:16:35 > 1:16:38I think, maybe, he thought that this would be a way
1:16:38 > 1:16:42of putting a line underneath it and saying, you know,
1:16:42 > 1:16:45"That's it, OK? Now I do other stuff."
1:16:45 > 1:16:47- Now, get out! - LAUGHTER
1:16:47 > 1:16:50But it just perpetuated the myth, you know?
1:16:52 > 1:16:54- ALL:- What are we going to do now?
1:16:54 > 1:16:55What are we going to do now?
1:16:55 > 1:16:57What are we going to do now?
1:16:57 > 1:16:59- LAUGHTER - What are we going to do now?
1:17:02 > 1:17:04LAUGHTER
1:17:11 > 1:17:13No, we would take something and then we would say,
1:17:13 > 1:17:16"What can we do to this that will make it funnier?"
1:17:16 > 1:17:18And so the Boy Scouts got the bigger hats.
1:17:18 > 1:17:19The table...
1:17:19 > 1:17:22"Let's put the table on a slope" and everything would just fall.
1:17:22 > 1:17:24And they'll have to put it back up,
1:17:24 > 1:17:26whilst still conducting their normal dialogue.
1:17:27 > 1:17:30We interrupt this interruption with this interruption.
1:17:30 > 1:17:35He was the first of the comedians who saw barriers
1:17:35 > 1:17:37that didn't need to be there any more.
1:17:39 > 1:17:42That comedy didn't have to be confined to your mother-in-law.
1:17:42 > 1:17:45# The lonely sea and the sky... #
1:17:45 > 1:17:49That you could actually go into whichever area the mind took you.
1:17:51 > 1:17:53LAUGHTER
1:18:02 > 1:18:04Hel... Hel...
1:18:04 > 1:18:07Hello, darling, I'm home.
1:18:07 > 1:18:10LAUGHTER
1:18:14 > 1:18:15You're late tonight.
1:18:16 > 1:18:17LAUGHTER
1:18:17 > 1:18:20I'm sorry I'm late.
1:18:21 > 1:18:23The tubes were full of commuters.
1:18:23 > 1:18:25LAUGHTER
1:18:25 > 1:18:29That relationship with the BBC, from my memory, is not a good one.
1:18:37 > 1:18:40That's the trouble with the BBC. None of the parts work.
1:18:40 > 1:18:42Won't keep you long.
1:18:43 > 1:18:46He could be very rough about 'them'.
1:18:46 > 1:18:48'Them' being the BBC.
1:18:48 > 1:18:50- BLOWS RASPBERRY - The lot of you!
1:18:51 > 1:18:53Spike never got on with any producers.
1:18:55 > 1:18:58One he described as a cupboard full of vests.
1:19:00 > 1:19:04I think the BBC were amazingly patient with Spike, really.
1:19:04 > 1:19:06I mean, he was a bit like a wayward child
1:19:06 > 1:19:09who you had to slightly control.
1:19:09 > 1:19:11But, I think they probably recognised
1:19:11 > 1:19:13there was something very magical there
1:19:13 > 1:19:14that they had to somehow preserve.
1:19:14 > 1:19:18I've written a song for my mother, who's just come over from Australia.
1:19:18 > 1:19:20I wrote it for her and it's called A Waltz From The Heart.
1:19:20 > 1:19:21And all my family are in tonight.
1:19:21 > 1:19:24I got tickets for them at the exclusion of everybody else.
1:19:24 > 1:19:25And this song is for my mother
1:19:25 > 1:19:27and it's going to be sung by my wife, Paddy.
1:19:27 > 1:19:29It's called A Waltz From The Heart.
1:19:29 > 1:19:31Nepotism! Nepotism!
1:19:31 > 1:19:32Nep-nep-nep nepotism!
1:19:32 > 1:19:34Nepotism! Nepotism!
1:19:34 > 1:19:35Nep-nep-nep...
1:19:35 > 1:19:39# A waltz from my heart
1:19:39 > 1:19:46# I write for you in just old-fashioned words... #
1:21:18 > 1:21:20It would have been Q10, the series.
1:21:20 > 1:21:23Because he talked about it being called Q10.
