Spike Milligan - Face Your Image

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 I think he's a genius mad but a genius insane clever but quite insane insane but mad yeah I don't know any of them Spike why did you choose that music to start the program uh I like that I like the music itself but I also like the fact that he was um the first man to make it appear that you didn't have to be very very serious in your approach to classical music he used to put funny titles like music for half a pair and a small dog andite a very nice piece of music to it to know this was Sati Sati Eric Sati is is it um is it a state of mind that music which you aspire to I must admit I heard the music first before I knew of the man's personality and the music I found very soothing relaxing something that I crave I'd like you um Spike Milligan actor goon singer musician author playwright poet illustrator all time human being over at the bank overdrawn at the bank and born in India where you lived until you were 12 to hear about your image first from your Aunt e McIntyre he had no sense of humor whatsoever I can't remember him ever having any sense of humor at that time so he obviously got it from his father who was a great comedian I he was rather quiet uh very friendly he had quite a lot of friends and uh I won't say he had a particular sense of humor at that time he didn't and um he very fond of books and also loved animals it's rather striking that you had no sense of humor as a child is she right do you think it's an amazing shock to hear that I'm not thinking very quickly I think perhaps he was right was a very sort of serious kid I think yes very sensitive I don't think I perap she was right yes or that or she didn't have a sense of humor I wonder whether the whether the whether the humor was something that built up later as the as the pressures of adult life built up David I wouldn't know dear L uh you're making me have to think at very high speed uh I must admit it doesn't seem at that time I did have a sense of you I seemed to be very overwrought child uh I think it started to appear around about the age of 14 or 15 I think somewhere around about then I started to get a little strange what was your what was your childhood in India like do you remember it as a happy time yes it's very transan likee it seems uh I I seem to have been I was an only child in a house full of women cuz my grandfather died and my father was away learning how to drive iron tractors therefore it was a female at atmosphere and therefore a very gentle one and I went to a Convent with a lot of girls so I think uh yes I think it was yes I think I had a good childhood yes I don't have any traumatic feelings about it at all what kind of um what kind of life was it in India then was it a did you have servants were you looked after was it like a yes I had an A and a and a cook called manai and a boy called thumi I wasn't aware of being Superior at all cuz I I grew up with them so I I I hadn't been brought from England and and accepted them as servants I thought they were just part of the sort of family thing and I remember lot of sunlight and and uh lot of playing hockey with the chokers on the M down and uh lot of running pretending to be a racehorse and lot of swimming in in the D in the Bund in the Victoria Gardens and going to the Victoria the Western Turf Club race course in Puna and I remember seeing the Aga Khan in his orange and the first time I saw his ring col I think it was green with a chocolate sash it still still is I think anyhow used to be and I remember betting on horses with one or two Pi I used to have and winning whereas my mother used to go with the governor's stand with 100 rupees and come back skint used to borrow from me for the rest of the week I was seven at the time was it was it um a religious household when you say you went to a Convent yes very religious Catholic Family had to go to church every Sunday and I liked it because I had a s mass in Latin and uh and there's also an Indian priest who said the mass in taml and I used to get the giggles because it sounded just like this IG bug IG buig and had to be suppressed many times me you're too young weren't you to laugh yes well I I just thought it was a funny sound did you um when you went back to England was it a was it a shock for you it must have been a very strange England come back to at the age of 12 well I'd never been to England you I born inia when I first came to England I found it very we arrived up the TS in a thick fog uh in a ship called Raj batana which Now lies at the bottom of the sea it was in combat during the war and uh we hit we were whole before the water line and there was a lot of rushing around on deck and putting on of Life belts when all was well and the fog lifted and there was England and it didn't look any better with the fog lifted than when it was down to me at the time you know very gray and dull in January I remember there was a rose uh lying on the deck of the ship that I was on from a not previous night party or something and there was a lighterman below us uh two very every LS down there with a broken noses you know and I threw the rose down as sort of a gesture of friendship and a chap saw it and remember