BBC expenses were easy-going in the early 80s.

Producer Paul Watson might not get away these days with an item such as To: pouring several pints of Matthew Brown mild down Jack Eccles and his pals.

Night after night. For about four months.

Yes, it was Vox Pop time. Exactly 25 years ago when the regular Tuesday evening half-hour programme entertained, puzzled and annoyed the whole country.

It certainly divided Darwen.

Half thought it sent up the town just a bit too much; others thought it a right laugh.

Jack wasn't complaining. "Wi did o' reyt aht of it," grinned the former Belgrave shop steward.

And the programme-makers certainly did very well out of him and his pals, roofer Harvey Kay and boilerman Ted Pickup.

Mention Vox Pop to anyone who was around in the early months of 1983 and you get a response along the lines of: "Oh, yeah - Jack Eccles in the Highfield; Rendall Allen in the Underpants!"

Pressed, they quickly recall Stocky and his punk pals, company boss Alex Smith posing over dinner at his home well away from the stink from his lard refinery, the Young Conservatives guffawing round the bar at the Whitehall, the Cemetery gang, and businessman Jim Hirst muttering something about the sun being over the yard-arm . . .

It was wonderful, knockabout, class-divide comedy masquerading as an insight into what ordinary folk thought about life in general and that week's happenings in particular.

It went out at 7.40pm on a Tuesday, after Dr Who and before Terry and June.

Jack happily downed BBC pints and gave vociferous opinion on everything, from the role of the woman in modern society (In t' kitchen i' front o' t' stove) to the role of the police in fighting crime (Guns! Nay, wi aren't gonna give 'em guns are wi?) "We got away wi' murder," Jack, 67, recalled.

"Things we couldn't mention today; we'd be locked up.

"There were none of this politically correct crap then.

"They used to fire pint after pint dehn us and then throw us leadin' questions.

"They didn't want shrinkin' violets. I gave 'em both barrels."

Not everyone was enthralled by Jack's joking; especially the bit about a woman's place being in the kitchen.

"He got hate mail from all over," recalled his wife Sybil.

"And he got plenty of stick at work."

Producer Watson has always been controversial. He knew just what he wanted from Vox Pop and got it.

Former mayor Rendall, a nice bloke, gave us one of television's most cringing dive-behind-the-settee moments as he exercised in his underpants on his lounge carpet.

The Vox Pop crew always piled into the Eccles' home to watch the programmes and they fell about laughing. Poor Ren.

They have radio interviews and activities lined up at their Blackburn offices over the next fortnight and Vox Pop clips will be shown on TV and on the BBC website.

Was I in it? Puh-leese!