My warm regards to you and all at the National Trust, without it I fear we would be ringed by filling stations and Tesco Supermarkets.
Love, light and peace,
Spike Milligan
J. O. Petterrson Esq.
National Environment Protection Board
Sweden
18 September 1975
Dear Sir,
I wonder if you can give me any information regarding the native Swedish wolf. I believe the numbers are down to about one dozen. Is your Government making any special provisions to see these animals don’t become extinct.
If so, can you tell me what they are.
Sincerely,
Spike Milligan
Member of the World Wildlife Committee
Elton John Esq.
1 May 1981
Dear Elton,
It has come to my ears that you think I am displeased with you. Well, it’s all very confusing. I wrote around to a few of the pop luminaries trying to get £1,500 to save elephant families from being slaughtered, and transported to a game reserve where they would survive; and I wrote to you, the letter was sent to your address in Los Angeles, I got it from your London office as you were there at the time, the address I sent it to was – c/o. Rocket Records, 211 Beverley Drive, Suite 205, Los Angeles, 90212.
(a) I never received a reply from you, and (b) I never received a reply from whoever received the letter. If a creep who opened the letter didn’t tell you she/he/it/shithead is responsible for my feelings towards you, because the least I expect of anybody is a reply to a letter. It’s like when you turn a tap on you expect water. If you received my letter personally and didn’t reply then my opinion of you is valid, but I have heard from Joan Thirkettle of ITN News that you said you never received a letter. This message was passed on to me by my Manager, Norma Farnes – let’s all four, take our clothes off, join hands and play ring-a-ring-a nettles.
So, over to you to tell me where the truth lies. Personally I would much prefer you had sent £14,000 to Save the Elephant, and let somebody else pay £13,000 to buy the scripts. That way the world, for my money, would be better off.
However, it’s not too late to send me £1,500 to save an elephant, you can name the elephant whatever you choose.
I think we should call it after the secretary who never sent you my letter, then you can buy a female elephant, and I will buy a male elephant and call it Hitler, and in the mating season we can go and watch Hitler fucking your secretary.
Apart from that all is well.
Love, light and peace,
Spike Milligan
The Right Honourable Tony Blair MP
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
6 March 1998
Dear Prime Minister,
Please could you do something about terminating these horrible mink fur farms as the animals live in the most appalling conditions. If you have any Christian feeling, would you please try to put an end to this.
Sincerely,
Spike Milligan
P. S. I’m a Catholic, come and join us.
8
Here is the Dilemma
The Editor
Daily Express
16 July 1970
Dear Sir,
Recently in one of your leaders you criticised Mr Anthony Greenwood as having failed as Labour’s Housing Minister.
I can only say that in all my dealings with him regarding preservation of buildings, he answered all the letters, went to great lengths to help with information, he also showed great concern when the subject of preservation arose, and for my money he has been one of the best Housing Ministers that has been my good fortune to deal with.
When it comes to Housing, can you name a Housing Minister whose housing programme ever caught up with the birth rate, and no Minister ever will, until the Ministry of Depopulation is set up.
Sincerely,
Spike Milligan
P. S. Isn’t the weather marvellous.
World Wildlife News
12 August 1970
Dear Sirs,
In your summer issue of the World Wildlife News, you ask the question regarding Farming and Wildlife.
There is only one answer, and always has been one answer, and that is population control. Nobody can compromise with ever expanding population, to try and compromise with that is sheer madness, and at the moment madness is at the helm.
We are tearing down hedges and trees in England to provide food, OK go on tearing down the hedges and the trees and we eventually arrive at a treeless and hedgeless England, because every acre has to be cut down for the ever increasing mouths of population.
Now, what happens after that. We will start, I presume drying out the oceans and the seas and reclaiming lands (as they are in Holland). You can go on and on like this, but it shows only too clearly that world leaders haven’t got a clue as to how to treat this urgent problem.
If we are to save what is left of the earth surfaces being stripped of all wild vegetation there must be a crash birth control programme at once.
So the answer to the question ‘Where can we compromise?’, is WE DON’T.
Love, light and peace,
Spike Milligan
The Editor
The Times
30 November 1970
Sir,
The Pope’s visit to the poor family in Tondo.
Were it not for his integrity (and this is unquestionable) the situation was like a very sick joke.
I was sorry for him, I was sorry for the Mother and Father, but most of all I was sorry for the eight children born unnecessarily so into a life of poverty.
If ever there was clear evidence supporting Family Planning this was the occasion.
I hope the Holy Father will reflect on it.
Yours etc.
Spike Milligan
Messrs. Jack Hoy & S. Mitchell
Issue
(Furtherwick Park School Newspaper)
10 January 1972
Dear Lads,
Basically, here is the dilemma:
COPULATION EQUALS POPULATION EQUALS POLLUTION.
