With his lightning-quick wit, unbridled creativity and his ear for the absurd, Spike Milligan revolutionised British comedy, leaving a legacy of influence that stretches from Monty Python's Flying Circus to the work of self-confessed acolytes such as Eddie Izzard and Stephen Fry today. Throughout his life, Milligan wrote prolifically - scripts, poetry and fiction, as well as several volumes of memoir, in which he took a somewhat flexible approach to the truth. At last, in this single, gloriously entertaining selection from across his works, Milligan's whole life is laid bare from start to finish, and all in his own words.

From his childhood in India, through his early career as a jazz musician and sketch-show entertainer, his spells in North Africa and Italy with the Royal Artillery, to that fateful first broadcast of The Goon Show and beyond into the annals of comedy history, this is the autobiography Milligan never wrote. 'One of Spike's best and most scintillating efforts - an autobiographical assemblage culled from his many memoirs, television scripts, sketches, novels and letters.' Daily Mail