Spike Milligan

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Spike Milligan has last laugh as buyers pay thousands for his old jokes
Valentine Low
The Times

Spike Milligan knew a thing or two about auctions. He once wrote: “With hand signals/ Or polite cough/ He bid twenty-five million/ For a Vincent Van Gogh/ For that sort of money/ I’d chop my ear off.” When that poem – complete with hand-drawn ear – was included in an auction of the late comedian’s personal effects yesterday it may not have fetched such stratospheric figures, but it did manage £2,500, more than ten times what the auctioneer, Bonhams, was expecting.

That was nothing, however, compared with the frenetic bidding for a collection of the handwritten notices that Milligan used to leave around his house. “No Smoking,” read one card. “We are trying to give up lung cancer.” Another read: “Sorry for being me – I don’t know how to be anything else,” while a label on a box of matches read: “Don’t Put Dead Matches Back In The Box Like A Slob”. The estimate was for £100-£150; after some fierce bidding, an anonymous buyer bought them for £4,200.

Even the man from the Goon Show Preservation Society was a bit taken aback by that. “It is an awful lot,” said John Repsch, its chairman. “Maybe there is someone with a Spike fetish who is going to take them to bed with him. Or maybe they think they can sell them for twice the amount – these things go for incredible prices. I hope they get joy from them.”

The Beatles, who all knew Milligan, featured prominently in the sale at Bonhams saleroom in Knightsbridge, Central London. A copy of the book The Primal Scream by Arthur Janov, inscribed with a message from John Lennon (“Dear Spike, we saw your TV thing – it was very REAL. I think this book might ‘turn you on’ as they say. Lots of love, John + Yoko”) went for £3,500. A Christmas present from George Harrison of a banner bearing the words Peace and Love sold for £2,800, while a set of Christmas cards from Harrison sold for £6,000. One bore the message: “Spike, I told you – you should have joined the Beatles that day last year!” A poem written by Sir Paul McCartney, The Poet Of Dumbwoman’s Lane, went for £6,000.

Not all rock’n’rollers fared quite so well. Milligan’s copy of Bill Wyman’s biography Stone Alone, co-written with Ray Coleman and signed by Wyman, fetched a modest £20. While fans, collectors and dealers were competing eagerly for the Spike memorabilia – an archive of his war-time diaries went for £5,000 – no one appeared to be very interested in his old furniture. That, however, turned out to be good news for his family. The auction was being held because Milligan’s widow Shelagh, his third wife, had moved house and no longer had room to store everything, a decision that upset Milligan’s children.

The low prices fetched by the furniture meant that Liz Kitchen, a friend of Milligan’s daughter, Jane, was able to pick up Milligan’s grand piano for £400, against an estimate of £2,000-£3,000. The 1883 Broadwood was not just any grand piano. Milligan had rescued it from a block of flats under demolition – £5 to bribe the site foreman, £10 to get it home – and later, after it was restored, Sir Paul McCartney – a Sussex neighbour of Milligan – would often drop round in the morning and start playing it while the Milligans were still upstairs in bed.

“When the piano was going for such a low price I could not let it not go back to the family,” said Ms Kitchen, who was accompanied by Milligan’s 16-year-old grandson Callum. “I don’t know where it will go, though. But it will go somewhere.” Ms Kitchen said that after negotiations with the family, Shelagh had agreed to withdraw 17 of the 100 lots from the sale, which realised just over £92,000. They included the original script for The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town, which Milligan wrote for the BBC television comedy show The Two Ronnies. According to a newspaper column, Stephen Fry and other celebrities were planning to pool their resources and buy it as a late 60th birthday present for the Prince of Wales, a devoted fan of The Goon Show and a friend of Milligan (who once jokingly called him “a grovelling little bastard”).

Perhaps he is getting the No Smoking notice instead.