look at it and then he kicked it over the side of the ship into the water that's my introduction to the English and you went to school uh in England and then left school when you were 15 about 15 yes do you do you miss not having had a longer more formal education I'd like to have gone to University I think I'd have been a good scholar I think I'd have been a good University student I'd love to have gone yes did you feel at a disadvantage later on in your life well I feel at disadvantage now I still don't know what grammar is or syntax and I should think it was a text on sin you know and uh I I don't know how to puncture it and my publisher says your book's a very funny Spike but you're bloody spelling you know had you before the war had you done any performing of any kind music performing yes I used to play the trumpet in a jazz band and a very I wanted just be a great jazz band Player and when the war came of course went into the army and you got off guards if you became a a boxer or or a trumeter I tried the boxing and got killed so I stuck with a jazz band and then when we did concerts they say can you play a few numbers on the stage the opp can play a few numers so I I played numbers and and it looked I could say things in between you know we're going to play number now six or something like that and they get a few laughs and then they said don't you think can you do a comedy turn sort of thing you know so we did by we got dressed in rags and it developed into that then when the war was in at at full Spade I got wounded and we taken back and put into a concert party and I used to play the trumpet for Harry SE in his in the band for his ACT and then bit by bit I was asked to do more and more got that way your your your father was a a an Entertainer or performer and he enjoyed that yes he was a soldier showman he he U he was a soldier actor his father put him in the Army when he was 14 poor Irish family you know you went in the army or you committed suicide there one way so he did this but he always wanted to act and perform and he did it all through his life as soldier showman used to call himself it's very very good very very good John anbus is a um has been a colleague of yours on on on many of the things you've written friend of yours um I'd like you to hear him talking about your time in the army during the War I think Spike found the the the the German Army in the war less of a threat than finds the uh income tax people and the and the accountants and the overdrafts of of today I mean they're they're more abstract and vague and uh there never seems to be a release from them and I think this is um how Spike feels in in the Army you had your your pay you had your your uniforms your meals provided you had your comradeship you had the everpresent risk of death but perhaps that was um the thing that would least worry Spike and I think he finds civilian life much more worrying than than being in Africa or ity analysis what's your comment on that that's a brilliant analysis of what life is like yes roll on World War III uh so right yes I suddenly realized you can get to grips with the Enemy but you can't get to grips with civilian life overdraft what can you do with about an overdraft no take a down on on a piece of string or keep it in a cage I me were you tempted to to stay in the Army I did stay on actually I stayed on quite I said on when I could have been to moed in 45 I said on 46 uh rather come home and were you attracted by that kind of security I mean some people like the formality of the Army and the way it rigidly controls your life yes I've suffered um army discharge withdrawal symptoms ever since I left it it was very secure very funny and uh if you don't get killed uh very good life and what what are the the withdrawal symptoms well the security went out of my life certainly uh I'd never had an overdraft in the Army if you did never worried about it suddenly there you were face to face with a unemployment B where you get your next meon clothes rent rates uh taxes overdrafts and all this sort of thing you know did you think do you think of going did you ever think of going back into it no I never did I never did no I think I was I wanted to try and make a go of of entertainment world do you have any any habits left over from military life I mean um I sleep with my socks on it's true I'm sorry yes justly realize that just I sh my socks on and uh I swear a lot when I'm angry I swear a lot terrible lot and I talk like I so of course you know you came out of the army with a Disability Pension didn't you and you were um had a mortar shell land near you at Mont Casino I think yes I think actually I landed near the mortar shell uh rather came to me I was running towards somewhere and if I have stayed where I was in the first place I wouldn't have CED it see I was asking for it really has has that has that affected you does that still is that still something it I got cut in the leg you know I was very glad about that I thought thank God at last I've been wounded you know I I'll get the pension now and what happened was I was also out of my mind it would completely unbalance me you know I I was stuttering and stammering and giggling and uh saying to the sergeant can we