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From the Archives, 1958: Spike Milligan didn’t ‘fall in the water’
On this day in 1958 Spike Milligan arrived in Melbourne on his first trip to Australia. Over the years he returned so often that he became known as Woy Woy’s most famous adopted son.
By Staff reporter
First published in The Age, May 6, 1958.
Goon Star Dodges Ship Pranksters
Spike Milligan aboard the SS Arcadia.Credit: Ross Freeman
Spike Milligan, star of the B.B.C. Goon Show, hid in a bathroom on the liner Arcadia for two hours after it berthed at Station Pier yesterday while nearly 400 Melbourne University students swarmed on board to look for him.
He emerged only after most of the students had dispersed and went to his cabin to sign autographs and hold a press conference.
About 50 students, whose original plan had been to kidnap the radio start and take him to the University, crowded into the cabin.
A group of engineering students posing as electricians got past barriers at the pier and on to the ship soon after it berthed. Others posed as pressmen to get on board ahead of the long queue of visitors.
At a press conference, Mr. Milligan bitterly attacked the B.B.C. for “its stupidity and small mindedness.”
“Like every man and his mother-in-law we don’t get along very well together, he said. “I don’t know if there will be another Goon show.
“Goon” Talent Runs in the Family
If the Goons ever want to add a new member to their show, Spike Milligan would be wise to ask his wife. Her sense of humor and repartee are as good as any radio scriptwriter could devise.
June Milligan.Credit: Age photographer
It is impossible to take the family seriously — they wouldn’t let you if you tried.
At least that was the impression one got yesterday when Spike Milligan, his wife and three children arrived aboard the Arcadia.
Asked if she collected anything, Mrs, Milligan smiled beguilingly and replied, “Yes, money.”
Then, as an afterthought, she said “Hats — I’ve got 73 of them. “I buy one every time we have a row — but I put them on my husband’s account.”
Mrs. Milligan disclaims any knowledge of stage, radio or TV work — “I Just feed him,” she said, referring to her husband.
Secret Hiding Place
There was already a “zany” atmosphere about the interview before a mob of university students tried to search the cabin for Spike, who was in a secret hiding place.
Mrs. Milligan’s statement that her husband once shared an attic with a monkey and had the same food (nuts, presumably) was surprising. But it was impossible to discount it altogether when she added that the family now had a collection of Java sparrows and four Maltese terriers — “I hope there are no more when I get back,” she added.
In view of this, it is easy to understand that their three-year-old son, Sean, wants to be a zookeeper when he grows up. Sean has two sisters — Laura, aged five, and baby Sile (Irish for Sheila).
Spike Milligan and his mother, Florence.Credit: Bob Rice
Mrs. Milligan visited her parents — Mr. and Mrs. Richard Marlowe, in New South Wales, six years ago. This is her husband’s first visit here, however. He will see his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Leo Milligan, who are also living now in (Woy Woy) New South Wales. Dark-haired, dark-eyed Mrs. Milligan is of Scottish and Italian parentage and her husband is Irish. Yesterday she was colorfully dressed in black slacks, lime yellow shirt and white ski jacket. “Of course. I don’t ski,” she explained.
Their home in North London is an “old Edwardian ruin”— to use Mrs. Milligan’s own words. But the family hopes to move to the country when they return from this three months’ trip to Australia.
For their stay in Australia “Spike” and his wife have rented a house just out of Sydney.