Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [30]
Let’s see what George Lambourne thought about it: “Back to Maddaloni to O2E Concert (opening ceremony). Brigadier Woods in opening speech said a lot of flattering and charming things about me which I did not hear! I thought the concert very bad.”
Religious Interlude
My days of sleeping on O branch office floor were over. I had found a windowless little room up a flight of stairs adjacent to the C of E chapel room at Alexander Barracks. I ask the Rev. Sergeant Beaton if I could sleep in it. Yes, but nothing else, remember! The chapel is next door and there’s early services. OK, I move in, and am immediately seized upon to help. Sunday, the ‘pumper’ for the organ hasn’t shown, can I? There, on my knees I am gainfully employed i by the Lord. The handle should be lowered and raised with an air of delicacy, but Gunner Milligan is a jazz pumper, with a beat-me-daddy-eight-to-the-bar. There is a sickening ‘CRACK’, I am left with the shaft, and the only way to keep the music going is to activate the remaining four-inch stump. Panicky I pump gallantly, but just can’t get enough air into the bellows. The organ fades, and wheezes back to life as the lunatic Gunner tries to keep it operating. No good, it’s starting to sound like a bagpipe chanter groaning into life. The congregation are in disarray. Exhausted, I jack it in, the organ ‘expires’ with a long groan and ‘Fissshhhhhh’ as the last wind escapes.
Jesus said, “Through suffering thou shalt come to me.” Well, I was nearly there.
After our weekly Saturday night dance, I would like to hang back and play the piano. I had the illusion that a concerto would come. I was really Cornel Wilde as Chopin. As the climax of the Finale Grandioso con Woodbines, a magnificent ATS Private in a transparent cheesecloth vest would appear and unroll a mattress: “Come Chopin, forget your silly old Nocturnes — have something else.”
On one such evening, someone does approach. It’s a Yewish sergeant who wants to say how much he has enjoyed my trumpet playing. He’s just joined the unit and is also keen on show business.
Well, it was the start of a friendship. I let him move into my billet because I thought he had money.
Sgt. Steve Lewis A Yewish soldier taken in colour because he had money (N.B. due to the publishers’ lack of money, it’s black and white after all.)
Help. A giant Yewish bedroll appeared, followed by a Yewish Brigade kitbag, table, chair, tea chest, camouflaged Minorah, and a secondhand copy of the Talmud. He then proceeded to erect the most complicated Heath Robinson network of strings, pulleys, hooks, weights and counter-weights. He wanted to be able to switch lights on and off, raise or lower them, drop his mosquito net, manoeuvre his mess tins and mug near or far, boil a kettle, make tea, toast bread, and open Tower Bridge, all without moving from his bed. I asked him, was he training to be a cripple? He had enough food by his bed to outlast an Atomic War and still open a shop in Golder’s Green. If he had been at Masada it would never have fallen; he would have sold it to the Romans. I pointed out that his wasn’t the only persecuted race. There were the Irish.
“Spike, the Irish got off light.”
“We took as much stick as you did.”
“Listen, we Jews have been persecuted since Egyptian times.”
I told him I had never read the Egyptian Times.
“All you suffered from was a shortage of spuds.”
“Steve, in 1680, there were eleven million Irish. Now there’s only two. We lost nine million.”
“Nine million. Oh what a terrible accountant.”
“Don’t joke, they were starved, killed, deported or emigrated.”
He laughed. “You sure they weren’t Jewish?”
We had unending arguments. “The Irish? What did they ever have? We had Einstein, Disraeli, Pissarro, Freud. What have the Irish got? Pissed!”
“We got the Pope and Jack Doyle.” “Jack Doyle the boxer? He’s useless!” “Yes, but we got him.”
“And there’s never been an Irish Pope. How come?” “It’s the fare.”
In the shower Steve noticed I’d been circumcised. “Why?” I didn’t know. “To make it lighter?