ANSWER: BIRTH CONTROL.
Sincerely,
Spike Milligan
The Editor
The Guardian
20 January 1976
Dear Sir,
Re the recent brou ha-ha over immigration statistics, here is another set of confusing statistics. I have written to the Prime Minister saying in view of the population explosion the appointment of a Minister of Population is more than pressing. In a reply from 10 Downing Street it was quoted that Lord Shepherd pointed out ‘that the birth rate in this country has been falling for the past eight years and the latest figures show virtually no increase in population’. Then HM Stationery Office publishes a paper, Population Projection No. 4 which says: ‘There are 56 million people in the U. K. this is expected to increase to 59.2 million by the year 2,000.’ Like Alice said ‘It’s very confusing’; the trouble is somebody somewhere is getting paid to confuse us.
Respectfully,
Spike Milligan
[Was he even right and it still goes on. For all the talk nothing has changed in thirty-seven years but the figures, and they are increased every year.]
Gurth Hoyer Miller Esq.
OXFAM
12 November 1976
Dear Gurth Hoyer Miller (though I would never know from your signature, I had to refer to the printed name at the bottom of the paper – oh! your poor bank manager).
Of course I would like to be a Vice President, but I must make it clear that in my past dealings with Oxfam, and this goes back about 20 years, when I openly came out against Oxfam who refused to become involved in population control, I still put this at the top of my agenda, because basically our humanitarian urges are to feed the starving, help the sick and the suffering, but that will only help ameliorate our own feelings, it will never solve the problem. The problem is a statistical one, that is numbers. We have
to reduce them at all costs or we shall all perish.
‘You have got to be cruel to be kind’, is an old adage, but in the light of population it takes on a new meaning. You are no doubt aware of India’s enforcement of sterilisation for all people who have two children. I myself don’t like the idea of it, but then that is my humanitarian feelings being outraged, and I realise that the idea is basically sound.
Having said all this, just to let you know ‘where I’m at’ regarding attitudes to charities.
Now, of course as Oxfam has contributed part of their funds to population control, I am happy to say I would like to be a Vice President.
Love, light and peace,
Spike Milligan
David Shannon Esq.
HONEY
30 June 1983
Dear David,
Question to Spike Milligan.
Q) What would you do, if you ruled the world.
A) Sell it.
If you want to elucidate on this, the most important thing I would do would be to snip off the testicles of every man who had more than two children, and set up a Parliament for the Rights of the Unborn Child to have civilised parents. Thirdly, I would re-wallpaper Dennis Thatcher.
Sincerely,
Spike Milligan
[Milligan has just lost his testicles or he forgot he had four children. When I reminded him of this fact he used to say ‘Well you haven’t got any so you can have two of mine’.]
The Letters Editor
Daily Telegraph
FAX
Pages 1/1
Sir,
I was pretty shocked by the publication of a letter from Robert Whelan regarding the article on World Population (July 11th). This man, Robert Whelan, is head of a quango who heads people of like mind that is, there is no problem with over-population all his letter promoted was a bigger population. I have tried repeatedly to find out who finances his organisation which is Committee of Population and (wait for it) the Economy. He will only say ‘we are privately financed’. I suspect the private money comes from large firms that can only increase revenue by having an increased population. This man is an environmental idiot.
Sincerely,
Spike Milligan
Daily Telegraph
Letters Page
FAX
1 page only
Sir,
Neville Wheelan believes that the Cairo conference on world population is an effort by western powers for selfish reasons to reduce world population. Is it selfish to try and make more room on this planet? It is not, as he says, a massive programme on contraception. It is to advise people having children beyond their means to curtail the number of children. He says ‘anyone with an ounce of common sense can grasp that a large population means greater wealth’. The very city that the conference is being held has a population of 66 millions and desperately poor – how many millions more do they need to become rich?
If numbers of population relate to wealth how is it that the richest country in the world has 6 millions – Switzerland with earning per capita 27.5 hundred whereas Japan with a population of 123 millions has a earning per capita of 21.00 hundred. How can he explain the disparity? Can you tell me why the figure with such a huge population is not 50/100 times more than of Switzerland?
Finally Mr Wheelan we live on a finite world when he fills it up, what then?
Spike Milligan
Letters Editor
Daily Telegraph
12 July 1994
Sir,
I am afraid predictions of world population declining to the level of the 1980s (11 July) is really not on.
I see that Mr Johnston is going to distribute family planning to 10 million couples or people – this is a drop in the ocean. The population stands now between six and seven billion, and he quotes the decline of 2.71 million in the years 2010. Well, I have a report from the Office of Population Censuses saying that our present population is 56 millions, and is going to increase in the year 2000 by 5.9 millions, it doesn’t seem to auger very good for the predictions of depopulation. When you come to think of it China with their one child policy put on a population growth of 13 millions a year. The basic problem is not a matter of how much family planning is given, its the most powerful biological urge in the world is a woman who wants a child, and she will go ahead and have one and she may want another and another and she will ignore any family planning.
