Where Have All the Bullets Gone? by Spike Milligan Page B

God’s sake please avoid the following: rape, murder, arson, little boys, gefilte fish, Mlle Ding.” We queued for a dinner of Irish stew, sponge roll and custard.
Steve Lewis, Eddie Edwards and Spike Milligan There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Jew…

    Tired after a hard day’s travel, we ate it, then wrote off for compensation. The Yew, Lewis, has bagged the favoured upper bunk. “It’s the English class system,” he explains. “If a wild beast gets in it eats the lower class first, allowing the upper class to survive and re-let the bed for the next victim.” Next morning, early hot showers, singing, towel flicking on the bums etc., then breakfast of sausage, bacon, bread and jam, and we are like giants refreshed. We go on the town.
    We are accosted outside a souvenir shop. “Hey Joe,” says an Iti tout. I tell him my name is not Joe, but Terence Alan Milligan and have a care. Do I want a picture? “Your-a-face-a-painted in five-a-minutes flat.” Do I want a flat face? OK-o. I must have had a face like a po — he has named me Jerry.
    The Colosseum is to Rome what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris but less rusty. “That’s where they threw the Christians to the lions,” says Eddie. No Jews? “No, the lions weren’t kosher.” We eat gelati at a cafe; visit the Forum. “Not much of it left,” says Eddie. I tell him that the Forum was destroyed by Vandals. “I know, they did in our local phone box,” he said.
    The Parthenon; two thousand years old and still intact! -the Barbara Cartland of Architecture. Within are the tombs of the Kings and Queens of Italy and there, immured in marble, is Michelangelo. Steve is very impressed. “What did he die of?” I tell him: “He fell off the scaffolding.” He is trying to translate the plaques.
    “Pity they’re in Latin.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s a dead language.”
    “Well they are all dead.”
    I couldn’t believe it! Me from Brockley standing where Agrippa stood; it was as absurd as finding Agrippa queuing for fish in Catford. Steve is telling me he has cracked it. “Agrippa,” he says, laughing at the terrible pun. “Agrippa is…Latin for hair grips.” I thought I heard a groan from the tomb of Michelangelo.
    Outside we turn into the Corso Umberto and witness the great cat colony. An old Italian lady is feeding them (as is the Roman custom). In answer to my query she says the cats have been here ‘Lontano fa’, so I tell my two chums, “They’ve been here since lontano fa.” Steve says, “That’s strange — they miaow in English.”
    The Fontana de Trevi and its songs in water: it cascades, gushes, ripples, drips, laughs, squirts. It is magnificent.
    I toss the traditional coin in. “What did you wish?” says Steve. I explain certain things about Candy and he is well pleased. Eddie throws his coin in; he won’t say what, but if it was to retire and live in Southampton and go grey, it’s been granted. Steve screws up his Jewish soul and throws in a low-denomination coin. What does he wish? He wishes he hadn’t thrown it in. We hold back as he starts to strip.
     
    Food. A small restaurant, ‘La Bolla’ in the Via Flamania, a four-star place — you can see them through a hole in the roof. Here we are in the land of pasta, and I order stew . The photograph shows the evidence. I even had a cup of tea AND bread and butter. They didn’t have Daddy’s sauce.

    Flashback! Steve had somehow (he can’t remember) gained ingression to a Roman widow’s flat. She was sixty with a daughter and son. He had arranged for two of us to stay there the last three days of the leave. And so it came to pass. We left Eddie standing in his shirt — Angora, for the wearing of- standing by his bottom bunk saying, “It’s not fair, I’m not going to play with you any more.” Yes, we gave poor Eddie the elbow, and if he wasn’t careful he’d get the shins and the knee bones as well.
    Steve’s suitcase has labels. Albergo Vittorio Emanuel, Albergo