Summary Spike Milligan was a comedian, poet, novelist, satirist and actor, possibly best known for being one of the Goons along with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine. He was also a WWII veteran and served in the Royal Artillery in North Africa and Italy. He wrote about his experiences in a series of 7 books, beginning with his conscription in 1940 to being demobbed and adjusting to a very different Great Britain, one of hardship and struggles postwar. His wartime memoirs combine side-splitting humour and pathos to reveal a deeply honest understanding of warfare. Spike witnessed death and suffering on a large scale and wrote about it with honesty and depth. Interspersed with barrack room japes and tales of the mundanity of army life he writes of battles. Actual battles with tanks and artillery and his private battles with fear, anxiety and also what would now be labelled PTSD.

• War
• Documentary
• History
• Talk Show