have the next dance over the precipice together darling then they took me to a first aid station somewhere and then I I've never recovered since do you mean that well I it did change me yes I I suddenly found that I couldn't take any large amount of stress if any any stresses involved in my life I immediately start to get go under and become depressed you know and before the war that that had never happened to you no I was very U happy easy outward going Bo you know just one thing on the war you in the books you've written very funny um bardy books about the war one of the characteristics that comes through all the time is that you don't seem to think very highly of the commanding officers the officer ranks with the exception perhaps of your own commanding offic U but but is was that something that you felt very strongly that you as pomies got done down all the time no no uh I I I don't I I loved all the officers I had there was one or two idiots who met CH hanging their teeth out but in the main they're very spr there was left and and Buton was very good left and and right remember also well Bowman Smith there was Major Cher Jack marvelous officer no I did I take the Mickey out of the officers must have been a lie no I'm certain I didn't that David read it again read volume 3 when I'll write it all out I'll say I love my officers when um when the war ended there was a a period um of doing various things before the Goon show began in 51 I think and ran through till about 60 it was called unemployment it was called unemployment um I I want you now to hear from somebody whose um title I think is cogos is that right Jimmy Jimmy Gra King of the goons and the voice of Sanity yes keep the cogos cogos come on Jimmy hurry up last B goes at 10:30 he's looked at the world and decided that it's peopled with idiots and therefore he's created his own world of idiots uh in an extreme form and if you think of the characters in The Goon show uh you have grit pipe thin who was a supercilious idiot you have uh Henry and cran who are aging doding idiots you have mariatti who is a um a teeth nashing incompetent frustrated plotter um you have the child idiot Blue Bottle uh all was victimized and you have Eckles who I think is the nearest thing to what you might say spikes own ID a very simple uh uncomplicated character who doesn't want to be burdened with the responsibility of thinking and just wants to be happy and enjoy himself and I think that fundamentally is Spike I've always told him that I think that Eckles is the true migan and the rest is just a a cover I'm sorry is he right I'm said he's right yes yes That's it man you know I don't want to know about thinking and all that thing about earning money I just want to be an idiot oh I said my up to my neck in a bucket of cast it and enjoy it you know do you see do you see all the rest of the world as idiots everybody else as idiots DAV it um it's not looking at them as being rude because they're idiots but I think Society we are idiots yes we're VI very vicious form of idiot you know I don't think man is a success at all he never really improved himself once he came out of the swamp you know still commits murder still wants to make money and still wants this and that and good things of Life repeats himself repeatedly and gets nowhere with it you know current example is you know like uh we have a massive government governments all over the world and uh each one is telling us the dangers of inflation but despite all the uh the knowledge about monetary Affairs they can't stop it helpless no did did you um is it is it because you see the rest of the world as as as idiots in that way that you feel which you do quite clearly feel great pressures on you after the war you had a nervous breakdown during the the that first round the G was it because of that that view of the world what what really hurt me in the war most of all was um I was an individual very individual and there I was being lumped on mess and I was going to be killed by somebody who was chucking Lum of iron in the air and it's going to drop on me and kill me and I found this emotionally mathematically the wrong answer to the sort of life I wanted to lead I'd like to have been a Spitfire pilot where I was in charge of myself that I would have been okay I wouldn't have minded if I got kill and right Daddy but that's the way I wanted and I wasn't I wasn't a spit father I was one of those sheeps in the hole on the ground like all these other po LS you know cuz I suppose a lot of people would say well it's true of course in one sense that the world is idiotic on the other hand we all have to live in it we all do the best we can within It And Spike in a sense opts out by saying we're all idiots and um I don't myself I include myself I include myself D I mean uh in a couple of hours time A lot of people are going to be crushed into a steel chew crammed into it you know like this where in Africa in in in in the Sahara there's miles of empty space You know open space these two together on the same at the same time and these poor people being forced into this tube and driven all congested together like this I think it's idiocy we have to do it but it is idiot you know you um said after your after