Young Are Our Dead
(Terrence) Spike Milligan,born in India in 1918, most famous as a comic with The Goon Show, along with Peter Sellers, Harry Seacombe, Michael Bentine. which ran on British radio from 1951-1960,with regular re-unions into the early 1970's. Highly regarded and relatively popular, the show became famous for its surrealism and zany humour. Generally considered to be a forerunner of Monty Python's Flying Circus (first broadcast in 1969) and 1980's Alternative Comedy. Spike Milligan also had his own comedy series during the 1970's and into the 1980's.
Spike Milligan was also an actor, author,Jazz musician and poet. He served in the North Africa and Italian campaigns as a gunner in the 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery. Milligan also wrote a series of war memoirs such as 'Adolf Hitler-My Part In His Downfall' (which was also filmed) , 'Rommel Gunner Who- A Confrontation in the Desert'. The books combine an irreverent look at army life from the point of view of the ordinary soldier, with tragic-comic reportage based on his own military experience. Along with cartoons, drawings, photos with humorous captions. Milligan's overall empathy for the soldier of the lower ranks resounded with many of the generation who served during World War 2, and subsequent conflicts during the National Service era.
Whilst Milligan's instinctive distrust of military authority, emphasis on the suffering and absurd nature of War, his interest in Surrealism and love of Jazz appealed to the more rebellious Post- War youth. There is compassion and humanity in Milligan's work, but also a strong sense that admiration for rank should be earned,not automatically awarded on the basis of privilege. Spike Milligan also campaigned for peace, animal welfare, and for the environment.
The fourth war memoir, 'Mussolini-His Part in My Downfall', is longer than the others, dwells on the Italian campaign of September 1943-1944. Presented as a diary. (Keeping a diary whilst on campaign was against the rules of the Forces.) 'Musollini-His Part in My Downfall' reads as a progress report : After military success in North Africa, the Allied armies cross into Italy. Mussolini's regime fell. However the Germans invaded, Mussolini was sprung from captivity, and the Allies faced a slow, and often gruelling, progress north through the Italian peninsula. In this memoir the comedy angle still prevails and even flourishes, but also the boredom and sense of futility as war persists with no clear victory in sight. At Lauro in January 1944, Milligan is physically wounded and also traumatised with PTSD as a result of combat, and undergoes a mental breakdown. Very poignant, seeing how a soldier can lose all their coping mechanism and descend into panic
‘The Soldiers at Lauro ‘
Like babies they lie
The wombs they blest once
Not healed dry
And yet-too soon
Into each space
A cold earth falls
On colder face.
Quite still they lie
These fresh-cut reeds
Clutched in earth
Like winter seeds
But they will not bloom
When called by spring
To burst with leaf
And blossoming
They sleep on
In silent dust
As crosses rot
And helmets rust "
Other Blogs
Bleak Chesney Wold 19th Century 'dark' history & literature
A Burnt Ship 17th century War & literature
No comments:
Post a Comment