ONLY FACTS and HORSES

THE BBC wanted to quietly drop it after the first series...yet Only Fools And Horses went on to become one of the best-loved shows in TV history, with its poignant final episode watched by 24 million people. Now in the week when Radio Times readers voted the show our best-ever sitcom, author STEVE CLARK reveals 50 little-known facts from his new book about Del Boy, Rodders and the rest of the gang...

WRITER John Sullivan only wrote the series because he was desperate for cash after his first comedy, Citizen Smith, ended and his next show Over The Moon, about a run-down soccer team, was cancelled.

HE'D already mentioned his idea for a comedy series about a market trader to the BBC a couple of years before and they'd rejected it out of hand.

The show was originally called Readies because Del Trotter deals in ready cash. Other names considered included Big Brother. It became Only Fools and Horses despite opposition from BBC executives.

Nicholas Lyndhurst was first to be cast, as dopey Rodney. He was just 19 and had found fame as gangly teenager Adam in the hit Carla Lane comedy Butterflies.

DAVID Jason would never have played Del Boy, but for a stroke of bad luck in 1967 when he was offered the part of bumbling Corporal Jones in Dad's Army after Clive Dunn (right) turned it down. Jason, who was only 27 but building a reputation for playing old men, was devastated when Dunn changed his mind and the job offer was withdrawn after only three hours.

WHEN he read the first Only Fools and Horses script Jason thought the BBC might want him to play Grandad - but he was always determined to be in the show. "I thought it was one of the funniest things I'd ever read," he says. "I couldn't wait to turn over the page."

JIM Broadbent or Enn Reitel (later to be one of the main voices on the satirical puppet show Spitting Image) were first choices for the role of Del Boy, but they were too busy. Then Robin Nedwell of Doctor In The House (above right) and Billy Murray, now DS Don Beech in The Bill, (below right) were also considered.

IN the end, producer Ray Butt cast David Jason, then starring in Open All Hours, despite some strong reservations from BBC management and Sullivan, who weren't totally convinced that he was really the right man for the role of Del Boy.

JASON is a real-life Londoner and son of a Billingsgate fish porter and a charlady. "I come from the same sorts of roots as Del," he says. "We both come from poor working-class families and we went to the same sort of school. But from then on we go our own separate ways. For example, he's far more confident than I ever was. He's got more front than Blackpool and I'm not like that."

BEFORE becoming an actor, David worked as an electrician, and that's when he met the man who later gave him inspiration when he brought the character of Del to life. "Derek Hockley ran a building firm and had contracts to do pubs all over the East End," David recalls. "He was always immaculately dressed and had a sharp suit and all the jewellery. But I could never get over the fact he looked that smart but spoke gorblimey Cockney with an accent you could cut with a knife."

THE first episode of Only Fools and Horses was broadcast on BBC1 at 8.30pm on Tuesday September 8, 1981, sandwiched between The Rockford Files and The Nine O'clock News. Viewing figures for the first episode were a respectable 9.2 million - but they went down for the rest of series and by the end of the run, BBC bosses wanted to drop it.

IT survived and became hugely popular, going on to run for 15 years and 61 episodes. A staggering 24.3 million people watched the last episode on December 29th 1996.

THE idea that Del and Rodney don't look like brothers was deliberate, and was meant to suggest they might not have the same father. At one point during casting the BBC considered making one of them of mixed race.

Jason and Lyndhurst had met before they began working together on Only Fools and Horses. Lyndhurst had interviewed him about his series Lucky Feller when he presented an LWT kid's programme called Our Show.

THE original costume design for Del Boy saw him with a beer belly, dyed, blow-dried hair, tight trousers and built-up heels in his shoes.

WITH one exception Del's jewellery is all fake and had to be replaced between series because the gold paint just rubbed off. The exception is his necklace with the letter D on it which was specially made for pounds 70.

SULLIVAN got the idea for the phrase "New York - Paris - Peckham" on Del's yellow three-wheeler van after seeing London - Paris - New York on a packet of Dunhill cigarettes.

DEL'S van is a Reliant Regal Supervan III, which hasn't been made for more than 30 years and is now a collector's item.

AROUND 200,000 1:43 scale die-cast replicas of the van have been sold by model car makers Lledo - making it their biggest seller of all time.

THE classic episode A Touch Of Glass in which a chandelier crashed to the floor was inspired by a real-life incident involving Sullivan's father. "My dad was on a ladder with his mates installing a central heating system and the young guy upstairs undid the wrong bolt. Seven men got the sack, including my dad."

JIM Broadbent, who had turned down the role of Del in 1981, starred as bent copper Detective Inspector Roy Slater in three episodes and in the 1991 episode was revealed as Raquel's estranged husband.

DEL and Rodney's father Reg made just one appearance - in a Christmas 1983 episode. He was played by actor Peter Woodthorpe. "It was good having Reg Trotter come into the series because it showed what a complete and total s*** he was," says Jason.

LINES that got a big laugh were called "Wendys" after a joke that brought the house down. After Rodney told Grandad (Lennard Pearce, right) he'd set up a self-catering holiday company with only pounds 200, Grandad said: "What have you got? A Wendy house."