No, to stop world population we need a world moratorium on births for five years.
Sincerely,
Spike Milligan
The Daily Mail
20 December 1994
Sir,
The discovery by the boffins that new roads would only encourage more traffic – why don’t they look beyond that and see a burgeoning population will buy more and more cars and so it is no good those people with large families complaining about traffic going through their villages and towns when they have, possibly like I have, four children each with a motor car.
Sincerely,
Spike Milligan
Alexander
c/o Jonathan Porrit
Gloucestershire
20 December 1994
Dear Alexander,
Here is my very brief idea of the future.
In the future due to over population the world will be crowded to bursting point. While animals will have been exterminated by human pressure the country will be one mass of motorways and millions of cars sending out fumes in the atmosphere.
That is my opinion of the future; sorry it is so glum but I am facing up to the truth, even as I speak millions are being born.
Sincerely,
Spike Milligan
Part Three
WRITING IT OFF
9
Internal Mail
[A note from me when he was on tour in Australia. Eric said, ‘Oh Norma you’re getting like him.’]
[Spike responds to one of my notes to him …]
[I had said, ‘Go on a cruise, it will do you good. You need the rest.’ – Hence ‘Now what?’]
[My perpetual question to him was ‘Are you getting on with the book?’ When I knew he wasn’t. Holiday PC to ease my mind.]
[Same sentiments. Still trying to ease my mind – different book.]
[He’s still at it. Different book but now an excuse.]
[Spike, oh dear. Petty, would you say? Note the incorrect spelling of his name.]
[Today we hate the English. Tomorrow? Anybody’s guess. Depends on who is going to upset him.]
[Oh. What a Prickly Pear. I’m not there when he needed me – Diddums!!!]
10
The Rise and Fall of Oblomov
Bernard Miles Esq.
Mermaid Theatre
London EC4
6 November 1964
Thank you for your letter and the cuttings.
I am sorry you couldn’t take ‘Oblomov’ as well. I think you have turned down a money spinner. It makes no difference to me whether the play goes on or not, as I have got lots of other work, but it is a pity to see a genuine success without a home to go to.
Anyhow regards to all.
[Oblomov had been performed out of London prior to this letter …]
Charles Marowitz Esq.
London NW1
6 November 1964
I have just had brought to my notice a criticism of ‘Oblomov’ in ‘Encore’. Christ!. I can never live up to it, but nevertheless thanks for a shot of literary adrenalin.
Regards,
Spike Milligan
Sunday 1 November 1964
Dear Mulligan,
On Thursday evening I left the New Lyric filled with strong tea and chagrin. That doesnt sound right … What would a theatre look like if filled up to slopping over with strong tea and chagrin? Obviously it must have been me was filled with the tea and chag. And I sat down and wrote you an kindly harsh note. Which I’ve lost. You apologized for the fact that someone had been paid to write or lets say wrote some of those mouldering f
ustian lines you had to speak.
I am puzzled. Why didnt you rewrite the play yourself after the first rehearsal, after the first reading?
Why didnt you throw the whole rag bag away and you and Owen sit on the bed and make jokes?
It didnt need the Bed Sitting Room to prove that you knew better. You know better. Excepting that you are being blackmailed. That must be the explanation.
As an Irishman why dont you spell your name properly?
As an Irishman I know how to spell my name properly.
I’m in love with a girl with a closed mind of her own. What shall I do?
Here’s a book in which if you are lucky you may find a few jokes to see you through till Saturday.
Yours,
Ernest Gebler
P. S. Do you want to buy in to buying the lower half of County Cork?
Ernest Gebler Esq.
London SW20
6 November 1964
Dear Ernest Gebler,
Thank you for your ‘out of the blue’ letter.
Answering your queries. I did not re-write the play because it would have taken me three months to do this. I did not re-write the play after the first rehearsal because the cast seemed oblivious as to the rubbish they were reading and who am I an Irishman to put the English on the right track? It is my duty to go down with the ship full of the English. It is worth one Irishman dying to enjoy that pleasure. Having let the ship sink I have now salvaged the whole thing on my own by ad libing all the way through, proving conclusively that they were wrong, blind and stupid.
I cannot sit on the bed and tell jokes with Bill Owen, because Bill Owen cannot crack jokes. He is a nice man but terribly pedantic and therefore unfunny.
The overall explanation to the play’s disaster lies in the fact that there are few people in the theatre who can look at the written word and imagine whether it is good or not.
Spike Milligan Page 8
