be electrocuted. He was a staunch and outspoken scourge of domestic violence, dedicating one of his books to Erin Pizzey. Death Even late in life, Milligan's black humour had not deserted him. After the death of Harry Secombe from cancer, he said, "I'm glad he died before me, because I didn't want him to sing at my funeral." (A recording of Secombe singing was played at Milligan's memorial service.) In 1990, he also wrote his own obituary, in which he stated repeatedly that he "wrote the Goon Show and died". Milligan died from kidney failure, at the age of 83, on 27 February 2002, at his home near Rye, Sussex. On the day of his funeral, 8 March 2002, his coffin was carried to St Thomas Church in Winchelsea, East Sussex, and was draped in the flag of Ireland. He had once quipped that he wanted his headstone to bear the words "I told you I was ill." He was buried at St Thomas' churchyard but the Chichester diocese refused to allow this epitaph. A compromise was reached with the Gaelic translation of "I told you I was ill", and in English, "Love, light, peace". The additional epitaph can be read as "Great love for you Shelagh". According to a letter published in the Rye and Battle Observer in 2011, Milligan's headstone was removed from St Thomas' churchyard in Winchelsea and moved to be alongside the grave of his wife, but was later returned. Legacy From the 1960s, Milligan was a regular correspondent with Robert Graves. Milligan's letters to Graves usually addressed a question to do with classical studies. The letters form part of Graves's bequest to St John's College, Oxford. The film of Puckoon, starring Sean Hughes, including Milligan's daughter, actress Jane Milligan, was released after his death. Milligan lived for several years in Holden Road, Woodside Park, Finchley, at The Crescent, Barnet, and was a contributing founder and strong supporter of the Finchley Society. His old house in Woodside Park is now demolished but there is a blue plaque in his memory on the block of flats on the site. A memorial bench featuring a bronze likeness of Milligan sits in his former home of Finchley. Over ten years the Finchley Society led by Barbara Warren raised funds—the Spike Milligan Statue Fund—to commission a statue of him by local sculptor John Somerville and erected on the grounds of