Spike Milligan - Rare Interview - James Whale

I'm going to ask an obvious question festival really because we're talking about depression and why people feel down what at the time and why perhaps sometimes the funniest people I mean I was I was thinking particularly that moment of Tony Hancock who was a very tragic man very very sad man but one of the funniest ever it just would appear to be that that funny people are depressives if you take out the head count in the world you find that is not the case you find that in a minimum a little little out there there the middle is but and it just so happens you know people seem to latch on to that you know it's the classic reinvention of the story of the clown the sad clown because Ric paliotta but you said somewhere I really you said that the the gun show took more out of you and upset you more than practically anything you ever did yeah yeah that's what we're learning contributed to the fact that to do the war I'd been blown up and cold battle for the battle fatigue of all in the old world terms Bom Bom happy and it was aggravated by the tremendous intensity amount of work that I put into writing the goon sir are you sure acted forward well 13 14 15 hours a day and at any time I was obsessed with writing them did you feel that the perhaps that the powers that be and the people who gave you the money if you like to do the shows as now sometimes didn't really have a clue what was going on is that without upsetting you or not absolutely right they hadn't took clue I was called difficult that's the word for manic depression with the BBA yeah he offered difficult and I suppose in the long run in the long run when I was in a maniacal mood I was actually turning over much better than when I wasn't do you I mean you know now obviously you didn't perhaps not them but you know now that the manic depression is an illness and it's not that there's no particular reason why sometimes Oh better than illness just the top one is it yes I'm one of the top illnesses yes really it's amazing how since since the last fifty years suddenly realize there's great strata of people with this illness which nobody seemed to accept as being rational but now of course we have the manic-depressive fellowship and there's hundreds and thousands of people were manic-depressives do you know when you're going I mean you seem quite high at the moment I mean do you do you know when you're going to go into a down state know it there's no no pre warning at all suddenly there it is it's like an accident you ever you have a medical accident and there you are and it affects different people in different ways some people get tremendous highs over the top for another it'll go very down like this but there were the new drug called lithium which is a God safe too many people that I'm on with you that's why I'm recently stabilized at the moment yeah I mean when people have read about the fact that you've you've been a psychiatric hospital from time to time when were you quite open about a lot of people wouldn't talk about it obviously do they treat you in a slightly different way do they sort of say oh well we won't to worry too much about spike because you can't help it or I don't know you see I don't know what there's two ways people are presently that's a off seeing you on television never say I know that you're a manic depressive motion you say oh I've seen you on telly last night - just do you see me being a manic depressive and no there you go I'd say when someone says and then they they do because they say the silliest people we all say the silliest things but I say come on pull yourself together or close friends you would say come on Liz you haven't got anything to worry about why is depressed about money in the end of the world James have you thought what operation would you go about pulling yourself together where would you start pulling a silly I just silly actually silly thing yeah no but it was a cliche to my file you say pull yourself together I'm all in one piece daddy's disclosure I can get together will ever be you meant be having this moon depression going away did your parents understand you know they're dead so they're safe from it let's say but when they were live did they understand when their life no my father my mother understood it yes but my father he thought our to pull yourself together so that is that where the straps yeah yeah do you remember he went into a psychiatric hospital first of all what it was like yes I yes or Woodside Park psychiatric hospital you remember that I was a very bad I was a very bad way if you can said order and decimated I could hardly move and they put me to sleep I think I'll deep narcosis they put you to sleep for three weeks and that's supposed to end the trauma the tauren fortunately enough it did it when I came to I felt better but I I thought I'd been put asleep for years because while I was asleep they didn't save me and I grew a beard you know I thought I was like a Ravana Wincott the wait a minute how long have I been in here and they'd show me newspapers as I had these on today's newspapers these are old ones oh wow how long have I been here so the in the end they got the radio and played it to me but I didn't believe I thought I'd been in there forever but terrified feeling as well yeah when you first went in you were already well-known not no not quite no this is about 1953 you just started to get well done like my mother and father was saying hello to me did they have a difference do you think because you read some tragic stories now of people who go into psychiatric hospitals yeah and get forgotten I'll tell you a story about Roehampton friary when I was in there one of my loonies jeonse are we coming back home again they'd say and I found a medical book miss pross's with us and in it was all