A big thank you! goes out to Alan Cornforth for scanning and sending this article

Eric Sykes put his feet on his desk and said: “I was born on the 24th May, 1923, in Oldham. As I grew up, I used to support Oldham FC every Saturday. Now I support my wife and two children.” 

Britain’s £20,000-a-year top TV scriptwriter, sitting in an office overlooking London’s Kensington Gardens, wore a striped night-shirt, ankle-length --- “ My latest fashion, sir, for preventing a shine on one’s trousers’ seat.” 

Tea cups were clinking in the front office of Eric’s Fun Factory, and Spike Milligan, hard at work in his room, tootled for inspiration on his cornet. The tune sounded like: “Two lumps, please.” 

[Blonde, 26-year-old Mrs Beryl Vertue, secretary and general manager of Associated London Scripts, Ltd, whose job it is to make the tea and negotiate assignments for 16 script writers, brought us a cuppa.] 

Eric went on: “Around 1950, I met my wife, Edith. She was a State Registered Nurse and I was her patient, with a mastoid, in the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. I came out, and we got married. We have two daughters, Catherine and Susan.” 

[The Fun Factory was in full production, the sound of its typewriters rising above Spike’s cornet. Beryl, Pam Johnson (her sister), Joan Bandy and Coleen Caine, the office staff, were sorting out mail and Press cuttings, as well as shoo-ing away little boys asking: “Can I appear in your next show please?” 

Eric said: “Let’s go along and see Spike.” 

“You want a little soulful music?” I suggested, following him. 

“Yes; I also want my nails trimmed on his guillotine. What? Oh, it’s just a teeny-weeny one. As I was saying, I come to this office evey morning around 10, and leave around 7pm. I’m doing what I want to do --- writing. I would sooner write a good show than have £5,000.” 

Wearing a Roman fringe and a toga, Spike (Terence Alan) Milligan hailed us, and swept us into his office with an august gesture. 

He whispered; “Haircut?” 

[Spike’s room is crowded like a furniture store, compared with the austere order of Eric’s. A piano fights a big desk for space; a tall cabinet stands topped with music and books; and a green mask, an Award of the Year by the Guild of Television Producers, peers from the table.]

Eric Said; “Not today, Spike. Are you free?” Said Spike; “For a minute. Shall we play the organ?” Agreed Eric: “Yes. Where is it?” 

“Here,” said Spike, poker-faced, as he set up two typewriters, in tiers like an organ keyboard. 

They began clowning with the guillotine, the cornet, and gave each other Christmas presents. 

Spike wearied of it first. “To work,” he shouted, slumping in front of one of the typewriters, like a disillusioned Caesar. “Look at the mess my office is in! Look!” 

A blank sheet of paper was rolled quickly into the typewriter, and he said: “It will take me an hour exactly to put a single word on it. File my nails . . . that’s what I’ll do.” They started clowning with the guillotine again. 

[Spike was born in India, within the sound of Poona’s pukkah sahibs, the son of an Army captain, 39 years ago.] 

Spike said: “I am vaguely relayed to Tommy Milligan, the famous Scottish boxer. Let me see how vaguely . . . Yes, on my grandfather’s sister’s side.” 

[He swung round and looked at his latest invention, a blank TV Screen for Idiots, or Idiot’s Delight.] 

He continued: “I got into military things, too, such as working in Woolwich Arsenal before the war, and getting blown up while I was with the Army in Italy. 

“I did shows for the troops. Then in 1949 I became a zany script writer. Five years ago I sent a script to the BBC. I got it back last month. I could have starved. But happily I didn’t.” 

Spike once toured the halls with a musical trio, and he also likes swing. His talk is of electrons, Sputniks (he has his own telescope at home), tiddly-winks, and comedy. 

Like Eric, he has two children --- Laura, aged five, and Sean, agd three. 

Both Eric and Spike have this also in common: they take their humour ver, very seriously.
 

James Adam

Eric and Spike view their new Blank TV screen for idiots

To the guillotine for a fingernail trim – “Clear-cut.” Eric operates

The music held up by Eric is “in the groove”

 

Everybody is happy. The boys pause to swap Christmas gifts

 

“Lets get some levitation into this levity business,” says Spike

Ah! A cork-tipped cornet. “Have a light,” offers Eric

Eric clicks out a snappy samba on the two-tier “organ”

Dr Milligan listens --- Eric sings “Say 99”