1:21:23 > 1:21:25And a 'cute hen' being brought on.
1:21:25 > 1:21:29For some reason, the BBC retitled it There's A Lot Of It About.
1:21:29 > 1:21:31They were trying to rebrand the show
1:21:31 > 1:21:33as being slightly more conventional.
1:21:33 > 1:21:35People were tricked into thinking
1:21:35 > 1:21:39it was more like The Two Ronnies or something.
1:21:39 > 1:21:43Later on, Spike's various crusades,
1:21:43 > 1:21:45politically and environmentally,
1:21:45 > 1:21:49were sort of underscoring his humour as well.
1:21:49 > 1:21:53You're so sweet. You thought you'd open your door to Auntie O'Dustin.
1:21:53 > 1:21:56It was all a trick. You have been chosen to play...
1:21:57 > 1:21:59..Lose Your Furniture!
1:21:59 > 1:22:01LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
1:22:01 > 1:22:03There used to be a show called 3-2-1,
1:22:03 > 1:22:07where Ted Rogers would come on and do three, two, one like this...
1:22:07 > 1:22:10And this was a sort of rather silly thing that he used to do.
1:22:10 > 1:22:14So, in Spike's world, this just became, "Welcome to..."
1:22:14 > 1:22:15Whatever.
1:22:15 > 1:22:18At the Diet of Worms, which one of Martin Luther's edicts
1:22:18 > 1:22:20were later used by Queen Isabella of Spain
1:22:20 > 1:22:24in the subsequent excommunication of the Habsburg dynasty?
1:22:24 > 1:22:25Terry Wogan?
1:22:25 > 1:22:27Wrong! You have just lost...
1:22:29 > 1:22:30..your sideboard!
1:22:34 > 1:22:38Well, the society that's been created is a very material one.
1:22:38 > 1:22:41And happiness cannot be allied to materialism.
1:22:41 > 1:22:44Real happiness can be done without any of these
1:22:44 > 1:22:46mechanical or financial artefacts of life.
1:22:46 > 1:22:48He was a good, strong satirist
1:22:48 > 1:22:52with a very strong feeling about injustice and wrong and all that.
1:22:52 > 1:22:53He wouldn't let it lie.
1:22:53 > 1:22:56Thank you. Thank you. And welcome back to Maggie's Unemploymathon!
1:22:56 > 1:22:58LAUGHTER
1:22:59 > 1:23:01Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
1:23:01 > 1:23:04I think he was like Swift or someone like that.
1:23:04 > 1:23:07Those satirists who really... They go hard in there.
1:23:07 > 1:23:09The images they create are quite, kind of, striking
1:23:09 > 1:23:10and a bit shocking.
1:23:10 > 1:23:14Sometimes, you're so shocked by the image, you think, "This can't be right."
1:23:14 > 1:23:16But, actually, what Spike was trying to do
1:23:16 > 1:23:17was just to open people's minds.
1:23:17 > 1:23:22Don't be frightened of grandad. Come on. There. All for you.
1:23:22 > 1:23:23BIRDS CHIRRUP MERRILY
1:23:23 > 1:23:24GUNSHOT
1:23:24 > 1:23:27I don't know why they never made another Spike series.
1:23:27 > 1:23:30It may be that the BBC had decided
1:23:30 > 1:23:32that Spike had had a long run of material
1:23:32 > 1:23:34and he just needed to be rested
1:23:34 > 1:23:37while they gave someone else the opportunity to do it.
1:23:37 > 1:23:39I don't really know. You'd have to ask the executives.
1:23:39 > 1:23:43But it was rather sad that we never did another show.
1:23:46 > 1:23:50I hate to think of what those meetings must have been like.
1:23:50 > 1:23:53Spike Milligan has an idea for another series of Q
1:23:53 > 1:23:55or whatever it is.
1:23:55 > 1:23:59I hate to... I hate to think what the response would have been.
1:24:27 > 1:24:30If the BBC wouldn't give him what he wanted,
1:24:30 > 1:24:32he'd regard them as spurning him.
1:24:33 > 1:24:36He had this sort of van Gogh syndrome, really.
1:24:36 > 1:24:39So he was, like, visiting it upon himself.
