Comic genius Milligan has last laugh on his gravestone

IF THE mark of a comic genius is an enduring ability to entertain and raise a smile even in death, then Spike Milligan, the king of madcap and the absurd, has proven his worth.

Two years after he died aged 83, relatives of the Goon Show creator have erected a headstone on his grave bearing the star’s epitaph: "I told you I was ill."

But only those well-versed in Irish Gaelic will be able to read the inscription on the Celtic cross memorial at St Thomas’s Church, in Winchelsea, East Sussex.

Milligan’s family had been unable to agree on a headstone, and finally settled on the Gaelic text to meet with approval from the Chichester Diocese.

The headstone bears the words, "Duirt me leat go raibh me breoite", or "I told you I was ill", and the English words "Love, light, peace".

Milligan, who died in 2002, lived at Udimore, near Rye, and had three children with his first wife, June Marlow, and one with his second wife, Patricia Ridgeway. He had two other illegitimate children.

His widow, Shelagh, whom he married in 1983, applied for the headstone last year.

Bill Horsman, the chairman of the Goon Show Preservation Society, said yesterday: "News of the headstone going up on Spike’s grave is marvellous. We had been very concerned for some time about the situation.

"It was very sad that the grave was in such a state, but it was down to very sensitive family problems and we simply could not get involved.

"We’re very pleased it’s been resolved and with such a classic Spike line. We all fell about laughing when we heard it."