Spike Milligan - Where Have All the Bullets Gone? (1985)

 

I'd drifted away from funny books into more po-faced territory by the time this, the fifth of Spike's war memoirs, was published; but having read the first four, and feeling I owe it to my younger self, here I am again. The previous volume closed in harrowing fashion with Spike binned up in Italy with shell shock and an attendant absence of jokes and one liners. I was assuming this volume might represent a deeper descent into the psychological twilight, but no. Spike recovers despite the best efforts of the British Army, who arrange for him to continue his convalescence at a medical facility in close proximity to Mount Vesuvius just as it's about to blow; but in sunnier news, the war is over with Mussolini hung upside down in a garage somewhere. Somehow, this doesn't end the memoir because rather than being sent home as one might expect, Spike and pals continue to bum around Italy for another year, mostly entertaining the troops while playing in a variety of jazz bands, or possibly swing bands - something you dance to anyway. I assume the British Army hung around in Italy after the war as part of some clean up operation, or maybe getting the country back on its feet - Spike doesn't go into detail on this or even much else of the bigger picture unless I blinked and missed it.

Not that it matters because the author clearly never intended to bump heads with A.J.P. Taylor, instead delivering a worm's eye view of the war as many of us working classes would have experienced it - as something too vast and remote to comprehend except when the bombs are dropping directly onto our heads. Now, as the fighting retreats and dribbles away to nothing, our man catches up with himself and the job of existence, torn between the loss of all that was familiar and the pleasures of sun, sea, a different country, and not being shot at on a daily basis. The barrage of jokes and zingers is tempered with pleasantly reflective interludes of the kind experienced when realisation dawns that you've been through hell and survived. It's conversational and with an impressionist grammar that's more or less its own thing, which can be frustrating for anyone wondering why we're suddenly in Florence, or Naples, or wherever else, but is probably the only way to capture this kind of history. That said, the notes and letters reproduced solely as photographs - leaving us to struggle with Spike's handwriting or a typewriter which obviously needed a new ribbon - seem more trouble than they're worth, but your own mileage may vary.

Also, Harry Secombe finally shows up, in case anyone was wondering, and is a lot more funny on the page than I'm afraid I remember him being in real life. It isn't War and Peace*, but it's pleasantly substantial and satisfying compared to at least one of Spike's earlier, scrappier memoirs.

*: I haven't read it either.