that nervous breakdown that first breakdown when you when you went to the hospital for about 3 months that you emerged as a different person that there was a pre and a post breakdown person yeah did you mean that is and I in what ways I suff a personality change I I was nice and kind sort of gentle person and I found that the world pressurized me so much I found people more tougher than me and I used to do what they told me to do and by accepting what they told me like waking me up three in the morning so I want a script in an hour's time and all this I did it while I went back to bed and it crucified me when I came out I came out much tougher but did did having that breakdown was one of the consequences of it that you in a sense knew yourself better from then onwards that you that you understood the pressures on you um or was it the beginning of a series of uncontrollable depressions no no the I obviously I'm a person who's who can get into a depression now that's just like a chap with one leg is going to fall over more often than guy with two I have to accept that uh but the personality has changed until I become more rugged I can't stop the depression they happen sometimes you know without stopping but I become much more rugged person because I've got to be otherwise if I became nice again I'd be walked all over again people walk over you Daddy you know like all the time have you noticed the foot marks in your back today David the um one of the consequences of that breakdown and of the whole uh pressures of the goho was that that your marriage break up your first marriage break up and I want you now to hear from Peter sers who thinks that that altered your attitude to people and particularly to women Peter cers who incident dressed rather curiously because he's on a film set when we talk to him he also wants to marry me I think he used to like people but he found a great deal of disillusionment in that area and began to take more to uh plants and animals and especially to animals and and I think he's frightened of people basically he's a romantic and he was very deeply in love with his first wife and when that began to break up and he had his illness um he became more and more withdrawn and began basically to hate women uh a feeling I'm sure he has to this very day if I hope his present wife will excuse me but uh I'm sure she would agree that uh I don't think he he he he really likes women no I I suppose well everybody breaks up with has a marriage broken up uh gets a bit bitter but that Sly so I say human beings I don't hold it no my I my first wife was a very fine woman and I was uh in a middle of a terrible nervous breakdown and I was I was awful I was must been actually abominable and she couldn't stand it that's all she left and it's one of those things of unfortunate Facts of Life that happen tragic thing to happen anyhow no I don't hate women no you don't hate women no I don't hate women you wouldn't have preferred to live in the Garden of Eden before God took the rib out of being knowing myself better now I would never have married knowing what I was going to put per people through I wouldn't have put my first while through the hoop had I know going to be like it but then I was different before I married her then I had the breakdown and she said to me you're not the same man I married it was true it's a tragedy isn't it what can we do David these things happen in life possibly happening at this very moment do you do you find the company of animals and of children more more refreshing more children especially children animals yes I find such a nearness to children and animals you know animals I think of like my brothers and sisters even the worm even the flea I consider them all in in spirit in Union with me you know I'm a part of them they're part of my life you know more part of your life than than other adults than than well something happens to adults I don't know what happens you see they're put into a material world the world of European materialism is one I don't like and everybody's operating even though they're nice people they go about doing jobs for the sake of money and gain they try to get on and their children have got to get on and have a better education and a nicer house and all that so basically they're all trying to get on and this this is rather deviates from the norm you know for my Norm you know but what is it about about children that that particularly appeals to you well because they are the truth you know the everything inside them is the truth they been brought up recently normal it's fine that's lovely I just like them I love the sound of their voices I love their vacity their laughter when they're when they when they when they cry they let you know exactly what they cry and then there's an immediate call for help which you never know with an adult they might be in great need help and never let you know but children all all on the surface it's lovely it's all Hest it's very open it's very clear it's like black and white it's lovely not we do not a very um idealized view I mean some people would say that children were capable for instance of great cruelty to each other are but they're genuinely they're genuine genuine cruelties and not