Reg Varney R.I.P.

[Invicta]

I have just joined another forum (I won't mention which) where the merest hint of drifting off topic is not merely reprimanded but actually removed without explanation (as is anything that looks even slightly like advertising). If you ask why your post has been removed you get severely told-off. Personally I prefer our more pub chat style...I hope others agree.

I've always reckoned that's exactly how a forum should be in style- it should feel a bit like having a chat in the pub where even if you drift off-topic, it'll eventually wander it's way back on...

[Lizzie_Claymore]

Totally agree. A bit of merry banter never did anyone any harm!

Er, Bill, sorry to be a pedant but Ribble did'nt have any Bristol Lodekkas.

I was thinking the same but didn't know all the background - really interesting, Mr A! (...if you like that kind of thing!)

To increase the relevance again, can anyone ever recall a bus being used in a sploshing scenario? (I can't but I'm sure there must have been one!)

[stockingman]

To increase the relevance again, can anyone ever recall a bus being used in a sploshing scenario? (I can't but I'm sure there must have been one!)[/quote]

I recall a TV programme from years ago called the Double Deckers but cant recall if there was any mess/wet "on the bus" but there was always some messy or wet stuff going on, they were kids at the time but then so was i so it didnt matter! Used to fancy the older girl, well she must have been about 15/16 so a much older woman!!

BTW R.I.P Reg

[Invicta]

I recall a TV programme from years ago called the Double Deckers but cant recall if there was any mess/wet "on the bus" but there was always some messy or wet stuff going on, they were kids at the time but then so was i so it didnt matter! Used to fancy the older girl, well she must have been about 15/16 so a much older woman!!

BTW R.I.P Reg

I'd forgotten about the Double Deckers- there's a fan club website
http://www.thedoubledeckers.com/


According to the site, the older girl was 'Billie', played by Gillian Bailey-she also appeared in the late 60's BBC TV version of 'The Railway Children' with Jenny Agutter (but not in the film) and later in Blake's Seven. She's now Dr Gillian Bush-Bailey, and lectures in theatre studies.

The other kids included Peter Firth, of 'Equus' fame (and currently in 'Spooks' on BBC1), and Brinsley Forde, who went on to be in reggae band Aswad.

Oh, and to keep with the main theme of the thread, the bus was ex-London Transport RT4790 converted to open-top for the show.

[BillShipton]

Of course I remember the Double Deckers, particularly their Rowan and Martin's Laugh In parody which had them soaked in the Sock It To Me sketch. However they were probably a bit young for discussion here. I so wanted to be on the show though!

As for bus-related slapstick gags - there were many times when they went through puddles splashing the queue at the stop or Blakey in On the Buses. And didn't someone fall in the garage inspection pit filled with something on one occasion?

Meanwhile....Hope & Keen's Crazy Bus anyone?

[Dick Custardly]

Dr Gillian Bush-Bailey

Sorry, but I had to laugh wen I read that name... sounds like it should be a character that Gilly plays in a 'Silly House' sketch!

[Lizzie_Claymore]

Of course I remember the Double Deckers, particularly their Rowan and Martin's Laugh In parody which had them soaked in the Sock It To Me sketch. However they were probably a bit young for discussion here. I so wanted to be on the show though!

Yes of course! I'd forgotten about the Double Deckers. There was often some good slapstick in that, as you say. Not of the sort of 'naughty' calibre we all love now but it was a kids' show, after all!

As for bus-related slapstick gags - there were many times when they went through puddles splashing the queue at the stop or Blakey in On the Buses. And didn't someone fall in the garage inspection pit filled with something on one occasion?

Ah yes - that rings a bell (so will be stopping shortly! Ahem!). I have a vague feeling it was some sort of foam machine but can't remember what it was - possibly some sort of cleaning apparatus - that had gone haywire and filled the garage with foam. Someone (poss. Blakey) fell down the pit as he couldn't see it under the foam .... or something like that.

Meanwhile....Hope & Keen's Crazy Bus anyone?

...erm ..... <tumbleweed> Nope, don't know that one!

[albawam]

I remember it as Hope and Keen,s crazy house but maybe i,m mistaken. I recall on the double deckers a council inspector getting dumped in a vat of water then a huge bag of cement powder emptied over him followed by his bowler hat getting filled with paint and jammed back onto his head his female assisant unfortunatley didn,t get any, bah!

[BillShipton]

Pedantic moment....

Hope and Keen started with Crazy House and the second series was called Crazy Bus as they went out looking for buried treasure. No, I don't know what the bus was but the series was made by BBC Scotland. 1973 according to Google. That makes sense cos I remember thinking the conductress had a sexy uniform!

[cumbrian]

Think the scene with the inspection pit was from the film spin off mutiny on the buses, there was a fire drill at the garage and the foam making machine got jammed on maximum filling the pit with foam, seem to remember olive riding arthur's motorcycle combination into the pit just prior to blakey falling in
They don't make em like that anymore!!

[Hayley]

Also in one of the films , there's a scene where they all go wading in the mud for some reason I seem to remember.

[cumbrian]

Yep Hayley, quite right;
Think that scene is from holiday on the buses when Arthur and family on the motorcycle combination swerve to avoid stan's bus and crash into a bridge parapet sending all of their neatly stacked luggage over the edge of the bridge into the mud belowand they all wade down to get it (except Arthur who is wearing his best trousers!! OLIVE!!!!)
I must have watched these films over and over again in my misspent youth, wish I'd had a life instead!
ps, doesn't Olive lose her bikini bottoms in the swimming pool at one stage?

[BillShipton]

ps, doesn't Olive lose her bikini bottoms in the swimming pool at one stage?

That's a visual image I'd rather not have. But I think you are right.

[Invicta]

Funnily enough, Anna Karen who played Olive would be no stranger to getting her kit off, as in her early days in showbiz she was a stripper...

[MessClub]

Hmmmm, new proposed design for an advance London Bus.

http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/08122008/36/ra ... bus-0.html

Wonder what Bus fans think of this?

In Blackpool they keep the old historical trams running as a tourist attraction. Does London have to go ultra modern. Will there still a place for the routemasters for site seeing tours etc.....