Norma Farnes - Spike - An Intimate Memoir

While I was with Spike he went through depressions, marriages, numerous affairs, and very many tantrums. And at the same time there were always those flashes of inspiration, occasionally genius, that made him comedy’s most influential innovator in the last fifty years, and a fascinating human being. People either adored or detested him. Nobody ever dismissed him with ‘Oh, he’s okay.’ His disciples – and I use the word advisedly – worship him to this day. To them he could do no wrong, a view not shared by everyone, including me.

When I walked into Nine Orme Court, Bayswater, on a stormy winter’s morning in January 1966 I never imagined I would spend the better part of four decades with the truly extraordinary man who was about to interview me. Perhaps the weather was trying to tell me something.

I had been looking for a job in television production but then I spotted an intriguing advertisement in the Evening Standard:

Showbusiness personality requires personal assistant. Must be bright and efficient. Good shorthand and typing speeds. Bayswater area. Ring Alfred Marks Bureau, Notting Hill Gate.

That would do for the three months I reckoned it would take to get into television, and Bayswater was only a fourpenny fare and two tube stops from my flat in Kensington. I rang up and the salary was attractive too. I did not have any money so that was in the job’s favour. The girl at the agency wanted to know my shorthand and typing speeds, where I had worked previously and whether I had references. I satisfied her on all those counts. Then she seemed to hesitate.

‘Yes?’ I said.

‘Just one thing,’ she said. ‘You’d be working for Spike Milligan.’

In her dreams.

‘No thanks. I’ve heard all about him. Not for me.’

‘He really is a very nice man. Do go and see him.’

Spike was a notoriously turbulent character, but it would pay the bills and provide an introduction to the world I was interested in. And after almost three years as secretary and researcher to a driven newspaper and television journalist, being Spike Milligan’s assistant should not be too daunting. I had had all the temperament bit, curses, tantrums and books being thrown across the office. Surely it could not be much worse than that. Was I in for a surprise.

Even after Spike’s death I still have my office at a strangely quiet Number Nine, where I manage his affairs for his children. His presence lingers and it will for as long as I remain his surrogate. Every time I arrange for a new edition of his books or scripts I recall the circumstances, the rows, the highs and lows that gave birth to them. If I am asked to do something that I know would not be right for him I hear his whisper. ‘That’s right, Norm. You tell ’em!’ Other great talents, household names, worked at Number Nine, but it was Spike’s moods that coloured the days and set the tone.

Strangers often wonder, even suggest with a knowing look, that there must have been something going on between me and Spike for the association to have lasted. But there never was and that is perhaps one of the reasons we stayed together. He was my greatest friend and I was his, though I told him when I thought he was wrong and that did not always go down too well. As well as his manager and agent I was his peacemaker and confidante, and what confidences there were.

Spike had his own explanation for why we stuck together so long.

‘I’ve always fought against being dominated by strong women. You’re one but with you there’s one important difference. You’re in my corner.’

And I always was.

A long stay was the last thing on my mind when I entered the stately Edwardian house for the first time. I walked into a bright reception area with a red carpet which continued on up the stairs and landings. The receptionist was friendly and we chatted until the switchboard buzzed. ‘You can go up now,’ she said, ‘it’s the first door on your left.’

As I walked upstairs I wondered whether Spike Milligan would be as extraordinary as his public persona. He had converted the post-war radio audience to his crazy, anarchic sense of humour with The Goon Show. As a performer he was guaranteed to fill West End theatres: his unrehearsed antics convulsed spectators and unnerved the actors appearing alongside him. By the time I met him he was famous in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States, where he had gathered a following among students and – something that baffled him – intellectuals. Yes, it was rumoured that he was unpredictable and eccentric. Well, I had had a dose of that already and decided in advance that my stay with him would be for three months only.

I stepped into a small cold room. French windows were open to a balcony and let in an icy draught. He was apparently oblivious to the temperature, no doubt because he was sitting there in a thick grey ribbed sweater, black corduroy trousers and a black woolly hat topped with a pompom. He looked up but did not greet me.

‘It’s freezing in here,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I hate the Americans.’

Well, naturally. That explained everything. I later discovered that this reply summed up Spike’s convoluted logic, and its speed was typical of him. He would always fly to the conversational winning-post while others laboured over the hurdles of qualification and explanation, and he expected you to fly with him. If you could not, then bad luck. Should I tell him that the Romans invented central heating and not the Americans? I decided to leave it.

I looked around the office. On top of a filing cabinet to his right were some packets of Swoop bird seed. Reminders of his family crowded every available surface. Drawings by his children; a very old toy dog; a much-cuddled teddy bear; two pairs of baby boots; a wool bonnet; and a large brown rosary which lay beside a smaller green one underneath a picture of a benevolent Jesus Christ. I wondered what His views were about all that went on in that room. Although there was electric light numerous oil lamps were dotted about, two on top of an upright piano before which stood a rickety chair. Shelves packed with files lined three walls and the fourth was covered with photographs of his children. A large Victorian bureau, double doors open wide, revealed numerous compartments, all open and filled. Every file, cassette and tape it contained looked to be neatly labelled. Under another window was a divan bed. What initially seemed chaotic had a streak of unorthodox order about it, not unlike the workings of his mind, as I would find out. Even a glance told me that this room was a refuge to him, and somewhere to kip when he felt like it.

He opened the conversation with a few desultory questions, none of which amounted to much. I waited for him to get down to business. And waited.

The Bureau had said he was forty-nine but at first glance he looked older, with what is now called designer stubble and was then considered the sign of a man too lazy to shave. There was an air of vulnerability about him and, despite my first impression, something childlike in his manner which made him seem younger than his years. We talked about this and that. Then, without any warning, looking me straight in the eye, he said, ‘You won’t mind if I shout at you from time to time, will you?’

I had had experience of that sort of thing before. ‘No. Not if you don’t mind if I shout back.’

He appeared crestfallen. ‘You must never do that. It would break me up.’ I could tell from his expression that it would. Suddenly he got up, took one of the packets of Swoop and sprinkled some seed over the balcony floor and the empty window boxes. ‘Morning, lads,’ he said, looking into the sky. Within a minute or so there were half a dozen pigeons tucking in.