Spike was born an 'Army Brat', the son of an Irish Captain in the British Raj in India. Educated in a series of Roman Catholic schools in India and at Lewisham Polytechnic in England, he spent his formative years playing the fool and playing the trumpet in local jazz bands.

He joined the British Army himself (under protest if you believe his auto-biogs) as a conscript at the outbreak of WWII. He served in the Royal Artillery as Gunner Milligan through the North African and Italian campaigns. He got a bit too close to an exploding shell and was hospitalised with shell-shock. On his escape from army life he started his "real" work as an author and humourist.

Most famous for 'The Goon Show' with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe (and originally Michael Bentine), these radio shows are commonly regarded as re-writing the rules of comedy (even before Monty Python). However under the pressure of writing all the scripts he suffered a breakdown and became a clinical manic-depressive.

He was fondly regarded as the last of the great British eccentrics and had written a wealth of comic poetry mainly for children, a few novels and his multi-volume auto-biography. Spike was also a keen (fanatical?) environmental campaigner.


Son of Captain L.A. Milligan MSM RA (retd). Spike and June had three children, Laura Milligan, Sean and Sile (born in 1956). Spike had a daughter (Romany) by a Canadian journalist in 1975. Spike has a younger brother, Desmond Milligan. Spike's parents and brother Desmond moved out to Woy-Woy, New South Wales, Australia. Spike often visited them out there. Once anonymously placed an advert in the 'lonely hearts' section of England's Private Eye magazine which said 'Wanted - rich elderly widow - object, murder', and got several replies. In October 1964 he appeared in "Oblomov", a play based on a book of the same name by Ivan Goncharov. The play was not a comedy, and he had intended to play his role seriously. However, the play was unsuccessful until Spike began to ab lib. After five weeks of success with the now transformed play it was renamed "Son of Oblomov", changed theaters, and continued to be a hit for several months. His poetry is strongly influenced by Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. Was a member of the Bill Hall Trio, a very successful jazz band near and after the end of WWII. While the band was touring in Yugoslavia, Spike found himself completely without money, and joined the local Communist party in order to recieve a free meal. When Peter Sellers and Stanley Kubrick were stuck for an ending for Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), it was Milligan who suggested the use of the Vera Lynn song "We'll Meet Again". He considered Aladdin (1992) to be the greatest film of all time. He was awarded an Honorary Knight Bachelor in the 2001 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to Entertainment.