Discovering hidden treasures

Over the course of the past five weeks we've been collecting a wide range of archive material on Spike and his life, particularly with his family.

There is a wide range of photos, newspaper clippings, and letters. We finally found a reel-to-reel player so we could listen to the suitcase full of audio tapes that his daughter Jane has been keeping under her bed. These are mainly of Spike talking to his children but also many unpublished musical compositions and a range of weird and funny stories and voices. There is a song he wrote for Dusty Springfield which she sings, Spike playing trumpet and several songs written especially for his children. Slowly and with great care we have been transferring all this material to digital format.

There is also a box of 8mm films and we've spent the past few weeks working out how to view and transfer this material to digital. Finally we bought an 8mm projector and were able to watch and film the old footage ourselves. It has been an incredible experience for Spike's daughters Jane and Sile - they have never seen these films before and watching themselves as small children with their mothers has been both emotional and funny. Tonight Jane watched a reel of film of her mother and father in Australia. Paddy died when Jane was 11 so this reel is particularly precious to her. Sile has also provided several video tapes of footage she took of Spike in his last years in his home at Rye, enjoying Christmas with the whole family around him. There is plenty of great footage of Spike, his parents, the house at Woy Woy, Desmond as a young man and Spike with his children and all three of his wives. Some of this footage will undoubtedly be used in the film and will enrich beyond measure the picture this film is painting of Spike as a father, brother, son and husband.

Week 5: London

Back in London and co-producer Jeff Canin joined us this week and took over as sound recordist as well. On Tuesday morning we filmed Jane driving around London in Spike's yellow mini and in the afternoon we interviewed Michael Palin. He spoke about the influence Spike had on him and the Monty Python team and told the story of how Spike came to have a cameo role in THE LIFE OF BRIAN. He talked about how Spike had broadened the landscape of comedy and changed all the rules. Michael is currently starring in a TV series on his adventures in the Himalayas and his face adorns huge billboards around London at the moment. But despite his enormous profile and fame, he is completely charming, warm and easy to talk to and was delighted to meet and talk to Spike's daughter, Jane.

Sligo, Ireland

In our fourth week, we went to Ireland to visit Sligo, the birthplace of Spike's father Leo Alphonsis. We were given an official welcome to the town by the mayor of Sligo and Jane was shown her grandfather's house by the current owner, Ray McCullough. She met most of the people in the street, Holburn Street, and talked to a journalist and historian who had both uncovered some Milligan history. We found Leo's baptism records in the Sligo cathedral and Jane was given some artifacts found in the midden outside her grandfather's house. It was a wonderful experience for me as I've never been to Ireland and I was so pleased to be making this trip with a Milligan. The Irish are very fond of Spike and we were made most welcome everywhere we went. I also tasted my first Guinness and experienced the Irish pub, music and dancing. On our last day in Sligo we went touring to some wild and remote beaches and saw some of the famous lush, green countryside and old stone houses dating back many hundreds of years. In Dublin, we found an Irish radio journalist, Myles Dungan, who had interviewed Spike almost 20 years ago at his home in North Barnet (Monkenhurst). Myles told us that Spike had not been well that day and so he had interviewed him in his bed. He gave us a copy of the interview in which Spike talks about the Goon show characters, about being Irish and about his depression.