Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall (Spike Milligan War Memoirs)

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And, a very credible evocation, of the life of a conscript at the start of the war right down to the smelliness of the army uniforms and how nobody got the correct size.

It stars Jim Dale as the young Spike, Arthur Lowe and Bill Maynard, with a cameo appearance by Milligan as his own father. Part 3 begins a year previously, and launches into a favourite Milligan literary aside—a long discussion of setting up musical shows, including names of songs, instruments and players.The film is about Spike being drafted into the army at the beginning of WWII and covered his basic training. Most of it is a humorous look at Spikes war experience and it had some serious sides to it along with the humour. June 2nd, 1940, on a summer's day all mare's tails and blue sky we arrived at Bexhill-on-Sea, where I got off. There are vividly nightmarish scenes of nerve-wracking despair meshed ingeniously in between the more rib-tickling sequences; there is also a heightened sense of the irreparable damage that destruction and death leave on mere mortals, not least of all the hapless troops marching to war themselves. I love it, cannot wait to read more, he certainly has a talent for painting a vivid and often funny picture with his words.

Milligan, Edgington and others start to dress like the characters, fashioning clubs and running into the woods shouting gibberish.He is famous for his work in The Goon Show, children's poetry and a series of comical autobiographical novels about his experiences serving in the British Army in WWII. The book quotes at length from the regimental war diary, describing an extraordinary day when the War Office (now the Ministry of Defence) was alerted to a sea invasion—in what was intended to be an exercise. I read this book as a teenager in the mid-1970s (or, put another way, a very long time ago) and I loved it and have always meant to read it again. It featured Milligan narrating the story plus Milligan, John Wells, Graham Stark and Alan Clare acting out some scenes. I really enjoyed this book from the vivid descriptions of war practices to the humorous practical jokes, talkbacks and commentary.