Open All Hours

- Season 2

(1981)

Nurse Gladys feels sorry for Granville, struggling to do the laundry by hand, and suggests to Arkwright that he buys a washing-machine. Arkwright wants to keep the affections of Gladys but does not want to spend too much money, so he makes sure she sees a brand new machine being delivered - which is then taken away and replaced by an elderly second hand one. Exposure follows.

Arkwright decides to take Nurse Gladys away to a hotel. This leaves Granville in a position to make his play for the milk round lady, but Arkwright, hands on as ever and never keen to be too far away from the shop, has booked himself and Nurse Gladys into a hotel just round the corner - where he has problems with an extra tight money belt.

Whilst Granville moans about the shop opening at dawn Arkwright bewails his inability to sell a load of fig biscuits and toilet rolls imprinted with biblical texts. The opportunity arises when regular customer Mavis mistakes the sepulchral voice of Granville in the cellar for a ghost advising her what to buy but sadly for Arkwright he falls through the open trap door and breaks his leg.

Tired of being seen around with the shabby Arkwright Nurse Gladys Emmanuel gives him an ultimatum and tells him that he must buy a new suit...or else.

In order to convince Nurse Gladys that he is a man of enterprise, Arkwright decides that he will invest in a mobile shop, to be driven around by Granville, but, given his customary meanness, the best that he can come up with is an old ice cream van, leading to Granville having a close encounter with some perishables.

To the envy of Granville who has never attended one,Arkwright is taking Nurse Gladys to a wedding and has taken his old suit out of moth-balls, but it still reeks of camphor. Nurse Gladys makes him hang it out of the car window as they drive along but the trousers end up under a tractor's wheels. Thank goodness Nurse Gladys is wearing a trouser suit.

Arkwright has always told Granville his father was a Hungarian but then a real Hungarian comes into the shop. Could it be him? Arkwright is more concerned that he may be a shop-lifter and hits on a cunning plan to part him from his jacket so that he can search the pockets for evidence. Welcome to the mythical feast day of St. Albert.