The Guinness Book of Classic British TV describes On the Buses as ITV’s “longest running and most self-consciously unfunny series” - but Allan Bryce insists it’s a true sit-com classic!

Blakey (Stephen Lewis) with Jack Harper (Bob Grant) and Stan Butler (Reg Varney)

The first holiday abroad that I ever enjoyed was in 1971 when I was working at Waitrose, and joined a close pal from work for a week in Yugoslavia. The holiday was a nightmare.

The hotel was still under construction, Carry on Abroad-style, and the staff were rude and unhelpful. After complaints from all of the guests the travel rep agreed to give us all free Campari or Slivovitz, the latter being the local fire water plum brandy, for the duration of our stay. It hardly compensated for sleeping in lumpy beds and being awoken at the crack of dawn by pneumatic drills. I’ve not touched Campari since, and if Slivovitz is not now on the banned substances list, it should be.

What has this got to do with On the Buses? I hear you cry. Well hold very tightly please because I’m getting there, albeit in my usual round-the-houses way. You see, the only entertainment in this ramshackle hotel (which probably got bombed to rubble in the later war) was a TV room with a tiny black and white set, and whenever we popped our head in to see what was showing, it was always On the Buses.

I must confess that when On the Buses was showing on TV, usually early evenings at the weekend, I could never be bothered to watch it. I probably caught an episode or two and knew that The Rag Trade’s Reg Varney played bus driver Stan Butler and Bob Grant was Jack Harper, his lecherous conductor pal. The character that everyone imitated, however, was Stephen Lewis’s ‘Blakey’, the station inspector everyone called Hitler. He had the toothbrush moustache for it, and his facial contortions were legendary.

Even back then I could see the ridiculousness of two far from handsome middle-aged blokes pulling the birds. Reg was 53 years old but looked younger and at least had a certain cheerful charisma. Bob Grant was 37 years of age when the show started but already balding and with a set of choppers that could have frightened off Champion the Wonder Horse! In one early episode he boasts of chatting up some new clippie and sighs: “I don’t know how I manage to do it.” Stan/Reg replies: “You must have trodden on her glasses.”

Stan with sister Olive (Anna Karen) and the original Butler ‘Mum’ (Cicely Courtneidge); Blakey, Jack and Olive with replacement Mum Doris Hare

I may not have appreciated On the Buses in its early days but I later became a huge fan of the show. I’ve got the lot on DVD, plus the movies of course, and am happy to defend it against all of today’s virtuesignalling snowflakes who think that it should be banned on the grounds of sexism and racism. To my mind it was very funny back then and it still is today.

On the Buses was the creation of comedy writers Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, who had enjoyed previous successes at the BBC with The Rag Trade and Meet the Wife. But the Beeb were not impressed with the concept of the show and so they went to the newly formed London Weekend Television with it instead. LWT wanted Ronnie Barker for the Stan Butler role, but the two writing Ronnies insisted on Reg Varney, already popular as star of their hit Rag Trade sit-com.

The other big problem that presented itself early on was that the production company would need the use of a bus depot and a fleet of buses. London Transport were approached but said no because they felt the show would be bad for their public image, depicting buses as unpunctual and staff as lazy and undisciplined. Perish the thought, eh? The Eastern bus company stepped in and gave LWT the green light - and green buses.

WORKING CLASS COMEDY

The show aired on Friday February 28th at 7.30 PM and audiences first heard Bob Grant saying “Hold very tightly please” followed by Tony Russell’s theme music.