Spike Milligan lives. I encountered him last week among the Australian military contingent at Camp Holland: a Dutch-led base in southern Afghanistan, in the province next to Helmand.
Corporal Milligan, to be precise. But everyone calls him Spike. And though I’ve no reason to think he is or could be a fine singer or a world-famous comedian, Corporal Milligan has his famous namesake’s enthusiasm, optimism and punch.
I met him as part of a small posse of visiting journalists, the guests of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and Nato. Our hosts were keen to show us the good work being done by the military to improve the lives of ordinary Afghans, and the Australian-run Trade Training School at Camp Holland is something of a showcase. There, Spike Milligan and his small team of Australian and Afghan instructors teach young Afghan men from the nearby town of Tarin Kowt the basics of plumbing, joinery, steel-fixing, and the skills any builder’s apprentice needs to acquire.
It was afternoon. Away from the high-security perimeter walls and fences that surrounded our camp, a desert landscape stretched down towards lawless Kandahar and the deep south. Mountains like bare blades of rock rose to our north where faraway Kabul lay, mountains from which turquoise rivers — the only reason there are any inhabitants at all in southern Afghanistan — flow. But nothing green was visible. The temperature had been touching 40°C (104°F). The sun had been merciless. Now the height of the day’s heat had passed, and soon the training centre would be winding up for the day.
Sun or shade, however, Spike Milligan’s efforts were undiminished. A bundle of energy, he took us on a short tour of the skills-training facilities. In a big sandpit, half-buried, sprawled a geometrical maze of grey PVC waste-piping, demonstrating every T-junction, elbow bend, swept bend and ventilation pipe that a plumber could need to know.
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