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With world wars on my mind, clearly, I've been working my way through them yet again and am still fascinated by what a beautiful writer he was and how well he describes the real experience of soldiering: lots of fannying around, idiot officers, prolonged periods of horror, fear and loss, interspersed with lots of surreal silliness and 'squaddie' humour. Probably the best set of war memoirs I've ever read; proper fly-on-the-wall stuff, albeit tweaked a little as he admits.
Yes, the language is (ahem) of its time but I'm intelligent enough not to get all flouncy about that. If anything, it's more real because of it.
The way he describes his descent into shell shock and depression is beautifully done and his descriptions of the other characters, including a farting, chattering Welshman doing a comedy shaving routine who later goes on to be his fellow Goon Harry Secombe is terrific.
There is one clip on Pathe News, on YouTube, of the Bill Hall Trio, his first postwar act, from 1947 and you can see precisely where he was going in five years' time.
Excellent stuff: seek them out if you haven't already.
Thank you for bring it up. The bio was really popular when he wrote it in the 70's (?). I will re-read . Obviously it was embellished for comedy reasons and the solid, reliable army colleagues are not going to get much mention as there is no story telling value.
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Spike Millian's War Biographies: A Trilogy In 7 Parts on 21:57 - Feb 19 with 1045 views
Starmer could do worse than gift Trump a copy of Smile.
Smiling is infectious You catch it like the flu, When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too. I passed around the corner, And someone saw me grin, When he smiled I realised, I’d passed it on to him. I thought about that smile, Then realised it’s worth, A single smile just like mine, Could travel round the earth. So if you feel a smile begin, Don’t leave it undetected, Let’s start an epidemic quick, And get the world infected.
I like the bit where som3 troops put on an impromptu show on a hillside near Tunis, Spike reflects that it virtual matched a Saturday night at the palladium bill 10 years later
It's years since I read them but I have fond memories.
His description of a squaddie having the whole of North Africa to pee in but using the wheel of the truck he's responsible for keeping clean still makes me laugh.
If you haven't read it (I suspect you will have), Puckoon is also genius.
It's 106 miles to Portman Road, we've got a full tank of gas, half a round of Port Salut, it's dark... and we're wearing blue tinted sunglasses.
Spike Millian's War Biographies: A Trilogy In 7 Parts on 21:28 - Feb 19 by mellowblue
Thank you for bring it up. The bio was really popular when he wrote it in the 70's (?). I will re-read . Obviously it was embellished for comedy reasons and the solid, reliable army colleagues are not going to get much mention as there is no story telling value.
Milligan always maintained that his accounts were entirely true, according to now-deceased elderly relatives of mine. The episodes where he loses comrades or suffers shell shock certainly rang true and hit hard even now because he stops dicking about in his prose and stops looking for the joke at the ned of every sentence. Worth pointing out that the two most detailed commanding officers described in his memoirs he had were his best one and worst one. It's unclear however, if they're composites or one man in either case.
[Post edited 20 Feb 7:07]
I'm one of the people who was blamed for getting Paul Cook sacked. PM for the full post.
Great books I haven't read in years, decades probably. I've always loved the story about how he and Secomb met after a piece of artillery plunged over a cliff.
No idea when I began here, was a very long time ago. Previously known as Spirit_of_81. Love cheese, hate the colour of it, this is why it requires some blue in it.
Spike Millian's War Biographies: A Trilogy In 7 Parts on 23:53 - Feb 19 by BlueBadger
Milligan always maintained that his accounts were entirely true, according to now-deceased elderly relatives of mine. The episodes where he loses comrades or suffers shell shock certainly rang true and hit hard even now because he stops dicking about in his prose and stops looking for the joke at the ned of every sentence. Worth pointing out that the two most detailed commanding officers described in his memoirs he had were his best one and worst one. It's unclear however, if they're composites or one man in either case.
[Post edited 20 Feb 7:07]
Major Chater Jack was definitely real; not so sure about Jumbo Jenkins.
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