Please don't think me daft but, I've noticed Vince always calls his mother - 'Reet' or 'Rita' and not 'Mum' as would be expected. I always thought/felt she was Vince's Dad's second wife and that their natural child was 'cliffy-babe'?
shareRita is his natural mother. I watched an episode yesterday on UKTV Drama in which Rita says to Penny,(who at the time believes herself to be pregnant), "Go private, babe. I had Vince on the National Health, but Cliffy-babe was private." Mystery solved! Incidentally, I had a friend who always called his father by his name and not "dad", so Vince is not alone.
shareThanks 'odde63' for reminding me of that exchange. Of course, I know some British people call their natural parents by their first name. I think what fooled me was the fact that, I can't recollect Vince calling his dad by his name. Moreover, his dad always seem to refer to 'mum' as 'Rita' or 'Rite'.
No problem christopher sargeant. As I said in my reply, my mate called his dad by his first name and I also knew other people sho called either/both parents by their names as well. It may be a British perculiarity. John Sullivan is such an "in touch" writer and I think he was simply illustrating a British working-class trait. I also hope you agree with me that Jan Francis, whilst always being a beauty, was simply stunning in the third and final series? She simply blossomed into a gorgeous creature.
shareYes, she always looked very fanciable to me too and reminds me of a girlfriend I had around that time, except mine had larger knockers...
I'm looking forward to the release of sries 3 + Xmas special during 2007 on DVD.
One thing that hasn't changed over the years - Vince's jokes about Spurs are still as relevant today as they were then...!
Christopher, you lucky man!
shareAnn Lynn played Rita in Just Good Friends and she didn't play Hilda in Ever Decreasing Circles. However she did pop up again in John Sullivan's biggest hit 'Only Fools and Horses' playing Raquel's mum in 'Time On Our Hands' (the one where they finally become millionaires).
She's not credited as such, but she's also the voice of Del and Rodney's Mum in the final scene of that episode where Del remembers his life in the flat. It was strange because I had always imagined Del's Mum to be like Rita from 'Just Good Friends' and Sullivan must have asked Ann Lynn to do the voice over as perhaps he imagined her the same way!
I always found Vince calling Rita by her first name a bit odd. If it hadn't been for the episode in Series 2 where she talks about her two pregnancies, as mentioned above, I would have assumed she was his stepmum. I don't know about it being a British thing, I'm British & I've never come across it - not that I'm saying it doesn't happen. But also, you'd think he'd call BOTH Les & Rita the same thing, ie "Mum" & "Dad", OR "Les" & "Rita", rather than combine the two. Strange.
What Glasgow says today, the rest of the world tries to pronounce tomorrow