Spike Milligan, Mussolini: His Part in My Downfall. First Edition, 1978, very good condition

Spike Milligan, Mussolini: His Part in my Downfall. Edited by Jack Hobbs. London: Michael Joseph, 1978.

Hard cover, dustwrapper, 288 pages, illustrations.

Very good condition.

First edition.

The helmsman's face shows white through the wheelhouse as HMS Boxer and Spike Milligan set off to liberate Italy. Meanwhile at home, Milligan's mother was helping the war effort by praying for the death of Hitler if he didn't die soon her knees were going to give out.

"This book is packed with good things, like paper, numbers at the top, and lots of words chosen at random. It says a lot for Spike Milligan but very little for his writing. Het wlil, need many enw typist any day now. No but seriously, in this book he gets killed three times, One, Two and Three, but such was his fear of death that he triumphed over all three. Today he lives in a grace-and-favour tree given to him by a grateful nation. Even as this book goes to print, there is good news: the tree is to be felled; they are keeping it as a surprise from him as they want him to be in it when it comes down, where Prince Philip will be waiting to greet him with a deportation order. So this book is no figment of the imagination, no, it tells the true story of Italy, printed on diseased Dutch elm paper to pass on to your descendants." Ronald Biggs

This, Volume 4 of Milligan's war memoirs, describes as in the earlier ones the life of a soldier amongst his mates. Full of superb observation and humour, it is a book where "suddenly, nothing happened all the time".