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Transcribed typed letter to Harry Edgington, June 13 1945
Calligraphy experts have described the handwriting as ‘critical’, and who are we to argue with qualified nursing sisters?
While waiting for LIAP, we continue to play for dances, but as the photo shows I have been promoted to the right, so I am within hitting distance of the pianist.
The new white jacket band on a cloth of gold, plus a moustache…
Notice too I have grown a moustache, brass players swear it: ‘bound the embouchure’. It made me swear, a real bloody bind, and shaving became difficult, but, you see, Robert Taylor had grown one and I couldn’t let him get away with it.
The Torch of Love is Extinguished
One letter did it. Lily Dinley is getting married! That’s bad enough, but, to another man. That’s terrible. This was the girl I had carried a torch for. Though she had officially left me, I lived in hopes that one day she’d officially come back, if only to get the money I owed her. I prayed she would change her mind or her body; as long as the latter stayed the same shape as when I last saw it at 47 Revlon Road, Brockley — it was better than egg and chips. Anyway, her letter sent me into the depths of depression and when I arrived, no one was down there. This letter lets in the light for you dear dear readers. I’ve excised certain parts which would not interest you; they just contained certain private measurements.
Students of punctuation will be rolling on the floor.
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BDR TA MILLIGAN
95_024
O BRANCH GHQ 2nd Echelon
CMF.
Dear Old Boy,
A thousand pardons for failing to write to you for so long…when I explain the reason you will understand only too well…Lily got maried about two month back, and I have been on the boose ever since…honest son, nothing ever hit me so hard…I worshipped that girl in my own peculiar fashion…lets forget it eh?. I suppose you have heard about the
[blanked]
well old Harry, I’m going home to Blighty in three weeks time…What are the chances of seeing you old son??? I will drop in and see you people in any case. Its raining oceans in Italy to day. Harry I well be hoping to settle down in N London after the war…(On my own) so i would like very much to be seeing a lot of you and your gang at my place (Where ever that is)…I don’t quite know what I’m going to do without Lily…..9 years is a long time to be in love with one girl…..Lets forget it…..I want you to give all the following PTO
[blanked]
NASH, and any that I may have forgotten. WELL XXXX Harry I am tn the dumps…I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do on leave…I have no bloody home to go to and the girl?…ha ha what bloody mockery life is…dont take any notice of the depression I8m laying on, write soon harry…
Your Sincere friend
Spike
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Transcribed typed letter
But despite Lily, I was still writing to my harem in the UK- Beryl, Bette, Mae, Ivy; there were shortages in England, but not of this.
Zounds! It’s too much to believe. “The Band are to have a week’s leave in Rome,” says Major New. “It’s for the good work you’ve all done.”
I didn’t understand. We’d never done any work. As if this is not enough, dear reader, on the 23 July my life is enriched by the legacy of Startling Grope. He’s left orders that from this day henceforth I am to be promoted to Unpaid Acting Bombardier. No money, but I can put two stripes on my sleeve and I don’t have to curtsy to Sergeants any more. Startling Grope has his little joke, for one day later…I am now PAID BOMBARDIER!
“Someone has blundered,” says Sergeant Britton, who is now only one stripe ahead! I catch lovely long Captain Thelma Oxnevad. I show her my two stripes. “Any chance now?” I say, but before she can answer me I am laid low — not by illness, no, by treatment. Typhus inoculation. First shot.
“Roll your sleeve up,” said a Medical Orderly. “Just a little prick.”
I said I could see he was.
“Can you feel that?” he said.
“Yes, coming out the other side.”
He was well pleased.
Soon I’m in bed with a high temperature.
“Have you heard the news?” says Steve, holding up a paper.
I listen. I can’t hear anything. What’s he mean? I am the news.
“They’ve dropped the Atom Bomb.”
Very good Steve, but who’s dropped it on who? The Yanks! Of course! They’ve got the money. He held up the paper.
‘ATOM BOMB DROPPED IN HIROSHIMA’. I was delirious and really didn’t give a bugger. “It’s their own bloody fault,” I said.
August 9
DIARY:
BOOSTER INOCULATION
Ouchhhhhh! He was still a little prick. This time it was worse, a hundred and three temperature!
“At least you keep the room warm at night,” says Lewis.
Sadist! The Rev. Sergeant Beaton hears my groans and comes to minister the last rites. He’s disappointed, I’ll live. “Whisky in hot tea is good for yew.”
I buy a bottle — it’s good for me! And by the amount he drank, good for him. I have two doubles, then send out for hot tea. It’s a knockout. While I sleep, another plane is on its way to Nagasaki. By the time I wake the city is no more and the nature of war is to become a nightmare, something that I was just coming out of. I’m pouring with sweat. I feel like a wet rag but can’t find one anywhere. Nagasaki! That used to be the name of one of my favourite busking tunes!
Hot ginger and Dynamite
That’s all they get at night
Back in Nagasaki
Where the fellas chew t’baccy
And the women wiggy waggy woo.
I haven’t heard that song since. Amazing how one atom bomb can kill a song writer’s income.
