Statues - Hither & Thither |
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London
London Greater London East End Road 17 (N3, Barnet)
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A Conversation with SpikeTerence Alan 'Spike' Milligan(Ahmednagar, British India 1918 - Rye, East Sussex 2002) British-Irish comedian, writer, poet, playwright and actor (Wikipedia) |
John Somerville
2014 |
Statue of Spike Milligan sitting on a bench, adorned with figures from his life.
 Characters from The Goon Show: Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan, and Peter Sellers |
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| The Goons: Major Bloodnok – Bluebottle and Eccles – Neddie Seagoon, | ||
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| Elephants | |
 Soldiers |
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 Comedy and tragedy masks |
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| Fairies | |
 "Q" TV series, acknowledged as an important precursor to Monty Python's Flying Circus. |
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A Conversation with Spike By John Somerville, 2014 Widely regarded as the 'Godfather of alternative comedy' Spike Milligan kept Britain laughing for fifty years. He first became famous in the 1950s for writing and starring in 'The Goon Show' on BBC radio, wrote 83 books for both adults and children, performed on stage and screen, wrote and played music and campaigned about the environment. The statue was installed here by The Finchley Society of which he was president. He lived from 1955 to 1974 in Holden Road, Woodside Park and often visited the House & Gardens. The statue of this comic genius sitting on a bench encourages a 'Conversation with Spike'. Take a minute to enjoy specific elements of the bench: The Goon Show – the characters at the bottom are Spike with his co-stars Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers. The Goons – the heads of the four main characters Major Bloodnok, Neddie Seagoon, Eccles and Bluebottle are at the bottom of the backrest. Elephants – Spike was born in India whilst his father served in the army. The family later moved to Burma and returned to England when Spike was 15. Soldiers – represent his time in the army during World War II. He wrote about his experiences in his first book 'Adolf Hitler – My Part in his Downfall'. Comedy and tragedy masks – represent the fact that his life was a mixture of the two. When he was wounded in combat he began a struggle with manic-depressive illness that lasted the rest of his life. Fairies – Spike had a lifelong fascination with them, convincing his children that there were fairies living at the bottom of their garden. This inspired him to start writing poetry, at first just for his children but several anthologies are now in print. Q – the foliage at both ends of the bench form the letter Q, the title of several BBC series made by Spike. |
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