1:24:39 > 1:24:43He would eventually be the misunderstood genius
1:24:43 > 1:24:46and retire to the country
1:24:46 > 1:24:48and be an old man,
1:24:48 > 1:24:53wise, you know, beyond the understanding of the world.
1:24:54 > 1:24:57And it was a part that he'd prepared himself for
1:24:57 > 1:24:58and he played it to the end.
1:25:10 > 1:25:12APPLAUSE
1:25:15 > 1:25:21He did what some lucky few people do in British show business.
1:25:23 > 1:25:26They become grand old men of comedy.
1:25:28 > 1:25:29Thank you. Ta-dah!
1:25:29 > 1:25:32They become iconic figures.
1:25:32 > 1:25:36And, if they're very unlucky, they become British treasures.
1:25:38 > 1:25:41And I said, "What was it like, you know, writing The Goon Shows?
1:25:41 > 1:25:43"It must have been extraordinary."
1:25:43 > 1:25:47And he just looked off into the distance and he said,
1:25:47 > 1:25:50"You know, it was like... It was like one good summer."
1:26:00 > 1:26:03So you went along not expecting a prize and they gave you a prize.
1:26:03 > 1:26:05- Yeah.- How odd, because I went along expecting a prize
1:26:05 > 1:26:07and I didn't get one!
1:26:07 > 1:26:09Well, you don't deserve one.
1:26:10 > 1:26:13He's more than just an important figure in comedy.
1:26:13 > 1:26:15He is an important figure to the nation, really.
1:26:15 > 1:26:17And I think we should always remember that.
1:26:17 > 1:26:20Noon tomorrow will be just south of Iceland.
1:26:20 > 1:26:22LAUGHTER
1:26:22 > 1:26:24A man who could take a weather forecast
1:26:24 > 1:26:27and turn it into a piece of art.
1:26:27 > 1:26:31Let's see what sort of weather we're going to have tonight, shall we?
1:26:31 > 1:26:34'He's someone desperately to be cherished,
1:26:34 > 1:26:37'and certainly to be missed.
1:26:37 > 1:26:38At this present moment,
1:26:38 > 1:26:41we're awaiting the arrival of Lord Sean Milligan.
1:26:41 > 1:26:45And I think we ought to move camera left towards the fireplace.
1:26:45 > 1:26:49Very slowly, panning slowly, so as to pick up our daughter Sile.
1:26:50 > 1:26:51It was a family dinner.
1:26:51 > 1:26:54And I was the first one down to the drawing-room.
1:26:54 > 1:26:57He'd say, "Hello, my darling Sile. Come and sit down."
1:26:57 > 1:26:59And he'd just start playing this music and he'd say,
1:26:59 > 1:27:02"I wrote this for you." And I said, "I know, Dad, you did."
1:27:02 > 1:27:04GENTLE PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
1:27:07 > 1:27:08He'd written songs for all of us,
1:27:08 > 1:27:12so he'd go through the repertoire of your songs.
1:27:15 > 1:27:20When you look back on your life, what do you see as your greatest success?
1:27:21 > 1:27:23Being a good father.
1:27:26 > 1:27:27From the time they're born...
1:27:29 > 1:27:32..to the time they're teenagers...
1:27:34 > 1:27:36..and grow up
1:27:39 > 1:27:41And I'm still in love with them.
1:27:54 > 1:27:57Love, light and peace. What is that? What did that mean to Dad?
1:27:57 > 1:27:59Why did he use it as a sign-off?
1:28:00 > 1:28:03He had a liberated soul, I think, from the outset.
1:28:03 > 1:28:06And that was his sign-off. Love, light and peace.
1:28:06 > 1:28:07He'd like to be Jesus.
1:28:09 > 1:28:12And he'd like to spread the word about being kind,
1:28:12 > 1:28:14and looking after the world you live in
1:28:14 > 1:28:17and the people around you.
1:28:17 > 1:28:18Be at peace.
1:28:18 > 1:28:20Love, light and peace.
1:28:21 > 1:28:23It do think I have a prophetic vision about the earth,
1:28:23 > 1:28:26but who's going to listen to a clown?