Spike Milligan was an Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, poet and jazz musician who was born in India to an English mother an Irish father.

He spent most of his life in the UK and was a major radio and TV star. He was known for his zany, anarchic sense of humour which first came to prominence in the Goon Show on BBC radio.

He wrote several books of comic verse, and a humorous biography of his army service called, Adolf Hitler, My Part in his Downfall.

Milligan was proud of his heritage and took Irish citizenship when the UK refused to recognise him as British because he was born in India to an Irish father.

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Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.
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I thought I’d begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I?
He never reads any of mine.

I’m not afraid of dying I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
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Money couldn’t buy friends, but you got a better class of enemy.
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And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light, but the Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.
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I spent many years laughing at Harry Secombe’s singing until somebody told me that it wasn’t a joke.

Contraceptives should be used on all conceivable occasions.
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I shook hands with a friendly Arab. I still have my right arm to prove it.
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