Only Fools and Horses’ John Challis shares favourite holiday and how hotel owner worried he would ‘run off with their daughter’
The actor who plays Boycie in Only Fools and Horses has revealed his favourite spot to go on holiday and a clash he had with one hotel manager.
John Challis played Herman Terrance Aubrey “Boycie” Boyce from 1981 to 2003 as well as having his own spin-off The Green Green Grass (2005—2009).
During the 78-year-old’s time on the show and ever since he has travelled as much as he can, although he confesses that he really hates flying.
“I’ve always been terrified of it and sit there rigid in my chair until we touch down,” John told the Daily Mail.
Still, he has had his fair share of travels around the globe. He talks about some of his earliest, best and worst experiences.
His first holiday memory was going to Weston-super-Mare, but outside of the UK it was an exchange trip to a holiday camp in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, France when he was 15 in the late 1950s.
“The idea was to get fit, and there was a lot of jumping up and down on the beach. But it had a touch of the PoW camp about it because there was a fence to stop us getting out,” said John.
But of all the places he’s ever been since, he reckons Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, was his favourite.
“Only Fools And Horses is huge there, so wherever I went people were calling out, ‘Hey, Boycie!’” he said.
When he goes to visit there his favourite hotel to stay in is the Zepter in the centre of town and loved to got to the Serbian Orthodox Temple of Saint Sava for its mosaics, he says.
On the flip side, he talks about his experience with the hotel from hell.
“In my early days as an actor I saw a sign in a Glasgow B&B saying, ‘No theatricals’. A lot of guesthouse owners thought actors never paid, were always drunk and would run off with their daughter,” John said.
He is planning to travel to Devon, Dorset and the Jurassic Coast this summer then across America next year if it’s possible to by then.
John jokes that his character Boycie would be a “nightmare” to travel with, “complaining about the service and always looking for special treatment.”
He said Boycie’s dream holiday “would involve holding court in a fancy hotel restaurant and moaning about ‘foreigners.’”
