Can anyone identify this old (BBC?) sitcom

This one has confused me for years, ever since I erroneously mistook it for Some Mothers Do Ave Em when I was a kid.

It'll have been produced in the 1970s or early 1980s, probably (but not necessarily) BBC.

This will have been one specific episode. In it, the main character used an old ice-cream van to sell vegetables (carrots and cabbages as I recall). At the end all hell broke loose (in typical bad BBC sitcom fashion) and the contents of the van ended up all over the road.

What the flippin 'eck was this programme? Answers on a postcard...

Was that not an episode of Open All Hours? Series 2, episode 5 to be precise?

Yep, it is. The episode is titled 'Arkwright's Mobile Store'.

Cheers. I thought my mind had been playing tricks with me!!

Must look out for this episode. Haven't seen them all by any means. With it being OAH it'll doubtless be a lot better than I remember!

Does make sense now you mention it.

Thanks very much, for a while now I'd thought my mind had made this one up!

Actually this wasn't the only time a brain-fart prevented me from enjoying a TV series in my youth (I was about 7 when this ep aired).

Another one was "The Great Egg Race" which I caught one episode of, loved it, then never saw it again because for some reason I got the title mixed up with Whistle Test, and of course from that standpoint was bitterly disappointed when I tuned in to said show.

With Professor Heinz Wolf? Yes, that was an awesome show.

How the heck did you get that confused with bore-fest Whistle Test?

I was seven years old. The names sounded similar.

The... Grey/Great... Test (I only heard the title at the end, mentioned I believe by Heinz himself -- his accent was hardly easy to understand!!).

I've seen it several times being shown on UKTV Gold.

Cheers -- but now that I know what it is, it has piqued my curiosity, so I have it torrented right now.

Remember seeing it on BBC Knowledge in the mornings at weekends, back when it was Knowledge and was on during the day.

Open All Hours was originally a pilot in 1973 then actually started as a series on BBC2 three years later in 1976. After Ronnie Barker stopped playing Fletcher he decided to go back to this sitcom. He said to Bill Cotton that he thought the series would be really popular if it moved to BBC1 and so it did. The second series was shown FIVE years later in 1981 and became a huge hit.

Further Thursday Trivia: The series of one-offs was originally meant to be "Six Of One" - six shows, all different, all starring Ronnie Barker. The characters went on to spawn Open All Hours, Porridge (episode Prisoner and Escort, an extra on Porridge series 2 DVD), and the Magnificent Evans. Apparently there was a toss-up between including the Magnificent Evans (Barker's personal favourite) and Open All Hours. So they included both, and the series was expanded to become "Seven Of One."