I’m groggy in bed for a while. Steve is bringing my meals in, and eating them. “How do you feel?”
“Hungry.”
“That doesn’t leave much after tax,” he said, and I still don’t understand what he meant.
“Stop that bloody noise in there,” shouts the Rev. Sergeant Beaton. “We’re trying to meditate.”
“Sorry,” says Steve. “Let us know when it’s our turn.”
Roma Encore
The holiday with Scotland’s Revenge (porridge) and Links of Love (Slingers). All packed and puffing cigarettes, our lorry drives out of Alexander barracks in triumph. As we pass through the proles on their way to their offices, they boo us. “You wouldn’t ‘af to work if you’d learn the fiddle,” chortles Jim Manning. It’s a glorious day with a sky like Canaletto; unlike England where it’s like Cannelloni.
September 1
DIARY:
56 AREA REST CAMP. LOVELY LAZY DAY. SWIMMING, GRUB, PICTURES, PING-PONG.
The consensus is we go to a restaurant. We find one in the Via Forno, a lovely little trattoria with plastic grapes hanging from the ceiling, raffia-bound flasks hanging in clusters from the wall, and candles on the table. Several blue-chinned mafia-style waiters are waiting to serve, or murder us. It’s pasta all round, except for Jim Manning. He’s not going to ‘ ‘ave any of those long strips of garlic worms, no, it’s egg and chips’. Alright, we can laugh — eggs are good for you, they give you the ‘orn. I find a delightful red wine, Tignanello. Then two shillings a gallon, now £6 a bottle, I’m glad I ordered it then. We now rush rapidly to the next morning to avoid all that retching out of the back of the lorry.
Funny ha-ha reaction to the End of WWII by Bdr. Milligan — note modern frizz-top hair-do. Left: Vic Shewery; right: Jim Manning who volunteered to pose with me.
Diary: September 2
Terrible hangover. Felt better after breakfast. Lovely sunny day. It is now ALL over: the Nips have jacked it in.
“The bastards,” said Jim Manning. “The bomb was too bloody good for ‘em — they should have dropped something cheaper, like gas stoves filled with shit.” What a thought.
br /> The Romans ignore the Victory, the Allied soldiers get pissed, the City is full of stumbling, staggering, farting drunks, none of whom have ever seen a Jap. The rest camp leaves the latecomers a huge table of the latest greatest horror in British cuisine, the dreaded Cold Collation, each plate containing the following:
Small part of cold dead chicken.
One lettuce leaf brown at edges.
One slice of tomato laid like wreath on dead chicken bit.
Mess of diced stale boiled potatoes hiding under thin watery mayonnaise.
Sprig of watercress.
Thin slice of bread curling at edges as though about to fly off plate.
Six pale peas glued together for security.
A shrimp.
Greasy thumbprint.
NIPPON DAILY NEWS
Emperor Hirohito hit by gas stove filled with shit. Western barbarians drop ultimate weapon. Despicable act without warning. No surrender. Antikarzi squadrons to intercept new hell weapon.
It was a warm night and we all knew who had had brown ale. “I think,” says Len Prosser, “if they’d dropped Cold Collation on Hiroshima it would have done more damage.” He’s right! After eating it, we surrendered.
There’s no lights out, so we play Pontoon. At one in the morning, from distant campanili, a series of one o’clocks ring out over the rooftops of Rome. One o’clock went on for a good seven minutes. We set our watches some twenty times.
“It must be different religions,” I said, “like the Protestants are three minutes behind the Greek Orthodox, and the Catholics one minute up on the Coptics.” They all say I’m a silly bugger.
“That’s it,” says a triumphant Jim Manning. “Pontoons only.” He scoops up the winnings.
I hadn’t done too badly, I’d come out with the same amount I’d had before the game, but then I hadn’t played -I’d had my fingers burnt before when someone set fire to the cards.
The days that followed were much the same. Monday, Tuesday etc. to the power of seven. Breakfast, lazing, swim, lunch, lazing, swim, cold collation, screaming, ping-pong, evening spruce up, Rome, sightseeing, pictures, dance, Trattoria, Alexander Club, pictures, cold collation, screaming, late night boozing, smoking, wanking, screaming.
Diary: September 6
Last day! MUST do something. Breakfast, lazing, swim, lunch, lazing, breakfast, cold collation, screaming, wanking, lunch — elephant strangling in rum (eh?). I’d found a great ‘Cinema Vérité’ film, Città. Aperta. No one wants to see it. “It’s in bleedin’ Iti, isn’t it?” says The Jim Manning. Yes, dear lad, would he like Cockney sub-titles? No — he’s going to have egg, chips and the horn. It’s a marvellous film, very, very moving, a wonderful performance by Aldo Fabrizi, and I came out depressed but elated.
I hie me to the Alexander Club, and there pleasure myself with choice teas and buns. A ‘Naafi’ pianist is playing, an assassination job; he does for music what Dracula did for anaemia. I stand and listen to the horror and realize what a good thing assassination is. To recover I have a carafe of wine and head for home.
