Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall (Spike Milligan War Memoirs)

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Later in voyage, after a miserable passage, the officer asks if the instruments are actually on board (which they are) and will the band please play to entertain the men.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.Simple yet effectively stirring and utterly believable because this was exactly how everybody felt in those days. Honestly, it's the funniest thing I've read in years and I have now bought all the other books of Spike's in this series. I'm a big Jim Dale fan and love comedian Spike Milligan, so when I swa this movie was based on Spike Milligan's sidesplitting autobiography and that Jim Dale was plying Spike and the wonderfully demented Spike was playing his father I was looking foward to this film, but was very disapointed. Milligan also quotes the memoirs of noted theatre director John Counsell, his sometime deputy battery commander, who noted the laughter in the ranks when Milligan was around, and then after the war, at the height of the Goons' fame, queued with his daughter for autographs. The cast had a lot of potential too, We have Arthur Lowe of Dad's Army playing a similar role as the base Commander.

Milligan notes that until 1940 they were entertaining nightly, which he later saw as his first steps into show business.

Another reviewer speaks of having to look up the regular use of British Army Initials, (RSM is Regimental Sergeant Major, about as close to God as a new recruit is likely to get). Although he was also a talented musician, he became known for his mad cap and often surreal comedy writing, particularly his work on the Goon Show. Ultimately, however, Milligan published seven volumes covering his war service, his first nervous breakdown and reallocation to rear-echelon duties, his demob and early years trying to break into the entertainment industry. From the bizarre officer's dances Spike's band played at to the crazy antics they got up to when learning to work the radios--he was a radio operator--it's funny in a slightly crazed way. I really enjoyed this book from the vivid descriptions of war practices to the humorous practical jokes, talkbacks and commentary.

There is also Bill Maynard as the sargent and fellow recruits Tony Selby and "Keeping Up Appearences" Onslow, Geoffrey Hughes but they don't do much with them Lowe who know's his character well comes off best of the supporting cast and Dale is wonderfully demented as Spike, but the film doesn't take off. Most of it is a humorous look at Spikes war experience and it had some serious sides to it along with the humour.

I read this book as a teenager in the mid-1970s (or, put another way, a very long time ago) and I loved it and have always meant to read it again. I love it, cannot wait to read more, he certainly has a talent for painting a vivid and often funny picture with his words. This book, the first in a series, looks at the time he spent with his unit wandering around Southern Britain learning how to soldier, and it's hilarious. Dated or not, he captures the feel of his life in the ranks and reflects how his refusal to be overly impressed by rank or be forced into the standard image of a like one, like all soldier.

Now, imagine if Monty Python directed this film and expanded the goofball humour of the first fifteen minutes into a full-length feature packed with more gags and brilliant, blistering British wit and wisecracks than you could digest in one go.As Milligan himself states in the introduction, many terrible things happened in the war, but humour helped him cope. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.