conceived ones like bamboo shoots up the end of nails and things like that I did my share of pulling Wings off flies when I was young you know then I was horrified that I ever did it you know there are strange primitive things still locked up in man when he's young he's still a primitive little thing and they try to emerge but I would like them to emerge much more in the fashion of the Aborigines who who grow from children into adult children you know they they don't they they grown up children adult children and they look and they feel the same they laugh the same too you don't you don't feel it um an an evasion of reality to cut yourself off in that way from the mass of grown up human beings and turn to animals children plants as a I suppose there's an amount amount of moral cardice in it because uh I suppose I won't face up to me gigantic adult um um difficulties uh I don't want to know about them CU I didn't manifacture Western society and I don't quite agree with it uh I'm in it but I I lock myself up for days sometimes in a room on my own read books play music play chopa and Rabel and I find it very good and very and I don't me people you I don't need them do you look back on on your own childhood as the moment of greatest happiness for you yes I think yes I'm always hearkening back to it and as I get older I feel more every day frequently I remember more and more things in my childhood and I I dream a lot about wanting to be a child again I think I should never become an adult that's where I went wrong and do you think it's true of most people that their childhood is there any opportunity for real happiness I think if the parents are right yes I me you you get more laughter out of a child uh than you do out of an adult my house my daughter Jane's always laughing and two friends laughing and laughing and laughing you know that silences and then more bursts of laughing and then rushing around and all this it's all good stuff man now what I meant was rather more was whether uh you think that adults are actually incapable in our society of Happiness and happiness is only to be found among children well the society that's been created David is a very material one and happiness cannot be a lied to materialism uh buying a television is not a happiness it's an occasion for possibly enjoyment but real happiness can be done without any of these mechanical or financial artifacts of life real happiness is getting up opening the window and seeing rain and you think it's not beautiful you know or seeing the Sun change of the wind direction of wind that's all beautiful nothing to do with Western Civilization though they're at the beginning of time and be here after we're gone I want you to hear now from somebody who's a who's a professional colleague um Judith Craig who was company and Stage manager for the bed sitting room talking about what it's like to work with you I like him tremendously adore him in fact but I have got criticisms I think he can be cruel I he be very kind uh for cruelty I can think of various things that have happened number one was a young actor who was the understudy for Spike and had his great chance of um playing for Spike so I sent a telegram to him wishing him luck and a bottle of whiskey young man was thrilled went around showing this telegram to everybody a week later Spike came back Young Man rushed up to him and said uh thank you very much for your telegram Etc and [ __ ] said I I didn't send it it was her there I saw somebody destroyed in the end of the the running he was off for weeks and weeks and came in after the notice had G up and wanted to see one of the actors the Stage Door Man refused so he um took his stick which he had with him been given to his him by his grandfather and was a silver one and he broke it over the stage man door man's head that's some too curious two stories which throw a curious light on what seemed to be a kind of impetuous anger bad temper in you is that accurate I I don't remember having a silver stick for my grandfather I don't remember the incident I don't remember any of the incidents actually mind you if she said sent him a telegram and the chap thanked me for it I was only telling the truth saying that obviously she must have signed it with my name I was telling the truth but then truth can be cruel can't I are you are you an angry person do you have outbursts get angry I get angry yes uh frustration I suppose I get frustrated at The Impossible and like trying to phone a chap up for 4 days and the phone breaks down and you get cross lines and somebody gets through to you and it goes on and on and on and on then you get frustrated I this is normal yes but a violent person I've never U hit my children I've never hit my wife uh I've never had blows with my brother I had boy once once I did some boxing mind you uh but I I hit a boy once and I remember his name as long as live his name was Tom Conan and it was I hit him in the eye and it got black and that's the only time I've ever hit anybody oh I hit another bloke once at the Phoenix H in Dublin yes he was baring me from the box I said come backstage if you don't like the show and and I came to the door and I hit him and then I went back on the stage are you um that's