Editing Spike Milligan (section)

==Early life==
Terence Alan Milligan was born in [[Ahmednagar]], India on 16 April 1918<ref name="Scots">{{cite news |url=http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/spike-milligan-1-604885 |title=Spike Milligan (obituary) |newspaper=Scotsman.com |location=Edinburgh |date=28 February 2002 |access-date=25 March 2013|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121021200953/http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/spike-milligan-1-604885 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2012-10-21}}</ref> during the [[British Raj]],<ref name="raj"/> the son of an Irish father, Leo Alphonso Milligan, [[Meritorious Service Medal (United Kingdom)|MSM]], [[Royal Artillery|RA]] (1890–1969), a [[regimental sergeant-major]] in the [[British Indian Army]],<ref name="Carpenter 2004 8">{{cite book|last=Carpenter|first=Humphrey|title=Spike Milligan : The Biography|location=London, UK|publisher=Hodder and Staughton|page=8|year=2004|isbn=978-0-340-82612-6}}</ref><ref>Encyclopedia of British Humorists vol. I- Geoffrey Chaucer to John Cleese, ed. Steven H. Gale, Garland Publishing Inc., 1996, p. 764</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.smh.com.au/national/patrick-milligan-also-played-a-part-in-hitlers-downfall-20170518-gw7xv0.html | title=Patrick Milligan, also played a part in Hitler's downfall | date=19 May 2017 }}</ref> and English mother, Florence Mary Winifred (née Kettleband; 1893–1990). He spent his childhood in [[Poona]] and later in [[Rangoon]], capital of [[British Burma]]. He was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Poona, and later at [[Basic Education High School No. 6 Botataung|St Paul's High School, Rangoon]]. His father remained in the Indian Army after the end of the First World War, steadily promoted till "the family's lifestyle became almost lavish"; Milligan considered that "My old man lived the life of a gentleman on sergeant's pay".<ref name="Carpenter 2004 8"/><ref>{{cite book|first=Pauline|last=Scudamore|title=Spike Milligan: a Biography|publisher=Granada|year=1985|page=27|isbn=978-0246122759}}</ref>

After Army cuts meant his father's position was no longer required, Milligan travelled by sea, from India to England for the first time. He arrived on a winter's morning and was bemused by the climate, so different from India's, remembering the dock's "terrible noise, and everything so cold and grey."<ref name="raj">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/04/04/british-raj-india-staying-on/|title=Staying On|last=Hastings|first=Max|journal=New York Review of Books|date=2019-04-04|access-date=2019-04-03|language=en|issn=0028-7504}}</ref> The Milligan family lived in England in somewhat straitened circumstances, Leo Milligan only being able to find "a poorly paid job in the Associated Press photo library"; Milligan recalled his mother being "often tense and angry... a domestic tyrant" due to having to manage on "next to no income".<ref name="Carpenter 2004 8"/> After moving to [[Brockley]], south east [[London]] from the age of 12 in 1931, Milligan attended Brownhill Road School (later to be renamed Catford Boys School) and St Saviours School, Lewisham High Road.

After leaving school, he worked as a clerk in the [[Royal Arsenal|Woolwich Arsenal]], played the [[cornet]] and discovered jazz. He also joined the [[Young Communist League (Great Britain)|Young Communist League]]<ref name="Scots"/> to demonstrate his hatred of [[Oswald Mosley]]'s [[British Union of Fascists]], who were gaining support near his home in South London.<ref name="Scots"/>