Off The Buses

This is most probably a post that should be marked 'for Brits only.'

I read today that the actor Reg Varney has died at the ripe old age of 92. Many of you may now be exclaiming 'Reg who?', but as one of the stars of On The Buses, he was one of the most familiar faces on British TV in the seventies, playing the character of bus driver Stan Butler. On The Buses was a classic British working class sitcom, and it actually still gets shown over here in Canada from time to time, rather incongruously on Vision TV, a station that mainly broadcasts religious programming. Ironically though, in the novel The Garden Of Unearthly Delights by Robert Rankin, On The Buses has become the basis of a religious cult in the distant future, so maybe this is a case of life imitating art, or something like that?

And here is a most interesting piece of trivia (well, I find it interesting):

Did you know that Reg Varney was the first ever person to withdraw cash from an ATM? Quite why Mr Varney was afforded such a privilege I simply don't know, but when Barclays installed the first ever ATM at its branch in the London borough of Enfield in 1967, it was he who made the first withdrawal.

Thanks for the laughs, Reg.