Publisher's Synopsis
After a youth misspent playing in various jazz bands, Spike Milligan joined the British Army at the outbreak of World War II and served in the Royal Artillery through the campaigns in North Africa and Italy, where he was treated in hospital for shellshock. After regrouping, he joined the Army Welfare's Central Pool of Artists, where he met the extraordinary L/Bdr Harry Secombe. After the war they were joined by Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine, the team eventually creating the anarchic Goon Show, first broadcast in 1951. He wrote of his war experiences in a series of seven books, immensely readable war reporting and commentary, with accounts of friendship, suffering, kindness and vulnerability, and an intense underlying despair at man's tireless pursuit of self-destruction. Despite frequent manic-depressive relapses, for the remainder of his years he produced many volumes of comic literature and heart-felt poetry. Spike died in February 2002 at his home near Rye, Sussex. He is buried at St Thomas's Church, Winchelsea. In "War Diaries, 1", Spike puts his own unique spin on his experiences, starting from training at Bexhill-on-Sea (without a batter-pudding hurler in sight) to his posting in North Africa. He not only captures the mood, but communicates it in a way that makes it all seem so human. His treatment of the subject demonstrates one way in which "civilised" beings survive when things go terribly wrong.
