In Sickness and in Health

- Season 1

(1985)

The Garnetts are back in London. Else is severely arthritic and can barely walk and Alf extols the joys of the wheelchair has got her - until he has to push her around in it. With so many cars parked on the pavement he uses the middle of the road,incurring a motorist's wrath. The chair does come in handy for getting him on the front row at football matches though his response to a home win reveals that he is using it fraudulently.

Having complained about his failing eye sight - and just about everything else - Alf takes his wife out in her wheelchair and buys her an ice cream cornet whilst avoiding giving money to the vicar. However his poor sight proves his undoing when he accidentally goes into a ladies' toilet and is arrested as a sex pest.

Having scrubbed the hall floor and disapproved of Else's using the milkman to place her bets, Alf feels that they are entitled to a home help but manages to antagonise three women in succession. Returning from the pub he finds that the latest is Winston,an extremely flamboyant gay black man who will clearly take no nonsense from him.

Alf tries the patience of good natured Fred Johnson and his wife from next door by using their phone to make a very long-winded long distance call to Rita. After expounding upon funerals in the pub Alf repays Fred by buying him so many drinks he falls over but Alf's homeward progress pushing Else in her wheelchair also ends in drunken calamity.

Rita comes to visit and no sooner is she through the door than Alf argues with her about Else. After Alf has criticised Margaret Thatcher,claiming that no woman should be prime minister,Else and Rita gang up against him with Winston,who brings an equally camp friend home to throw a party for Rita. Alf is given extremely strong drink so that,whilst the others continue carousing,he passes out.

Tired of pushing Else around in her chair Alf feels she should have an electric scooter but they cost two and a half grand and the woman at Social Security tells Alf that,as long as he is around to push,Else is ineligible. Taking an idea from some kids with a go-kart Alf adds jet propulsion to the chair,which goes out of control,foiling a bank robbery and landing him in hospital. He is declared a hero but,following Winston's view that the robbers' accomplices may be out to get him,decides to remain anonymous.

Rita has come to stay but announces her intention to go back home on Christmas Eve. In order to persuade her to stay and help him look after Else, Alf falls off a ladder and claims to have injured his leg. However, whilst Rita does stay, the knees up at the Christmas Day party goes so well that Alf's enthusiastic participation soon exposes his supposedly bad leg as nothing more than a ruse.