Outside the streets are bright, shops are open late, streets bustle with night life. I’m looking in a ladies’ lingerie shop with my memories. A voice behind me. “Are you looking for a dirty girl?” It’s a very beautiful thirty-year-old female.
No, I wasn’t looking for a dirty girl, I was looking for some clean underwear. She smiled a ravishing smile and showed teeth as white as piano keys. She looked at me with huge brown eyes, a stunner. I had never been accosted before, I didn’t know what to say; this was real men’s stuff. My mother said I never should play with the gypsies in the wood. To hell with that.
Her name is Maria Marini (all gypsies not in the wood in Italy are called Maria). A high degree of naughty was possible! I asked her why she had chosen me. I looked kind. Kind? What kind? Her words: “You looka nice.” The bottom drops out of the naughty when she tells me she’s not a tart, this is the first time! Why, dear girl, are you doing this dreadful thing? Doesn’t she know I’m trying to cure myself of Cold Collation, screaming and wanking? She’s a teacher from the University of Milan, she was holidaying in Rome when the Germans put a curfew on all civilian movements. She was broke and desperate. I said so was I, I’d just had egg and chips. A friend had suggested there were two ways to make money, tarting or counterfeiting. Both ways you get fucked. When we got to her small but tidy flat overlooking the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (all Basilicas not called Franco are called Maria in Italy), she broke down. Should I call the AA? I couldn’t bring myself to do it folks. I slept on that sofa!
After a good night’s Cold Collation and somnambulism, she brings me coffee and a slice of cake. I would have done better at the Rest Camp! “Ta for not shagging me, now can I have the money,” she says, in so many words. She has thought twice about it, she wants me to stay! Has she caught a glimpse of it in the night? “I ken be lak a waf to you,” she says. “I ken cock for you.” Well, I’d love her to cock for me, but I have to leave — the people in Maddaloni are dancing to a man banging a dustbin lid as he whistles. Will I write to her? Yes, and send soap, chocolate and a few million lire. She will wait for me. As I leave she grabs me, kisses me, then slams the door on my fingers. I return to the camp with a bandaged hand and am greeted with, “Did she ‘ave barbed wire round it?” Tell them all, every sordid little detail.
I upgraded the story. She was a distressed Countess, she wanted me to live with her. Corrrrrrrr! I could be the distressed Count. You count. She made me dress as Mussolini and make love to her! Corrrr! I wrote to Maria for nearly two years and I met her again in Volume VI (Order your copy now — due 1986).
September 6
It’s back to Maddaloni and straight into the Junior Ranks Dance. The ATS are allowed to wear dresses, frocks, and what look like broken army blankets stitched together with boot laces. At the door they are all given a flower. The lighting would have done credit to any swish night club, and so much food and drink seemed evil. We play some new arrangements; including ‘Star Eyes’ which was great; here I am seen at my pristine best playing the muted Trumpet solo.
Playing ‘Star Eyes’. My eyes are closed to avoid seeing any Cold Collation.
The dance contest is to be ‘judged’ by Brigadier Henry Woods CBE, which is no worse than Mary Whitehouse choosing the best porno movie. Groans follow his every decision but he goes merrily on giving marks for the dancer with the ‘best haircut’ in the Waltz, and ‘best-polished shoes’ in the Quick Step. It’s the biggest debacle since Dunkirk. By some miracle Rosetta Page wins the spot prize — she’s covered in them. In my white Harry James jacket, dyed black trousers, bandaged hand and moustache, I manage to get the last waltz.
“What happened to your hand, Spike?”
I caught it on some barbed wire, I tell her. “I’m going on leave. Will you miss me?” Of course she will, she makes a point of it.
A letter from a girlfriend, Beryl Southby, sends me news of a song contest being held at the Hammersmith Palais by Oscar Rabin. Immediately I am George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. I see myself at a lonely piano on a grouse moor in pouring rain. Lit by a hurricane lamp, I am dressed as a damp Chopin. All through the tempest I cough blood, sip lemon tea and write a masterpiece of a tune called ‘Dream Girl’. I write to my friend Gunner Edgington in distant Holland telling of my composition, a tune that is a sinecure for the depressed; one chorus will cure love sickness, two will stop varicose veins, three will prevent scrofula and psoriasis. The first prize is a thousand pounds. A thousand pounds; think what I could do with that! For a start, I could spend it. I send the song off. “Dear Oscar, herewith the winner, signed Bombardier Milligan S.”
That was in 1945…perhaps the post is slow. The winning song was ‘Twitty Twitty Twink Twink means I love you’. Now you know what’s wrong with the bloody country. At the time I didn’t know what was wrong with the country, other than there was a great shortage. I for one wasn’t getting enough of it.
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Little Bits of Useless Information
I had started to write essays (Essay, essay, essay, Who was that lady I saw you with last night…); these essays weren’t, like Lamb’s, they were like Mutton. One was on the death mask of a young girl found drowned in the Seine in 1899. I was haunted by the smile on the dead girl’s face. Where else did I expect to see it? In an Essay Contest run by Corporal Hewitt, I won nothing. I’ve kept it secret until now, under the Thirty-Year Release of Information for the Security of the Nation Act.
A Trifle