James Milton Hayes MC (1884, in Ardwick – 1940, in Nice), known as J. Milton Hayes, was an English actor and poet, best known for his 1911 dramatic monologue "The Green Eye of the Yellow God", much parodied by his contemporary Stanley Holloway and later by The Goon Show.
During the First World War he was commissioned in the Manchester Regiment, 31 December 1915[1] and awarded the Military Cross in November 1917.
[2][3] In 1918 he was captured and was held as a prisoner of war at Mainz Citadel with, among others, John Ferrar Holms, Hugh Kingsmill and Alec Waugh.
[4] In his book My Brother Evelyn and Other Profiles[5] Waugh describes Hayes as "A North Country man; he was nearly forty; he was brisk, assured, purposeful, with his eye on the main chance.
He gives Hayes's account of the writing of the poem: I wrote The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God in five hours, but I had it all planned out.
That's what you've got to play on.In John Lennon's posthumously released track "Nobody Told Me", the mention of a "little yellow idol to the north of Katmandu" in Lennon's song alludes to the first stanza from the Hayes poem, which reads: "There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Kathmandu.