Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [29]
“Oh che mangiare,” she says in ecstasy. Why oh why isn’t Gunner Milligan eating, why is he only sipping water and not drinking the luscious vintage Masi? I tell her it’s my delayed Easter fast. “Che poverino,” she coos, munching Polio Romana. I watch her clock up seventeen thousand lire; I have eighteen, I just make it. I give the waiter a ten lire tip, which he throws in the rubbish bin. What now? Revenge in bed. No, she must fly, her mother is ill. She borrows my last 1000 lire, “Taxi!”
I never saw her again. That night, starving and skint, I could be found diving for coins in the Trevi Fountain. The lads; I lied to them, yes! I’d had it away again and again and again! I couldn’t stop her! She said she’d leave her husband and join me in England. I failed to add, in a debtors’ prison. Yes, lads, it was some night, now can someone lend me a bar of soap and a fag?
Our final gig is at the Nirvenetta Club, Via de Monoriti; after that we all found our way to the GI Swing Club on the Via Vittoria Collona, a below-ground joint with seepage from the Tiber and an Iti ‘swing band’ that sounds like seepage from the Tiber — yes, it’s ‘Lae thar piss tub darn bab’. We don’t get a dance — everyone has brought their own bird. Under Mussolini, jazz has been forbidden. This must have been the band that caused it. We ask them if we can sit in; they grudgingly agree. Soon we’ve wiped them out, we have the place jumping. G is are appreciative: “Great! Man, you should have come sooner,” they say. We know. We get free drinks and the Italian musicians sit and glower at our success. First we bomb Monte Casssino and now this.
Back to Base
On the morrow we drive back to Maddaloni. We arrive in the early evening. During our absence, the old dance hall has been renovated by George Lambourne and his merry painters and looks great. Now we have a stage and an orchestra pit, lighting board, paint frame, the lot. We are forewarned by BQMS Drew Taylor, a khaki Florenz Ziegfeld, that a concert is to be given for the Grand Opening. Have we any contributions? I said mine were in the stomach of a ; bird in Rome. Can we do a small swing spot? Yes, has he a gallows?
Alick Adams reports:
A leading feature of the show was the O2E Dance Band, especially a spot in the second half when, as the programme states, Spike Milligan & the Rythm Section ware featured.
I recall that the show was under the patronage of one Brigadier Woods, Deputy Adjutant General, or DAG for short. This proved significant for the aforementioned Spike had written a special number for the concert, ‘Doodle with DAG’. ‘Doodle’ being a euphemism which was in popular use in the Other Ranks Bar at the time. The trumpet solo was of course executed from the horizontal position, the instrumentalist’s embouchure being very prominent from this angle.
Transcibed typed text
We all worked very hard to get the show together and we opened to an enthusiastic reception. I did a mad musical spot called The Ablution Blues, with a pair of pyjama trousers tied to my trumpet that I kept dipping into a bucket of soapy water, then swinging round and drenching the audience. I thought it was very funny, I did, I thought it was very funny. Thanks to hard work the act was a smash flop. The reception was like the one Judas got at the last supper.
The Ablution Blues — an overwhelming flop.
Piano: Stan Britton; Drums: Vic Shewry; Bass: Len Prosser
Why should I take all the blame?
The evening concluded with the band playing prior to ‘closedown’ (see programme). Finally there was a speech on the new stage by the Brigadier, who said all the right things: “I would like to thank…grateful to…hard work…made it possible…not forgetting…with the help of…debt of gratitude…and of course…without whose help…bearing in mind…last but not