When office shelving needed ‘Manchestering’

IAN MacMillan wrote recently on two topics relating to tools and their misuse.

I am reminded of being a 16-year-old office junior in the mortgage accounts department with the then Leeds Permanent Building Society. The head of the department was Reg Jessop, never happier than with either a snooker cue or claw hammer in his hand. The former is self-explanatory, the latter needs clarification.

It was a time of expansion requiring extra shelving to accommodate the many new mortgage schedules.

Reg insisted on tackling this himself – with my help. Nails were rarely used. A pricker made a small hole into which Reg would then insert a screw. This is where the claw hammer came in. Reg would give the screw a mighty wallop. If it went in well and good, if not it was recovered and a fresh one inserted.

When I questioned Reg over 
this unorthodox use of screws I was advised he was “Manchestering them”. I have never heard this term since and I was intrigued, working as I was in Leeds. Can anyone offer an explanation?

Later and a little older I would visit my favourite uncle in Battyeford in the heart of the old heavy woollen district. He was a down-to-earth, forthright character to whom I once remarked: “Tommy, you believe in calling a spade a spade don’t you?” To this he retorted: “Aye Bob lad, and sometimes I calls it a shovel!”