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SPIKE Milligan's lifelong dedication to making people laugh has inspired his son to create some crazy characters of his own. James Milligan's 'A Book Of Poems For People Under 4ft 2"' would bring a smile to the face of his old man. The quirky cast of 'Hubert Humperbump', 'Matilda the Python' and 'Clever Emma' would not be out of place in the irreverent work of the legendary comedian. James, 49, created them for his only child Robert, now 21, when he was a toddler. The collection has grown over the years and has just been published. Like his dad, the guiding principle has been to bring laughter and fun to his readers' lives, with some 'hidden' jokes for grown ups, too. His inspiration was his dad's famous work 'Smiling Is Infectious' which opens with the lines 'Smiling is infectious, you catch it like the flu, when someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too." James was the lovechild of Spike from a relationship between his mum Margaret Maughan, an artist still working at the age of 82. Their romance began in 1967, when Spike was in his 50s, more than 20 years older than Margaret; James was born in 1976. He did not meet his dad until Spike was in his 70s, and James was just 15 years old. The Goons Show legend paid for James' education. They shared a love of sport, laughter, and the absurdities of life; and both enjoyed the support of Prince Charles. James, a marketing expert of Hexham, Northumberland, said: "I got the inspiration from his smiling poem and his standing still race and the first Irish rocket to the moon. "I always think that it is fantastic that he is still making hundreds of thousands of people laugh, that is really nice. And that is what I set out to do with the poems, to make people smile." Meeting in James' home office, there are photos of his dad on the wall. They include one of him dressed as Hitler, complete with German uniform (that wouldn't be allowed today, jokes James). But he also has a poignant photo from the man he called 'Spike'; it says simply 'Love Dad'. He describes their relationship as like a friendship rather than a conventional father and son relationship as they had so little time to get to know each other. He said: "He always said that he would be more famous after he died. Even on his gravestone, he was making people laugh. 'The epitaph "I told you I was ill' became famous; how many gravestones make you laugh? I think it was laughing in the face of death. Maybe that was his thinking when he asked for that on his headstone. 'They laughed in the face of death during WWII and he writes about that in his war memoir." There is a mischievous twinkle in the eye of James as he recalls his first meeting with his dad in the most unconventional of circumstances. In 1991, the Sunday People discovered details of his mum's affair with Spike and of his until then secret lovechild. It took several months to go to print but after the story broke, James met Spike at a hotel near the star's home in Rye, Sussex. He was soon to discover the secret of his genius; his uncompromising honesty; his inability to 'suffer fools gladly'. "It was very formal, he said 'hello, nice to meet you, shall we go inside?'," James said of that first, memorable encounter. "Inside I was tongue tied, my parents did all the talking but we chatted about school and rugby. "It was all a very nervous affair." That first meeting of father and son took no longer than 45 minutes. But they had dinner the next day, and if anything, it was even more curious. James told how a stranger walked into the restaurant, and he was staring directly at Spike. "He had been carrying something, he would have dropped it," he added. "His mouth was open like a goldfish, and he said 'Spike is it you? I love you. My dad said in front of the entire restaurant: 'Are you gay?'. "And that was my introduction to him, his fame and how he handled it. It was all surreal, to be honest. I did not have that god-like admiration of him like his many fans. A friendship would be a good way to describe it. "We never really had the time to develop a conventional father son relationship. People around him were worried that I was after him for money, but I did not realise that at the time. I just wanted to meet my dad." As time passed, the comedian asked him to refer to him as 'dad', rather than Spike. James reflects now: "It is ironic as we did not have a proper relationship because so many people say I am so like him, the looks when I was younger, the height, he sprinted as well, he loved rugby, and I was on the wing for Northumberland when I was younger. "So there are a lot of similarities there, and I really look like him when he was in the army." Of his own writing, and his wry eye for life, seen in his poetry, he added: "I will let other people be the judge of that and the book, you cannot get too het up about what people say. "I think that Spike was the same. I used to call him Spike and he asked me to call him dad one day. So it was dad in his presence." Spike Milligan was born in India to parents who were both entertainers, so he was immersed in the arts from an early age. Though he was an old man by the time they met, James said he was no longer haunted by the demons of depression, partly caused by his war experiences. He loved to tell stories of his time in the army, and would confide in him about his relationship with Prince Charles. They regularly met for dinner, and kept in contact; Charles wrote to James, too, after Spike Milligan died, aged 83, in 2002. He left four children from his first two marriages; as well as James, he had a second love child, Romany, by another lover. James admits the early days of having a famous father revealed to the world were not easy. "Returning to Hexham after the Sunday People story was a nightmare," he says now. "I was a normal lad and suddenly I was posh and famous, and the local lads would give the posh lad a smack, it changed things. "It all got a bit much in a small town, and that is when I moved to London, and went to University." They both loved sport and found they had 'a lot in common' James explained: "He talked to me a lot about his love of rugby. In WWII, he sailed from Liverpool, to North Africa, to Italy, and then Europe, but then he suffered shellshock, so he entertained the troops and came back to London. 'Yes, he had quite a life. He was very funny, very thoughtful, always very deep in thought, I was prepared for someone who had a lot of miserable times with depression. "But by the time I met him in his old age, he had come to terms; when I knew him, he was cracking jokes all the time. But he was always brutal in his honesty, even with fans." He admits that he would have loved his dad to have read his poems so they could share one last laugh. His book promises to bring 'a smile to your face and warmth to your soul'. "That is one thing that we really did share," says James. "I love to make people laugh." * A Book Of Poems For People Under 4ft 2"' by James Milligan is published by Nightingale Books and available for £9.99 on Amazon.