ridiculous ridiculous are you are you a difficult person to work with do your colleagues find you difficult to work with I don't know I don't know um I don't I hope I'm not you know I work very hard and like to rehearse very hard and I'm always getting at people saying do it this way do it that way do this way and sometimes they say for Christ's sake you know let me do it my way do you do you suffer from um act as pradish that sort of quality are you very finicity and Y and prickly when you're working see these are the question you should ask other people like Judith Craig you know she's alarmed me now as to what I might be like uh I don't think so I turn up on time I run my lines dick Lester might have told you if I was a pradon I don't think I am I don't think so I was neon show days because I was trying to shake the BBC out of its apathy you know knocks knock sound effects when a knock on the door and the trunch on gravel that was it and I tried to transform it and I had to fight like mad and people didn't like me for it and act rage and bang and crash and uh I got it all right in the end and it paid off but drove me mad in the process and drove a lot of other people mad and that's why I don't think I could be a success again on that same level cuz I just go through all the Tantrums that's what you have to do if you want to be really big man there was that famous case when you when you shot the boy who was breaking into your work room at the bottom of the garden yeah um and had 12 months discharge for that and then said I'd shoot a cat if it went after my birds and had to resign from all animal loving societies because of that I mean that both those things seem to show a certain willingness to take up if only the air gun take up an air gun fire at a kid yes it was very very wrong with me David it was very wrong with me shooting the cat up the ass I would do that any day if I saw them about to kill fledglings you know I mean sir I would shoot you up the ass if I saw you about to kill your grandmother mind you I might help you with some grandmothers are they are today uh but uh I just said I would I I was my own cat I mean so it's I can shoot him up his ass if he's my cat uh I feed the other end so I certain uh they was killing birds you see young birds and people don't know how one cat can destroy the entire aarian life in 20 Gardens in about 2 years he can destroy it so I had the air gun CU I could never get to the animal in time and I would ping him and I got a very light pet used to sting him didn't penetrate the flesh but all the oh my poor pussycat Brigade mind the rest of the world that can die never mind the mangle body of little birds with their wings torn off that's okay but poor pussycat oh poor pussycat oh [ __ ] cat let's have a [ __ ] cat what a a return visit from Jimmy Grafton when you achieve as he has done uh a reputation for eccentricity he's become by his own choice a sort of court jester uh uh you begin to wonder to what extent in some circumstances the eccentricity is involuntary and to what extent it's deliberate and he's using it as a shield to deflect the will and purpose of those who would control him or discipline him or put him into circumstances that he wants no part of uh he can always get out of trouble by going a little mad but is this deliberate or is it something that he can't help somewhere there is a line that he crosses from time to time and I would like to know what he thinks where he thinks that line is can you answer that uh most certainly I'm unbalanced I'm not a normal person and that's very hard very hard um thing to have placed upon you in life when you only live once I have no control over it I certainly don't organize my personality so that I can extract myself from situations by suddenly going right I I face up to life I fight a lot of battles against authorities and if you fight authorities you cannot face them by being mad you have to be very sane and sound and write the right letters and all things like that so in this respect I have a great degree of control of myself when I'm doing the proper things of course if uh some idiot let say across the street sh they off oh you come here here yeah you span Millington come here you know so and I walk towards them and then I go right past them down a tube train you see like this well that's just because they're a crowd of idiots I don't want to know them that's a very minor way of putting it of course I wouldn't I wouldn't ever AO avoid major responsibilities like look after my wife and my family my principles you know sometimes I have to break my principles like um I belong to Ash the anti-smoking organization but then I owed a lot of tax uh in the revenue and I didn't know what to do about it uh and a commercial came up for a cigarette and I had to walk the bedroom at night and I thought wait a minute I'm an actor this is a job of acting I'm promoting these cigarettes which breaks my heart but I'm not a smoker do I I've got to survive in this jungle right so I thought I've got to do this commercial toay pay my tax to be law abiding at the same time a little bit of my morality had been chipped away and I've never got over that cuz you've been rather a hefty campaigner against smoking yes