Milligan (Spike)

Milligan (Spike)

Autograph annotations in Spike Milligan's hand about his family and especially his childhood in India. Spike starts by saying "As I have grown older, recollections of my childhood seem to come flooding back, well not so much a flood , as an occasional recollection, and I thought I would like to record them. My earliest recollections seem unexplainable. One is looking thru a porthole - seeing a white sailed yacht and behind it a red brick wall". He then writes down his recollections of his time in Poona and Kirkee ("I remember my mother and my bed being put outside on the tennis court, as I suppose it was very hot in the house...I remember my favourite toy , a large donkey called McKey; whenever we went for a ride in a Victoria, I used to insist that he sat next to me. I would still like to have him, why are adults so insensitive to childhood toys. I recall my parents attempts to make me learn to ride"), in Hyderabad ("I remember, late one night, being carried home, half-asleep, in my fathers arms. I remember he was singing a tune in time with his walking") and in Belgaum ("We lived in a wooden house, raised off the ground on wooden supports. At breakfast Kitty, my father's horse, used to put her head through the breakfast room window...A ride to the bazar (crying in a fury), I was accompanied by two bearers, I've no idea why I was in such a tantrum, it appears that I was being taken to the Bazar to buy a toy. The bearers tried to placate me by showing the 10 Rupee note that had been given by my parents to buy the toy. I grabbed the note and tore it in two...There was a horse race - my father rote his horse Kitty. Alas he came last. I was disappointed as I thought my father won everything"). He fondly recalls his train journeys on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway and then he writes more about his house in Poona and his family's daily life ("It was at 5 Climo Road, Old Sappers Lines, that my real boyhood began- and I suppose I would call the home where I was born...I remember we had lots of curries cooked by our Indian cook..I never lost my love of them"), 15 pages, a few of them stapled together, some creasing and folding marks, tall 4to, the first page dated 12 March 1982; also included are: a photograph of Spike's father in India with other officers; reprints of vintage photographs showing his father sparring with Paddy Manning, Artillery welterweight champion, in 1912; a modern print of a vintage photograph featuring his mother's family, with Spike's annotations to the verso; five candid shots of Spike Milligan in Italy; one snapshot of a performance of The Bill Hall Trio -a musical comedy act originally consisting of Bill Hall (violin), Johnny Mulgrew (double bass) and Spike Milligan (guitar)- and one of another stage act; two modern reprints of photographs of The Bill Hall Trio; a typed letter from Spike to the Memorial University of Newfoundland, asking information about the steamship SS Bolivar which "left Panama, November, 1882 for the Barbados, I think via Madeira. On the 14.15th December, 1882 it was wrecked on the Cobblers Reef...what I am actually seeking is the ship's log", 11 January 1984; the reply from the Department of History saying "without actually checking all the boxes, we cannot tell at this stage if there are official log books", 25 January 1984; together with three volumes dedicated to Spike Milligan by the authors and a copy of Gordon Garbedian (H.) Albert Einstein. Maker Universes, First Edition, annotated by Milligan on the title page "But his invention led to the atom bomb. Spike Milligan", some foxing and browning, cracking to front joint, 4to, Cassell & Company, 1939. (quantity)