Where Have All the Bullets Gone? (7 page)

Drummer Chick Chitty and I were on the top tier, setting uo our gear, when I staggered and fell, bass and all, down the tiers. Chick tried to grab me but managed to tumble down also. We ended up among the saxophones; were not hurt, but my bass was punctured in the side by Harry Carr’s sax-stand.

The uniforms the band wore, I recall were the result of
your initiative
. The trousers were khaki
drill dyed
black; the jackets were of white duck and made by a Napolitan tailor, I believe, although somewhere in my memory I remember visiting a laundry in Naples for a ‘fitting’. Anyway, we all felt and looked better for being able to wear this approximation of a civilian band uniform, and soon after we started wearing it our bookings began to come in thick and fast.
We played for the
American Red Cross in Caserta
and elsewhere (enjoying some great food such as meat balls and rice; a welcome change from our diet in the barracks). We also played at the
Palace in Caserta
for dances, and for the same purpose at the
Palace in Naples,
which you will recall was a huge NAAFI when we were there. Gracie Fields was then living on Capri, and she would be a regular visitor to the Naples NAAFI, performing on every visit and eventuall(y) becoming something of a bore to the fellows regularly visiting the place. The band played each Thursday evening for an open-air dance in the orange grove in the centre of Maddaloni; many American officers would be there, some of them were musicians who liked to sit in with the band.
We also travelled to other places and performed for American and British units in concert. These included a two-week trip to Rome to play in the NAAFI there, which in normal times was a most modern department store. I remember you being in this place, Spike, up in one of the rooms trying out material on a piano. The band played in the evenings for dancing at that place, and in the daytime we roamed about the city. You and I billeted together on that occasion and bith of us were very upset at finding some small children rummaging for food in a garbage can (not that this was at all unusual). We managed to ‘steal’ some sandwiches for them and you gave them some cigarettes, also, that they presumable could trade for something edible.

One big fillip to our enthusiasm at that that time was a gesture on the [xxxx] of the Americans for whom we played; they gave us a chance th visit their Post Exchange and choose some new instruments and a number of orchestrations. That was in Caserta. This brought some great band numbers such as Woody Herman’s
Apple Honey
and several Glenn Miller orchestrations. Our first run-trought of
String of Pearls
provided a memory of Jim Manning (2nd alto and a regular Army band musician) coming to a solo part inscribed ‘as played by ernie Caceres’. It comprised a series of minin-value chords written in notation. Jim played the top minin in each case and the rest of us dissolved in laughter. Jim took umbrage, saying, “If you don’t like it, get fuckin’ Ernie Casseries to play it.” And then he walked out of the hall where we were practising.

Do you remember our band room in the barracks? It was furnished with rugs and armchairs and suchlike stolen from places where we had been playing, such as officers’ clubs in the locality. It was a simple matter to load such items into the truck, with our gear, at the end of the evening. It was this band room that I first realised how great you were with the guitar, finger-style. I can remember your lying on the rug with the guitar on your chest, playing [xxxxx] extempre thing that had all of us quiet and listening. Even a young ATS girl named Gay Endars, who was a singer with the band and a girl-friend of Stan Britton’s, was completely enraptured by that moment. And I don’t suppose you will even remember the incident.

Another Glenn Miller memory: The Welsh lad, Harry Carr, lead alto (he looked like a cadaverous version of Engelbert Humperdinck) playing the chart of
Moonlight Serenada
for the first time with tears streaming down his face from the sheer emotion of playing the orchestration and its soaring lead alto part. Harry, a carpenter in civilian times was, as I recall, a pretty good musician who also played piano quite brilliantly, but had only one piano piece in his reportoire: the verse of
Stardust
.

Also remembered are other fellows in the band such as guitarist Bert Munday. Nicest fellow you could meet, and pretty well known prewar as a semipro in South London (his home was at the Oval). I saw him a few times after the was; hed died of leukemia in 1949.

Stan Britton, phlegmatic person and rather heavy-handed pianist from North London. Easy to get along with and quite knowledgeable musically. I recall that he put together som 12-bar blues things for the band, calling the chart
Maddaloni Madness
when we played ‘at home’,
Caserta Capers
when played thereat, and so et seq.

Another easy-going chap was tenor saxist Charlie Ward; something of a dry comedian and older than the rest of us. Used to do one vocal,
I’m Gonna Get Lit Up When the Lights Go On in London
. The there was George Wilson, trumpet man from Huddersfield in Yorkshire, who had but one lung left after being wounded in North Africa. I saw him several times after the war. He was not in the best of health and had not played a note since getting out of the army. When he was with us he had a wonderful look of resignation when you, Spike, would be unable to play lead (he greatly enjoyed playing second to you).
There were a few times in the Naples area when we would be playing for dancing, when into the hall would glide a rather attractive ATS girl, who, I remember, would not give you any encouragement at all, and yet you were very keen on her. Maybe she was playing games, but she wouldn’t give you a tumble and seemed to take delight in being there, with you sequestered on the bandstand. Anyway, it got to the point where you had ‘lip trouble’ each time she appeared; George would see her enter the hall and begin to take bets on just how many minutes it would be before he had to take over lead owing to your emotional ‘lip’.

At one time we had a trumpet player named ‘Judy’Garland, from Nottingham. When there were three trumpets he’d play the trombone part on his horn. He was a slight, bespectacled and cheerful lad.

We had other fellows in the band from time to time, but the ones mentioned above are the musicians best remembered by me.

