Spike stopped Woy Woy

The day Woy Woy stopped was in the 1970s and the occasion was the filming of a TV special of Spike Milligan by Bobby Limb.

A huge crowd was gathered in front of the old Woy Woy court house (council chambers) and lying on the front steps of the building was Spike Milligan.

Spike kept on rolling down the steps and Bobby Limb was in danger of falling off his camera perch, laughing at his antics.

The special was shown on prime time TV, a big day for Woy Woy.

Again in the 1970s, I was carrying a bag of mail for the 10:20am train for Gosford, when I spied a familiar, rotund, little man, surveying the scenery of Woy Woy Bay.

"You must be Harry Secombe," I said to him.

"That's right," he said.

"Give us a song then."

Harry then sang a few bars of Waltzing Matilda.

I nearly said, as Peter Sellars used to say, "you silly twisted man".

Instead I said: "I'll ring Mrs Milligan for you."

Later in the day, I delivered some telegrams to Mrs Milligan at Orange Grove.

She said: "Listen to them (Spike and Harry). They haven't stopped laughing all day.

"Go and have a peek."

I did, and the laughter waves from Spike and Harry fanned my eyebrows.

Spike attended a Save Rileys Island meeting at the old Ettalong picture show, and he was in serious mode and he spoke about his love of nature and appreciation of the natural environment.

Later in the early '80s, we were all in the same boat in Pittwater.

Spike, armed with a blunderbuss, was to start the Lord Howe Yacht Race.

In the boat was the Commodore, his adjutant, resplendent in their uniforms, me in a bag of fruit with the deputy mayor's medal, and Spike wearing a cloth cap and grasping the blunderbuss.

The Commodore teed Spike to fire the blunderbuss, but, anti-climax, nothing happened.

After some fiddling, the gun fired nearly blowing Spike into Pittwater.

Even he was lost for words.

Keith Whitfield, Woy Woy