I have yes yeah I hate it you know I lo it I love them imposition I the the the designed a device to get my own back on these smokers you know these have to sit like this in in in the tram buses and all that you know and it goes in this he goes into this eye and up here like this and you go away redey and then they come in your home and they smoke at the dinner table table and all this and they destroy what's the nice evening I thought I'd get one of these a plastic Dome so you want to smoke say right the Dome and it goes over the top of him and gradually this bugger gets filled up with smoke himself so he's just a great fog in this thing so he gets it himself and they wouldn't like that though would they it's got to be spread can I come back to to um depression and many people would wonder why given that you find it difficult to cope with the ordinary pressures of life that everybody has some way or another to cope with you should choose a profession which actually puts on you an even greater burden of pressure um than than than most people put up with why do you choose that I It chose me David I didn't choose it it chose me just like the shape of your nose you might have chosen a better one if you had a chance or or whichever you like I don't know but you're stuck with it you know that's just I'm stuck with whatever I'm supposed to be like whatever the P said you're going to be a right comedy writer you're going to suffer for it do you ever have a feeling that you would like to do something entirely different that you have a a secret ambition to do something else well I I have a secret I do pursue it I'm amate archaeologist and underwater archaeology as well I'm mad about it yeah I like finding about the past because the future looks so dull I want you to hear lastly from John antopusa he owes me money I think that really he's he's a man who wants to do um and does a tremendous amount of good but that he he believes in God but but in a sense often he believes that that God has abandoned this world and left it to uh spite Milligan and a few other sort of stalwarts to to hold the fort and I think that's enough to to drive anybody potty that's lovely yes uh no I'm I'm sure I'm not running the world John say uh I do think what I did say to him one day he said you're saying life is very bad I said he said if you believe in God you must have faith I said well I have faith but I also think that life is so very precarious that God is imperfect who said God should be perfect we might be living with a god who's imperfect created an imperfect system that's how it seems to me he means well we all mean well just he can't get it together man what do you find of the of the of the of the many things you do the most rewarding satisfying uh for personal gain or for communal gain you know well you make the distinction not me for me I suppose uh uh digging in the ruins of Zimbabwe or digging when we did the dig at the bayard's castle next to the mermaid that's very preing sunny day with your shirt off and looking into the past I find that very exciting not your work work is difficult yeah but when it's done and it's been a success of course your dear old ego gland start to turn say oh good I've written a bestseller great it's secondly when you're writing I was trying to write just where I came here and it was really Grim grinding it out cuz I'm not a scholar you see when you look back on your life um at the the stage you are now look sideways at mine got a bad neck do you um do you have any point at which you think things might have been different something which if it hadn't happened you would not have had to put up with this burden of manic depression and all the rest of it for for these last 20 years something else might have happened um uh if I might have stayed a jazz musician uh I might have I don't think I I think I might have been happier uh not having become so profound in myself I'd have been very lightweight and just wanting to play the Jazz of an evening and chat up the birds and have a drink of wine and go to bed then the next gig the next time that's like that cuz when you're playing it's very good it's therapeutic could you ever go back to that kind of life I don't think so CU to play the trumpet you've got to practice four or five hours a day and I think I'm just bit past it now I think so yes so that that it that that kind of easy happiness or Tranquility really has uded you yes it has completely yes I I remember what happiness was I still get great glows of warmth and satisfaction from seeing children and sunny days things that are going right in the world and beautiful buildings get lovely warm feeling it's not that happiness that I hear coming from my daughter when she's running up and down the hall laughing Spike Milligan thank you thank you David I

Channel: MrSteve

Views: 182,522

Keywords: Spike Milligan (Author), David Dimbleby (Author), Q TV Series, There's Alot Of It About, The Goons, Peter Sellers (Film Actor), Harry Secombe (Musical Artist), Eric Sykes (TV Writer), John Antrobus, Barry Cryer (TV Writer), BBC Comedy, Face Your Image, Comedy (Theater Genre), Funny

Id: Ke04t3ITU3c

Length: 39min 44sec (2384 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 22 2015