Comedian Spike Milligan’s children await details of legacy after death of his widow Shelagh

Six years after a High Court judge ruled that Spike Milligan’s third wife, Shelagh, was entitled to the comedian’s entire estate and his six children should receive only “what was surplus to requirements”, she has died, aged 67.

Shelagh further upset his children in 2008 when she auctioned off the mementos of the star of The Goon Show, who counted the Prince of Wales among his biggest fans. They said they had not been consulted and were “deeply distressed” over the sale at Bonhams.

It is understood that Shelagh, a former BBC production assistant 25 years his junior, will be buried next to Milligan in St Thomas’s churchyard in Winchelsea, East Sussex. His grave carries the famous epitaph (in Gaelic): “I told you I was ill.”

Milligan’s grave stayed unmarked for two years because his family were unable to agree on a memorial to him.

The comedian, who died from kidney failure in 2002 at the age of 83, had no children with Shelagh, to whom he was married for 19 years. Some of his children from his previous marriages attempted to have his will revoked in favour of an earlier legal document which left them a share of his house at Udimore, near Rye.

Despite his years in entertainment and his reputation as one of the leading lights of British comedy, his fortune had dwindled to £626,636. A large part of his estate is said to have been spent on providing health care for him in his later years.