admissions from 1850 but the book was locked but I found a key and opened it and and it was lady Millington Synge admitted 1850 dementia praecox 1918 51 no change 1853 no change and it went like this until 1880 all she was a whole life was a series of entries in the book oh my god how tragic because they didn't know they had mind-bending drugs in those days it might have helped her what about now our electric shock treatment and stuff like that you well they put you under didn't do me any good but I did I did I did say what they use as a much electricity as possible because I had shares in eastern electricity but it didn't it didn't do anything for me at all they are tiresome and you you came to they meant well but then so did Hitler yeah there was a there seemed to be a lot of tragedies reading reading interviews again about you ii have been a lot of tragedies in your life that i mean most people would have become depressed at and it seems that they kind of built up as well I never had any in James I never had any different tragedy as such but like being run over or having an accident to notice I suppose the manager profession is a bit of a tragedy that self but I never had except for love a divorce my first wife which I thought was the tragedy your second wife died yeah that was a tragedy of course as you just remark I've forgotten about that that's right here week I suppose I did have tragedies yes I mean I also heard somewhere the Howard how about World War two as a tragedy World War two was not a bad one ankles yes yeah um how would you describe depression to somebody who's only ever been practiced allies and acts suddenly something might read off like a cruel world a cruel gesture or something which upset you and you don't get upset like older people you go out of this world enter in this world of complete depression and it robs you of all energy all effort and all sex drive that's the thing they say in psychiatry that when your sex drive comes back then you're cured all mine has never come back I mind you I haven't driven it very far there today mine has never come back but I and a better state of mind I used to be the interesting thing of course is people are going to say even when you're depressed or work ma'am you still are making people laugh yes usually at your own expense I have I have been on the stage in a mortal depression and and made them laugh how or why I don't know am I the consummate artist of all time are you know I was asking you the question that does that wasn't another thing it happens with it as there's nothing good happening in your life at all nothing at all you see all the nice things like your children through a through a mists you know you're not really enjoying them like you should go on a depression you're not enjoying your children even though they're standing there you're not enjoying them the depression is too great too overwhelming and what happens is you suddenly try to think away two things that were nice in your past and the nostalgia is almost as huge as Quasimodo's hump its enormous thing as charger the nostalgia is so great that even depresses you even more but you're remembering of a good times equator than that good time is gone you'll never come back again like this is it ominous wait yet it's that that's hard to fix me my I don't know how to fix anybody else what do you think it affects your wife it does affect her see Esther tread gently and this has to go on loving me and I don't shout and scream whining like that I don't do anything about fighting anybody but she has to pay attention to me when I'm in bed in sea sometimes some of the stories that have appeared about you particularly about when you've been depressed in the news have been very writing about you in a very sort of negative ways now I've never had any reporter be nasty to me my father's an old journalist and he said never turn a reporter way reporter away you know dear what it's like to stand with 14 hours in the rain outside a house to try and get a story so I've always been on good terms with with the media yeah generally speaking it I also read that you were worried you you you said you couldn't save money you had to go out your overdraft was the next performance I think or something like that I did I did run short of money and I kept getting this letter continued on the bank saying you're overdrawn by a thousand pounds so I would write back and tell them thanks very much but you know then another element government this went up about four or five weeks these letters kept coming and then there are today between oh don't think you understand we're asking you to close this overdraft ernõ so hard and I said listen once a month I put all my creditors name on a piece of paper and I wrote I'm gonna put two and a hat I'd gone out and I'd pay off that bill and I said if you don't stop bothering me I won't put your name in the bloody hat what do they say they haven't answered that one arty thing going to send me ahead do you think that the fact that you feel so I mean you're you're a committed vegetarian now yeah and I wasn't committed I mean it is I commit you to be a caucus when I commit you to be a vegetarian you feel very strongly about it yes I do I went and saw a an animal veal calf and a chicken broth unit and I sorry it's just one a little bit of sense to me I can't subscribe to this killing and I survived now for 15 years just eating vegetarian food look what happens to you folks but people might say is he that this is all part of the illness of depression that everything becomes so much more acute to you but you feel everything I mean I'm concerned that I am very acutely aware of my environment I'm like I feel I'm a skin short now I feel cold before anybody else I feel the heat before anybody else you know like this and doing the wall I