There’s a famous story of how Goon Show history started for Harry Secombe. Somewhere in the North African desert during World War II, he was a soldier sitting in the back of an army truck when it was almost flattened by a piece of artillery. Not by a shell, by the whole gun. It had bounced off the top of a ridge when it had been fired, and just missed the truck as it thundered past. The truck’s flap was pulled aside and a gunner who looked in said “anyone seen a gun?” Secombe replied “what colour was it?” That gunner was Spike Milligan. Later in the war, they served together in Combined Services Entertainment and discovered a shared sense of comedy.
Secombe was born and brought up in Swansea. After the war, he was determined to break into show business rather than go back to a dead-end job at home. He managed to get in as a comedian in the infamous (is ‘seedy’ the right word?) Windmill Theatre. It was there he met another comedian, Michael Bentine, who had that similar sense of humour, and who was subsequently introduced to Spike Milligan.
Conforming to stereotype as a Welshman, Secombe had a fine singing voice, and he developed it through operatic training. Comedy was his livelihood at first though, and he toured the country’s variety theatres, his act including a frenetic shaving routine. The singing career would come later.
As a member of the Goons he could never disguise the Welshness of his voice. Instead of taking on a range of parts, he played Neddie Seagoon, the exaggerated version of himself who became the central character in Goon Show plots. Off mic, he often had to be the calming influence, while the tempestuous Milligan and Sellers regularly had fall-outs.
Away from the Goons, Secombe was a best-selling recording artist, actor and a much loved TV personality whose credits include hosting his own variety show and being the presenter on the long-running religious programmes ‘Songs of Praise’ and ‘Highway’.
Harry’s Wikipedia entry
The Goon Show Preservation Society 