The soldier
"Suddenly all these mortar bombs started to rain down
on us and one blew me up. I should have stayed up really.
I should never have come down."
Spike Milligan
By all accounts – including his own, seven volumes
of memoirs beginning with "Adolf Hitler: My Part in
His Downfall" – Spike’s experiences in
the second world war left him deeply scarred.
"The worst fear was not dying but getting mutilated,
getting blown-up or something like that. When you saw it
actually happening you realised it could happen to you."
Spike was Terence Allen Milligan’s Army nickname.
"Let’s face it, everyone who joins the army gets
a nickname. If you’re a Welshman, you’re immediately
called 'Taffy'. If you’re a Mr White, you’re
immediately called 'Chalky'. Why they called him Spike I
have no idea, but that’s how he got the name."
Desmond Milligan, Spike’s brother
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