TRAGEDY struck the show in 1984 when Lennard died after suffering a heart attack. Instead of replacing him, a new character, Uncle Albert, played by Buster Merryfield, (right) was introduced.

HE got the part because the show's producer Ray Butt thought he looked like Captain Birdseye from the fish fingers TV ads.

BUSTER had been a bank manager for 40 years before becoming a professional actor when he retired. Buster is not his real Christian name - and he's vowed never to reveal the real one.

JASON says that the show's team briefly considered bringing in a new female character, Auntie Doris, instead of a man. But he says: "You couldn't say, 'Shut up you old git' to a woman or bundle her into the back of the van."

SULLIVAN failed his 11-plus and had a string of temporary jobs including car-cleaner, messenger, brewery hand, car salesman and plumber.

IT was while working in the BBC props department that he plucked up the courage to approach a producer about an idea he had about a revolutionary from Tooting. They liked it and it became Citizen Smith, his first TV hit.

THE original Nelson Mandela House was Harlech Tower in Acton, North London but after the show became a hit filming was switched to Bristol to avoid the fans. MOVIE star Anthony Hopkins (right) is one of the show's biggest fans. A part was written for him for a 1989 episode, but he was forced to pull out because he was busy shooting Silence Of The Lambs in the United States - for which he won an Oscar.

ONE of viewers' favourite gags - the fact that Del's Trotter Independent Traders spells "TIT" - was not intentional. "It was a pure accident," admits John Sullivan.

DURING the Gulf War, the team made a video for the British armed forces. A special Reliant van was decked out in brown and yellow desert camouflage with a machine gun on the roof and the legend "New York - Paris - Kuwait" on the side.

SULLIVAN planned to blow up the van in one script but was talked out of the idea when it was pointed out that he couldn't realistically give Del another one.

THE Royal Family are big fans of the show and they regularly requested advance copies of episodes before they were shown. The Queen Mother (right) even joined in a sketch at the 1986 Royal Variety Show when the Trotters arrived on stage and Del addressed a cheeky remark to the Royal Box. "She started to do the Royal wave," says Jason. "I couldn't believe it. Everybody fell about. Bless her cotton socks - perhaps she'd been on the gin and tonics by then, but for whatever reason, she did it."

PLAYING Del Boy didn't stop Jason being stitched up by real-life market traders. "I went to this place in Dubai where they sell cheap perfume," he says. "They had every single scent in the world, all with the right label and bottle. I bought half a dozen bottles for a fiver. Later I found out it was nothing more than water with a drop of the real stuff in it. When you take the top off it smells OK but a few days afterwards it smells like cabbage water. I threw it all away."

FORMER choirboy Aled Jones (right) who sang Walking In The Air in Raymond Briggs' cartoon The Snowman, was among 100 drama students hired to plays rioters in the episode Fatal Extraction.

SULLIVAN got the ideas for Del's daft French phrases from anywhere from sauce bottles to clothes labels. When he says "Bonjour", he means goodbye and "Au Revoir" means hello. One of Del's favourite phrases, "bonnet de douche", came about after Sullivan spotted it in a Ramsgate hotel room. It means shower cap!

LOVELY Jubbly was the slogan for an ice-lolly in the 1950s and 60s. Cushty comes from the days of the Raj when a posting to Custibar in India meant an easy life away from battles.

FIFTY-MINUTE episodes were introduced after Jason and Sullivan decided to quit if they weren't extended from 30 minutes as so much good material was being wasted.

IN 1986 Jason planned to quit the show in order to do other work and the BBC planned a spin-off series centred on Rodney called Hot Rod.

LYNDHURST once met a real Rodney-type plonker, who shouted at him in the street and then drove his car straight into the van in front.

GWYNETH Strong, who plays Rodney's wife Cassandra, thought she was going to be in only one episode - but became a regular when John Sullivan decided to make Cassie and Rodney a proper item.

TESSA Peake-Jones, as Del's girl Raquel, stripped to stockings and suspenders as a kissagram girl in her first episode.

WHEN the show needed a new-born baby to play Del and Raquel's son Damien, a member of the production team went into a maternity ward and said, "Hands up who's had a baby in the last hour and is prepared to lend it to the BBC?"

THERE have been no less than five Damiens in the series. New-born baby Patrick McManus, Grant Stevens, Robert Liddement, Jamie Smith and Douglas Hodge, who played him as an adult in the episode Heroes and Villains. Douglas is Tessa's real-life partner.

THE antique watch that made Del and Rodney multi-millionaires in the final episode did exist and really is missing. Anyone who found it would be in for a huge windfall.

THE entire cast say they are still willing to do more episodes but the chances of more are said to be only a possibility.

THE BBC costume department is spending pounds 10 a week to store the outfits from the show, giving hope to the millions who would like to see the show return one more time...maybe for a Millennium Special.

IN the meantime, David Jason is holding on to his own souvenirs - two bottles of Peckham Spring Water and one of Del's caps.

THE Only Fools And Horses Story by Steve Clark is published by BBC Worldwide Ltd at pounds 12.99. Call 01624 675137 to order a copy.

Copyright 1998 MGN LTD
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.