Bottle Boys

Star of the oh-so-British series of saucy Confessions movies, Robin Askwith, was the leading man in Bottle Boys, portraying an accident-prone, football-mad milkman doing the rounds for Dawson Diaries, based in south London. His fellow milkmen were blokish and berkish - among them Jock the boozy Scotsman, teddy-boy Billy Watson and Joe the obligatory black, while Stan was the Welsh-born depot manager and Sharon his big-boobed, unable-to-type secretary. The series was predictably high on low-brow humour and slapstick, but, while his impish grin was much in evidence, viewers were at least spared the famed Askwith derriere that had loomed so large and so often on British cinema screens in the 1970s. They were, however, treated to the sight of the actor sporting chicken and cow costumes (don't ask) and performing such dangerous stunts as clinging from a sixth-floor parapet and meeting Mrs Thatcher (not the real one, of course). It is with a certain degree of relief that one notes that, reputedly, Bottle Boys was despised within ITV circles and its lack of political correctness was the last straw for certain of its comedy executives. ITV sitcoms had often plumbed the depths, but this was the limit.