could hear cells coming when all my mates couldn't so there was to watch me where I threw myself on the ground a new one was on its way mind you I trick them the end I said listen this this gift of mine is too good to go unpaid I want one cigarette of all of you otherwise I will not throw myself to the ground mommy Rochelle coming I didn't do very well I did leave a few cigarettes this did you run did you sign the the oath of allegiance to get you your citizenship and Prince Charles no no I was British in the war they sent me to the Wars of British soldier and then some idiot he idiot diplomat all the world for foreign office changed the law so that any of any man born of a father whose father was born in Ireland for 1900 was now no longer British socialist chrimbus wander the forums what are you alright nothing at all really you'll have to we'll have to apply again I saw what we write in I said no fears no way some time to write and don't send a room full of foreigners of every color creed race name and things and me in the middle saying I promised dick an organization British and when I went to the i/os embassy Rustica number one Irish citizen and he said oh Jesus yes we're off a shot of Hiva so I joined him and we had to two glasses of whiskey and then I became Irish I'm very pleased with it you say you are at your irises I'm an Irish citizen yes city but bit of the book are you pleased that Prince Charles is such a big fan of yours I'd think this is true he's not a big fan of mine he just knows about me that's about it you've met him yes I've met him I mean dude you like that you won't believe this but I own to the sleeping arrangements at his house I slept on the laundry floor yeah yeah oh no I'm not gonna say the up nuts no no no no no no that no are you lonely yes and always been lonely but I don't know why yet you've got four children you have a family yeah and lots of fans you walked out the street people are going to say hiya spike how I know they don't they say to me you're Eric Sykes run you well I don't mind that but then those Templars had to be your Peter sillas I said no actually desi I know isn't so I thought I don't mind being mistaken for somebody a lie but don't his table for a corpse one has one pride in being alive you know why do you think why do you think you're lonely do you think this is part of your euro your depression maybe yes James maybe yes I it's very mysterious it's miles with nice curious mysterious thing that's happened to me because I don't understand it is a total mystery even though you've talked to some very eminent people about it and you've been into into the hospital's become pretty literate person and Chagas by mean and so nobody's sure about talking about it make turmoil they know sometimes when somebody come on your ornamental helm or the psychiatric ward they don't like to go to a mental or the general loony bin is out as well I think it's gone connect I when people nurses would come in sometimes they'd sit down and talk to me while I was ill you know and I was very very nice that summer I was talking to you sometimes I wish they'd have buggered off actually we've had a lot of letters in where we said we were going to do a program on depression and we mentioned it on the air we had an enormous amount of letters in the program being serious enough about this you've been fine everything's fine and what we gleaned from the letters was that people seem to think that they had one event in their life that had triggered off their depressive illness but it was one thing that they just couldn't get out of their their mind do you feel do you think it was the war for you do you think that was what said it uh I think it was latent in me James all it needed was the trigger and being blown up and and taken to hospital with this D pronoun that set it off I was all right after that but I was always away that I was not the same as I was before this incident in the wall over the years it's got quite bad you know I've just come out of one which had lasted nearly two two and a half years in the end I you know you do consider suicide as a very pleasant option and that all that stopped me doing it was the fact I could suddenly see all my children standing on my grave crying my wife and all that so I just feel like I couldn't do that to them you know you believe in euthanasia though don't you I read some with it yes I think yes I've have said to my family if ever I get to a stage where there's no point in living you pull the plug yeah do you think it should be legalized you think I think it should really guys it's it's a it's so if you really love someone enough you will kill them I totally agree with you yeah or do you say spike to somebody who is depressed watching this I mean what sort of help or what advice would you give somebody I'd say here's a bottle of hand Amanda gamba theum pills take one a day you'd say go and see a doctor basically and rather than just a lot of people live with their depression there's nothing you can either say go and see a pretty girl much better I love it now you could dr. dr. Donna the psychiatrist knows about the tablets ER and the vast range of these tablets there are those which of course which are addictive which was to avoid and those which had genuinely good drugs you we do need I realize after all these years that this going seeing a psychiatrist and say I don't feel well and relaxed on it you do need these mind-bending drugs they are beneficial

Channel: JamesWhaleRadioShow

Views: 55,401

Rating: 4.8268042 out of 5

Keywords: Spike Milligan (Author), Comedy (Theater Genre), Humour (TV Genre), Television (Invention), Interview, Footage, Exclusive, Interviews, James Whale (Broadcast Artist)

Id: DHFlieGLAK4

Length: 20min 6sec (1206 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 08 2014