Forty years ago this week, shoppers at Harrods were met with an unusual sight: a comedy legend, a dustbin full of spaghetti and local charity taking aim at foie gras.

In January 1986, the Petersfield Herald reported that Spike Milligan and campaigners from Compassion in World Farming had stormed Harrods’ food hall in London demanding the removal of foie gras pâté from its shelves.

Milligan, a founder of the classic BBC radio series The Goon Show — the anarchic comedy troupe he formed alongside Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine — was also a longstanding and outspoken animal rights campaigner.

Although animal welfare charity Compassion in World Farming is now based in Godalming, it was then headquartered in Petersfield.

On a busy Saturday morning, protesters entered the upmarket department store in Knightsbridge brandishing a dustbin containing 28lbs (12.7kg) of cooked spaghetti, which they intended to present to the food hall manager.

Charity spokesperson Carol Long said: “Twenty-eight pounds of spaghetti is the equivalent volume a human would have to eat to equal the six pounds of maize rammed down a pâté de foie gras goose’s throat every day for three to four weeks.”

Ms Long said Harrods managers refused to meet the campaigners.

“We decided that we would still take the spaghetti into the food hall – with Spike leading the way,” she said. “We were stopped in the meat department and, after listening to us, we were escorted out of the building by security guards.”

She said the main aim of the protest was to “bring public attention to the cruelty that is attendant on pâté de foie gras”.

“We had hoped that if somewhere as prestigious as Harrods were to take the product off the shelves, other stores would follow suit.”

Ms Long added that Compassion in World Farming would contact every establishment in the country selling the pâté and request that it be withdrawn.

Foie gras — a luxury food made from the enlarged liver of ducks or geese — is produced through force-feeding, a process long criticised by animal welfare groups.

Producing foie gras has been illegal in the UK since 2007, but it remains legal to import it from overseas.