One of the advantages of advanced and advancing years; I refuse to use the “O” word is that one seems to require much less sleep. Well in my case at least that’s true. Most nights I suppose I get 5 hours if I’m lucky (that sounds like a contradiction if ever I’ve heard one).
I usually awaken an hour or so before dawn and lying in bed with the old grey matter working feverishly; a million and one ideas storming through, trying to decide what’s worth recording and then when I do get up all the thoughts start to slip away; much like Eurydice slipping back into “Hades Hall” when Orpheus turns to look at her, Don’t you just love Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld? There’s one violin part that is sublime!
Anyway I’m digressing as usual as this is supposed to be about Spike.
Many years ago now, it may be 30 or 40 I was listening to an interview with Spike Milligan on ABC Radio, it was 2BL back then; and if memory serves me well, and it usually does he says modestly, Clive Robertson was the interviewer. Clive was exceptionally good at this, in fact I believe that whenever Spike visited Australia he would only ever be interviewed by him. Then again the interview I recalled this morning may well have been one he did in England and was replayed here. Damned frustrated now, hate to be unsure of my useless information.
Spike must have been the most witty, humorous man to ever walk this planet. His wit was cutting and never off the mark, but what caused me to chuckle quietly in the early hours today was recalling this one particular interview and Spike was telling a story about how he and the Goons were each given one word; and each had to add a line with the word being the last in the line and the finish was to form a limerick, If you can get what I mean. The Goons only knew what their own word was and had no idea as to what word was given to their cohorts.
This is the only limerick I can ever remember. The words given to the goons were:
Stowaway, Bombay, Tiller, Gorilla, Bombay
And this is what they came up with:
There was a young boy stowaway
On a troopship bound for Bombay
Alone at the tiller
With a sex crazed gorilla
What a helluva long way to Bombay
When I heard Spike utter this I collapsed and laughed ’til I ached, and even now after all these years I still chuckle whenever I recall this limerick.
And have you read “Puckoon”? Without doubt the funniest book I have ever read; my copy is now yellow with age and well thumbed. When reading this the tears of merriment roll down my cheeks in one continuous flow.
Back in the early 1960s Britain declared Spike Milligan to be a stateless person. Why? Why did they not grab him and tell him that “Hey Spike you’re one of us” So Spike became an Irishman and that’s not an Irish joke! I
LordBeariOfBow 
Reblogged this on LordBeariOfBow and commented:
This is one I wrote for myself some seven years ago; and I’ve just got the itch to let you share the treat. 😈 🐻 i
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Wasn’t Spike declared the mayor of Woy Woy at one stage.
And on the death of his friend, Harry Secombe, Spike said: “I am glad he died before me, I did not want him to sing at my funeral”.
Ira
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I think he was, I love the words on his tombstone
” I told you I was sick!”
Only Spike could come up with that.
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I always chuckle at his epitaph “I told you I was ill”
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I’d just said much the same in my reply to Ira’s comment, Only Spike could have come up with that 🙂
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In Irish, I believe
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I believe that the church refused to allow it on an headstone Derrick, and it’s a legend that keeps growing,
Spike was born 16th April, died shortly before his 84th birthday.
I was born the 17th April and will celebrate my 84th shortly, perhaps
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Have a look at this Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Milligan (The Death section)
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This should cause a Spike in your readership! Spike was inimitable.
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I live in hope Lesley. 🙂
I used to do a creditable Eccles impersonation, and a Bluebottle falling in ‘der warder’
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I’ve rounded up a group of a dozen or so Goon Show fans to see a live recreated performance in the Blue Mountains in July. Spike was such a clever writer and performer.
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The greatest, no one before him or since. I consider myself very lucky to have been alive when he was.
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Ha! That limerick made me snort-laugh!!! 😀 😛 😆 🤓
What a great tribute post to Spike! What an amazing man! I wonder where the “Spikes” are today. ??? Seems the humor today is not as fun or funny or creative.
HUGS!!! 🙂
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Oh for the days when people were witty, clever, funny, and real.
Sounds like quite a guy.
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True; and there’s not many of us left now 😥
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