Norma Farnes - Memories of Milligan

Memories of

Milligan

NORMA FARNES

For Jack My Champagne Charlie

Cover

Title Page Memories of Milligan NORMA FARNES

Introduction

Desmond Milligan

Eric Sykes

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson

Liz Cowley

Denis Norden

Marcel Stellman

George Martin

Groucho (Alan Matthews)

Barry Humphries

Richard Lester

Richard Ingrams

Jimmy Verner

Peter Medak

Terry Wogan

Joanna Lumley

Alan J. W. Bell

Dick Douglas-Boyd

Jonathan Miller

Michael Palin

Stephen Fry

Eddie Izzard

. . . on Spike

. . . on the Goons

Spike on Spike

Acknowledgements

Copyright

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Introduction

The concept of this book, as far as I was concerned, was a coffee table book, and that is how it started. After a few months, I was quite happily going along when Louise Haines, my editor, dropped a bombshell. She didn’t ‘want a book of articles. I would like a more chronological memoir.’

Let me tell you about Louise. What Louise wants, Louise always gets. She has a certain way of saying N-O-R-M-A, long-drawn out, very quiet. You know then she’s about to get you to do something you don’t want to do; in this case ten times more work than I had anticipated. However, she’s terrific and knows exactly what is needed, so I forgive her. And you know what – she was right again.

Throughout Spike’s illustrious career – thank God he’s not around to read that. I can hear him say, ‘What career? They’ll say Spike Milligan wrote The Goon Show and died,’ or ‘It’s all for fear of the bank manager,’ or ‘It’s just that Van Gogh couldn’t stop painting and I can’t stop writing.’ All these remarks were repeated to me many times over the years. Well, I think he had an illustrious career and throughout that career he made some friends, a lot of acquaintances and a few enemies.

In this book I’ve tried to capture the varied recollections of some of the people who did know Spike; so many professed to know him, but they didn’t know him at all. He was loyal, and his friendships, the true ones, lasted all his life. I can think of two, alas, no longer with us: Alan Clare, brilliant pianist and composer, and Jack Hobbs, his editor – friendships that lasted over forty years. There were ups and downs with Jack, but Spike never had a cross word with Alan. When he was down and feeling alone, he used to go to Alan’s flat in Holland Park and sit and talk to him for hours, or just go and sit in silence after asking Alan to play for him. When Alan died, Spike missed him terribly and said to me, in such a haunting tone, ‘Oh, Norm. We are all beginning to die.’ One week later, I was the one who had to tell him that Jack Hobbs had died.

The relationship with his brother, Desmond, was a love/hate one. It was either ‘I have a God-sent brother,’ or ‘That stupid brother of mine.’ His book Rommel? Gunner Who? was dedicated to Desmond:

To my dear brother Desmond

Who made my boyhood happy and with whom

I have never had a cross word

Mind you he drives his wife mad

Obviously written in a ‘God-sent brother’ period. The one thing that never changed was the wonderful memories Spike had of their idyllic childhood growing up in India and Burma, and Desmond’s memories of this time reflect the stories Spike had told me.

Eric Sykes was an established writer when he met Spike. He was writing the very successful Peter Brough and Archie Andrews radio shows, Educating Archie . Eric was lying in bed in the Homeopathic Hospital in Great Ormond Street awaiting an operation, the first of many for an infected mastoid. He was listening to the radio and a new comedy show which he thought was fast, furious and very, very funny. It was Crazy People written by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens. Eric wrote them a letter saying what he thought about the show. It was such an accolade for them, an established writer sending them such a letter of praise. The next day Spike and Larry paid a visit to Eric and that small incident of fate began an enduring friendship between Spike and Eric which culminated in sharing an office for over fifty years.

In about 1953, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, like Spike and Eric, had only just started their writing careers. They met Spike at a rehearsal of a Goon Show and they were introduced after the recording. Together they formed a company, Associated London Scripts (ALS), and stayed together until April 1968 when they went their separate ways, Eric and Spike staying together at Orme Court, their offices in Bayswater. Ray and Alan have wonderful memories of ‘the early days’ when they thought the world was full of laughter.

Friendships, laughter and writing scripts wove them together. It was new and exciting, breaking new ground, and that’s when Spike met Liz Cowley, a journalist and broadcaster. Another relationship that lasted fifty years, though relationship is the wrong word, it belies the love and affection they had for one another until his death. What was always amazing to me, apart from their love for each other, was their deep friendship, and he cared so much for her and her wellbeing. She is such a natural to share her memories with the reader.

Denis Norden is one of the great scriptwriters of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. With his writing partner, Frank Muir, he was responsible for the highly successful radio series Take it From Here which ran for twelve years. He also wrote and presented It’ll Be Alright on the Night for twenty-nine years. He is a great raconteur and has an immense fund of showbusiness stories and anecdotes of stars of the last sixty years.

Spike had great affection for Marcel Stellman. He was an A & R man and producer at Decca records. In the late Sixties Marcel approached Spike, having heard the Goon Shows , to ask him if he had any comedy songs as he was interested in recording him. The first song Spike gave Marcel was ‘I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas’ and he even had a B-side for him, ‘Bloodnok’s Rock ’n’ Roll Call’. Then came the famous ‘The Ying Tong Song’, still popular today, so much so it’s the ring tone on my mobile.

Another lasting friendship for over fifty years was with Sir George Martin. George was best man at Spike’s second marriage, to Paddy, and Spike was godfather to George’s son Giles, not that you would know. He was a very bad godfather and when I reminded him of this he’d say, ‘I know, Norm, but Gentle George [Spike’s favourite name for George] will forgive me. I just forget and I’m getting to be an old man.’ He wasn’t an old man until the last two years of his life when his body started to fail him. He was just an old fake. And Gentle George always forgave him. For Spike, Gentle George could do no wrong. In the late Sixties I’d just taken over as Spike’s manager and Spike was going to a recording session with him. I hadn’t then met George. In my green years and trying to be efficient, I told Spike that I hadn’t seen a contract for the recording session. Very indignantly, Spike replied, ‘I don’t need a contract with George. He’s my friend,’ and for the rest of their working lives together it remained so.