On The Buses - Blakey - Stephen Lewis

before we started, so manager/worker relations were not too good, and we got loads of angles from that which I was to embody and put in to the part."

Was Stephen able to recall any funny or unusual incidents during the filming of the three feature films

"They were all funny. Some of them were quite dangerous. In 'Mutiny on the Buses' there's a scene in the bus garage where foam was used and I slipped in the foam and went into the pit under the bus. It was real foam we used to make it look good, you know, and I went completely under the foam. While I was down there waiting for the signal to come up I realised suddenly, how dangerous it was, because as I breathed in, the foam went into my throat, and I suddenly rose up and started to choke. I tried to get out of the pit but it was all slippery, and I kept slipping back.

More from Stephen Lewis

"I hate you Butler!" was the shows most famous catchphrase. Blakey was the man we loved to hate and there was no one Blakey hated more than Stan Butler. Blakey was played by Stephen Lewis. Stephen talks about the 'On The Buses' years and his more recent tv character - 'Smiler' in 'Last Of The Summer Wine'.

"On The Buses wasn't like work at all. It was great fun you know. The scripts were good and it was always worthwhile working on it. It was just easy, something the public knew about - buses. Everyone used to know about buses. We used to film in the street so we were always with the public, not like in a studio. We went to a real bus station in London to work, and London Transport wouldn't have us. They got a letter from London Transport at the beginning of the series saying that they felt it might damage their image. The director framed this letter and hung it in his office. We had to use Eastern National Bus Company (much laughter) which went out of Wood Green.

We had a lot of fun there because they'd had a sort of running strike for three months

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