On the Buses

- Season 4

(1970)

When the rest of the family are going to stay with Aunt Maud,Stan is hopeful to have the house to himself with girl-friend Suzy. However they take an age to leave and Stan has to repair the sidecar before they can go. Unfortunately his weekend is ruined because the combination goes into a ditch and the family return early.

Blakey has fallen for Amazonian canteen worker Molly and wants to marry her and go and live in the country. Jack and Stan are not pleased when they see Stewart, the tough new inspector,and are also aware that Molly is fickle and will two-time Blakey. A situation is contrived where the Butler family are aware that Stan has had Molly in his room, after which Blakey catches the two of them snogging on the bus. He is not convinced when Stan says he did it for the inspector's own good and threatens to make his life a misery.

When an article appears to claim that bus crew,by nature of their sedentary work, are prone to a short life expectancy, this gets Mum and Jack worried and, as a consequence, both Jack and Stan have to subject themselves to a routine of physical jerks and healthy living, only to discover ultimately that the article was mistaken.

Olive is offended when Arthur gets too friendly with Wendy, a conductress they meet at the social club, and she leaves in a huff with Mum. Arthur fails to come home and Olive, believing the worst, throws him out. Mum tries to get Blakey to sack Wendy for immoral behaviour and Olive accuses Wendy of stealing her man to which Wendy points out that she has no interest in such a shrivelled-up old loser and it is revealed that Arthur in fact spent the night asleep in the sidecar as he couldn't kick start the combination. Appreciating that Arthur was faithful to her Olive ...

Once again Jack and Stan are in the inspector's bad books for using the bus to collect Christmas presents so, when a husband and wife crew report sick, he has the two men working on Christmas Day. Mum has cooked the turkey but to save Stan walking home Arthur agrees to collect him in the combination. But Arthur has had too much Christmas spirit and Olive agrees to drive, with Arthur and Mum to supervise. Unfortunately she crashes the bike and when they all get home the fire brigade has been called and the turkey is burnt to a cinder.

Stan needs to transport Arthur and Olive's new bed to the house so he uses the 'L' bus,the passenger-free bus used to train drivers. However it breaks down and the bed needs to be transferred to another bed at the depot. Stan locks Blakey in whilst the transfer is being made but after being hit on the hit with the mattress Blakey charges Stan parcel rate for carrying the bed - the equivalent of thirty parcels.

Blakey takes sadistic pleasure in making Stan and Jack man the bus for the dreaded kids' outing,which gets off to a bad start when Blakey accuses Stan of giving his nephew a girlie magazine. The kids put sugar in the petrol tank and the exhaust drops off, requiring Stan to do a drag act to amuse the kids whilst the bus is being mended.

As a tenth anniversary present Aunt Maud sends Olive and Arthur a dog, which Olive names Scruffy,but he eats Arthur's food and gives him a sneezing allergy,so Olive takes him back to Aunt Maud by bus. The dog goes for Blakey,tearing his trousers, and he fines Olive a fiver,but Jack anticipates that if they have a whip-round at the depot everyone will want to support the dog that bit the inspector.

The chairs in the Butler house need to be re-upholstered so Stan smuggles material used for the bus seats out of the depot. All goes well until Blakey drops by and the covers have to be covered up,though eventually Blakey tells Stan he knew what was going on and charges him for the fabric.

After Stan has had to apply the brakes quickly,causing a big woman passenger to fall on top of him, Blakey devises a new exit and entry system for the buses to leave and return to the depot. Unfortunately Stan forgets this and crashes into Blakey's office. The inspector feels Stan should be fired but union rep Jack points out that he was only following Blakey's orders.

To make money the family takes a lodger, Mr. Nichols,the new transport manager, and of course he is in Stan's room. Olive's innocent suggestion that he can have anything he wants when Arthur is out is misunderstood,leading to his eviction. Stan vows never to have another lodger,thereby turning down the opportunity to give a room to an attractive young lady.

Stan has an accident, sustaining an injury to his foot. Unfortunately for him, since it happened at home and not at work, he is told that he is not entitled to any form of compensation. Jack has an idea - to re-stage the accident at work so that Stan can make his claim. Sadly for them - and him - Blakey has the accident instead.

Stan's baser instincts are aroused when he sees Stella, the new canteen girl,bending over to clean the tables. He starts to date her but ends up by lending her money for her rent and fails to get her to stay the night. Ultimately he comes to see that she has been using him,spending the money on smart clothes in order to get a job in the general manager's office. She therefore feels it inappropriate to be seen going out with a mere bus driver.