Spike Milligan was in actuality half Irish but he was one of Britain's best loved comics - silly, irreverent and off-beat but with a heart of gold. He was born in India in 1918 and died in Rye, Sussex in 2002. He was a stalwart of the old "Goon Show" on BBC Radio in the fifties and sixties. It helped to pave the way for a lot of modern comedy. I saw him once in the the dilapidated Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield - he had come to help to raise funds for that theatre's repair and refurbishment.
He was buried in Winchelsea churchyard in Sussex where famously - but written in Irish, the inscription upon his gravestone reads, "I told them I was ill".
Here he is in 1994 receiving a lifetime achievement award for his comedy. Of course it was over thirty years ago so many of the familiar comedy figures in that room - familiar to British people anyway - have now grown old themselves and some have also passed away...
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/WNZzwE5