Spike Milligan

Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan, KBE (16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was a British-Irish actor, comedian, writer, poet and playwright. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.

Milligan was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of the British radio program The Goon Show, performing a range of roles including the Eccles and Minnie Bannister characters. He was the earliest-born and last surviving member of the Goons. Milligan parlayed success with the Goon Show into television with Q5, a surreal sketch show credited as a major influence on the members of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Milligan wrote and edited many books, including Puckoon and a seven-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War, beginning with Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. He also wrote comical verse, with much of his poetry written for children, including Silly Verse for Kids.

Milligan died from kidney failure, at the age of 83, on 27 February 2002, at his home near Rye, Sussex. On the day of his funeral, 8 March 2002, his coffin was carried to St Thomas Church in Winchelsea, East Sussex, and was draped in the flag of Ireland. He had once quipped that he wanted his headstone to bear the words "I told you I was ill." He was buried at St Thomas' churchyard but the Chichester diocese refused to allow this epitaph. A compromise was reached with the Irish translation of "I told you I was ill", Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite and in English, "Love, light, peace". The additional epitaph "Grá mhór ort Shelagh" can be read as "Great love for you Shelagh".