Spike Milligan was born in India in 1918, and received his first education in a tent in the Hyderabad Sindh desert. He then plunged into the world of show business, seduced by his first stage appearance, at the age of eight, in the nativity play of his Poona convent school. He began his career as a band musician, but has since become famous as a humorous scriptwriter and actor in both films and broadcasting. Spike's combined book sales total over 6 million copies, and he received an honorary CBE in 1992. He died in 2002.
That absolutely glorious way of looking at things differently. A great man -- Stephen Fry A totally original comedy writer -- Michael Palin Close in stature to Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear in his command of the profound art of nonsense * Guardian * Manifestly a genius, a comic surrealist genius and had no equal -- Terry Wogan