Where have all the bullets gone_ - Spike Milligan [42]
Now I would concentrate on chasing Candy; evidence of this is contained in the following drool document:
Did you get that? Did I really write that crap? No wonder the BBC only book me on a pro-rata basis. That Milligan of 1945 is dead. Then I was twenty-seven. Now I am sixty-seven and the engine has just had its tenth MOT test and failed.
June 17
DIARY:
DANCE BAND FINALS
We sat through the finals contest, disenchanted that we weren’t in it, but drew comfort when Taffy Carr was called: “1st Prize for the best lead alto, Sergeant H. Evans O2E band,” and was handed something that had been made by St Dunstan’s Home for the Blind. It looked like an army tea mug with the handle removed, stuck on to a sawn-down broom handle nailed to the lid of a cigarette tin, then whitewashed. “It’ll look good on the mantelpiece,” said Taffy. I for one couldn’t wait. He threw a celebration dinner, most of which hit Jim Manning. No, seriously folks, at La Topo off Via Roma we spaghettied and wined too much, but at the time it seemed just right. All stuffed into a brougham, pulled by a thin horse, we sang and shouted, until, on a hill, the horse packed in. We paid the driver. When he saw the tip -he packed it in as well. Three in the morning, I tiptoed in.
“Who’s that?” said the Yew clutching his Pay Book.
“Steve, you’ve been waiting for me like a good Jewish mother.”
“I hope it was a nice Jewish girl,” was all he would say.
Now, I would raise the band’s morale! For one, they looked terrible playing in battledress. And they looked terrible when they were not playing.
I chat up a local tailor. Can he make Harry James white jackets like my drawing? “Si.” Armed with the ‘Si’, I troop all the herberts back to be measured.
“Is ‘e a tailor or a mortician?” says Jim.
“You must wait and see, Jim.”
“Who’s going to bloody well pay?” says sensible Stan Britton.
“We must wait and see,” I tell him.
The jackets are splendid; it only remains for us to dye our trousers black, draw white shirts from the Q Stores, buy bow ties, and no one will be able to tell the difference between Harry James and us, provided they stand well back. It’s a secret.
When the curtains part at the Saturday hop, gasps of ‘We’re in the wrong hall’ come from the dancers. “‘Tis a miracle,” says an Irishman, crossing himself.
Major New comes puffing up. “Bai Jove laids, you look super, this is how I always wanted the boys to look.”
Thank you, we say, and that will be ten thousand lire a jacket; and lo! the Major is cast down — but in the goodness of time he payeth up, and lo, there was a great skint in the camp. However, he got all the bloody praise, and took it. At dinner, the Brigadier made a speech: here it is, as reported by an officers’ mess waiter, Private Rossi.
Gentlemen, I’d just like to thank Major New for his brilliant transformation of the band from sacks of shit to Harry James sacks of shit. The design of white jacket and black trousers showing where the top half leaves off and the bottom half begins is a great help to musicians when dressing themselves.
Every word is true, I swear on this copy of Portnoy’s Complaint.
Looking as good as we did, the gigs rolled in, and for a gunner I was getting rich. The going rate was now 500 lire or the equivalent in force feeding. There were better things to come.
LIAP
Yes, LIAP — laugh you fools! To you LIAP means nothing but to us herberts in Italy it means Leave in Blighty! The home of Spotted Dicks and Treacle, Saveloy and Mushy Peas.
The withdrawal of the musicians from active service must be carefully planned, plinned and plonned! QMS Drew Taylor, our Svengali, has arranged a roster so that twixt July and October, the band will range from Full Orchestra in July, down to a selection from Piano, Drums, Bass and three Saxes, then just Piano and Double Bass in September. In October there would be one week with just a man banging a dustbin lid and whistling. It was better than nothing, but only just.