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

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Milligan notes that until 1940 they were entertaining nightly, which he later saw as his first steps into show business.

His mother is digging the air-raid shelter when Neville Chamberlain announces that Britain is at war with Germany. This book takes us from the outbreak of war through to the beginning of 1943 when Milligan arrives in Algiers. In the dance hall, when they start to sing the national anthem after the director's announcement, the third girl from the front clearly mouths "Queen" while the soundtrack (and historical accuracy) provide "King".Don't get me wrong; I laughed, rolled, smiled, shook my head with mock-disbelief and loved all the freaks and weirdos and did not want the splendid comic set-pieces to end. The presentation is an unusual format freely mixing narrative anecdotes, contemporary photography, excerpts from diaries, letters, rough sketches and performance programs, along with comic sketches and absurd fake memoranda from ranking Nazi officials; the hard facts are usually apparent.

Dale was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles for his performance.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. Although they are disciplined and made to burn the clubs, it is here that the inspiration for The Goon Show began. I love it, cannot wait to read more, he certainly has a talent for painting a vivid and often funny picture with his words. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. I'm actually not entirely sure how many volumes of this I read the first time around but I'm pretty sure it wasn't all seven.

As a lover of music, the talk of Milligan forming a band, playing gigs and their love for jazz made me unbearably happy.Most of it is a humorous look at Spikes war experience and it had some serious sides to it along with the humour. In this, the first of Spike Milligan's uproarious recollections of life in the army, our hero takes us from the outbreak of war in 1939 ('it must have been something we said'), through his attempts to avoid enlistment ('time for my appendicitis, I thought') and his gunner training in Bexhill ('There was one drawback.

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. Both begin with an England grossly unprepared for war and depending on outmoded traditions and building a tradition for muddling through.During one training deployment, Milligan and others were caught hiding their rifles in a loft, resulting in two weeks detention. It was a little hard to get into at first, given the colloquialisms that Milligan is wont to use, but you get used to it fairly quickly (at least I did, being an American who's an Anglophile at heart). By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. Recently when I posted a quote from this book, people guessed that it came from Terry Prachett or Monty Python or Douglas Adams. This being the great Spike Milligan, his humor is foremost, but he is also addressing his demons, and remembering people who became casualties along the way.