Of course, at Maddaloni, as things got more organised after the fighting stopped in Italy, there were other activities. One of these was the drama group run by a fellow named Lionel Hamilton. This group did Mary Hayley Bell’s play,
Men in Shadow
as an early effort, and you wrote a satire on this play, calling it
Men-in-Gitis
, that was staged a week later for a week’s run. It was billed as “The Doons in Men-in-Gites’. I helped you to prepare the script for this show (but didn’t provide any creative input, I’m sure) in your little cubby-hole room near the gate of the Maddaloni barracks building. I remember the room well; it had on the walls pictures of all the ‘birds’ you had known during your Army days, stretching back to Bexhill-on-Sea. That was my first contact with your ‘Goons” concept, and I recall the opening scene and offstage spoken line: “As our play opens we find Old Pierre, slowly chopping wood by the mill.” This line was in the straight version, and was repeated in yours; but in yours, as the curtain was raised, Old Pierre was chopping wood so franctically the the pieces were flying out into the audience, hitting the backdrop and whizzing into the wings. Great stuff. I’ll always remember it.

Also recalled is a gag that was pulled, at your behest, in a concert for a British outfit near Naples. You had the compere announce that as a special treat we had secured the ‘San Carlo Trio’ from the Opera House - and the tabs went up to reveal three of us in fright wigs, with backs to audience, ready to play some feeble jazz. The audience, that included some straight aficionados of the opera, registered delight at the announcement and absolute dismay when they saw what we really had for them.

I remember some really joyous times with the band, and with you. Ever since those days I have remained convinced that being in the band saved my sanity in the war years, and I guess that you feel similarly. Also, I have always been certain that dance musicians, and jazz musicians more especially, are really the salt of the earth. As a class they are blessed with a sense of humour (see how many prominent comedians, British and American, were origionally in the music business), and are warm and friendly human beings.

The comradeship experienced by men during those years was something most difficult to explain or define in ordinary terms, at least for me. It is a feeling, a connection, hardly understood by woman, and I am grateful that I experienced it. But philosophy is not really my line, and so I will not dwell on this aspect of our army days.

I daresay that after this is in the mail to you I will think of other incidents and occasions. However, let this suffice. After all, the things mentioned in this remembrance may be of little use for your biographical purposes. But it is hoped that at least they will provoke your own memories and thus prove of some value.

March 21, 1975

Len Prosser

6907 Strathmore Street

Chevy Chase, Maryland

USA

Transcribed typed letter

Thank you Len Prosser, a year’s subscription to EXIT is on its way.

Now life took on a new meaning. Playing with the band was a bonus. We played from smoky dives to the great Palace of Caserta which housed the Allied Forces Headquarters, though it was so far behind the lines it was referred to as the Hind Quarters. We were given a rehearsal room where we tried to keep up with the very advanced band arrangements we bought from the American PX. Playing Woody Herman’s arrangement of ‘Apple Honey’ nearly did for us — the top F’s gave rise to cries of “The truss, bring the truss.” After one appalling run-through, Stan Britton turned to us and said, “Gentlemen, I suggest we take an early retirement.”

Another disaster was our first attempt at the new-fangled samba, called ‘Brazil’. After three tries, Charlie Ward put his sax down and said, “The defence rests.” A letter written at the time tells of the good life I was leading.

However, years later I saw a shopping list on the back, showing the penny-pinching life my mother was leading under wartime rationing. “They also serve…” Serves her bloody well right. If she had joined the Army, she wouldn’t have suffered so!

Dances! Dances!

D
ances meant pretty girls and a burning sensation. At a dance in the Caserta ballroom, I fell for — a ridiculous phrase, “fell for” — no, I didn’t pitch forward on my face, but when I saw her I just screamed. She was gliding past the bandstand in another man’s arms. I’d only just seen her and she was already being unfaithful to me!! Her name was Sheila Frances, mine was Spike Milligan. Did she come here often, yes, and this was one of them. I try to date her and come up with 1944. I fall for her hook, line and sinker, and several other parts all hanging under the shirt. Blast, she is affianced to a Sergeant: I will try again. Meantime I’ll go blind. I climb back on to the bandstand; lots of nudge nudges wink winks.

“There’s plenty more fish in the sea, Spike,” says Len Prosser. But I don’t want to go out with fish.

Filing for King and Country!

F
iles, bloody files, I’m bored with files, so bored I open a new one and slip it into the system. Marked incident at Alexander Barracks. Inside I had typed a memo:

Statement by Guard Commander of Incident outside Barracks
.

Sir, on the night of the Twolth of Higust at 0000 Dearie me hours, when I heard a sound, ‘Pisssssshhhhh’ it went, I challenged the sound. “Halt who goes there?” No reply, so I challenged in Italian. “Halto who goes thereo!” No reply, so I challenged in Aramaic, finally in Chinese, “Dim Sim, Plancake Loll, Plawn Clackers,” whereupon a shadowy figure drew nigh. It was a Tuna Fish wearing a kilt and clutching a Mandolin. I had not been drinking but I think the Tuna Fish had. I fired a round into its sporran, whereupon it departed in the crouched position. Signed Private Knotts.

The file arrived on Colonel Startling Gropes’ table. He added a memo:

“This is one of the most serious cases of seriousness I have read. There must be a full investigation.”

He forwarded the file to Colonel Thompson in ‘A’ Branch who had a sense of humour and boils. He added to the fun: “I am forwarding this to Major Bastard for a full medical report.” The file grew to nearly six inches thick and was still circulating when I left.

A Day Out in a Certain Direction

C
olonel Startling Grope to Milligan: “Would you and Len like to come to Ischia?”

“Yes sir, I’d love an Ischia.”