Not a person but similar years back a senior lecturer at the then Newcastle Polytechnic told me of the plan to rename it on becoming a university. Newcastle already had Newcastle university so they decided that the ‘City University of Newcastle upon Tyne’ sounded grand until someone pointed out that the Likely abbreviation used on Swearshirts etc might not be the best advert hence Northumbria university was born
At work I always know that my colleague has fobbed off sales people by giving them my direct dial and tell them to ask for Cairey Hunt! It still makes me laugh every time
In the 60's we had a metal work teacher called Mr Whitworth, so he got called 'Whitworth Fred' (Whitworth Thread, a now rare british standards thread before metric became all the rage)
Used to get Whitworth sized spanners as well, still got a couple somewhere. BSW, British Standard Whitworth, along with BSF, British Standard Fine.
Not forgetting BA threads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Association_screw_threads Used to be used a lot in fine engineering, now probably only used by model makers because of their tiny sizes
My nickname many years ago was Nightingale. I earned that after a party at a flying club where I woke up the next day on the couch with one of the bar staff (Abigail). The lads made a big thing about my having spent the night in 'Gail and thus Nightingale happened. This later got tempered to GaleForceEight for Internet forums since Nightingale is usually already taken. On the subject of Whitworth, I used to work on the Shorts Belfast aircraft... you needed three sets of tools because different parts had been designed by people who learned their trade in different parts of the world. Some bits were Whitworth/British Standard, some parts metric, and some Imperial.
True story - many years ago my dad was going for a job interview. The gentleman he was meeting was named Mr Bird, so as not to give the wrong impression - my dad reheased his name over and over in his head. Time for the meeting - in walks my father - "morning Mr Bugerigar " - seriously he never lived it down.
Were they the Heavy Lift ones, left at Southend to rot then broken for spares to keep the others flying? I think there is only 1 left at Cosford museum now.
I know a girl locally who used to be Adelle Thomas, until she married a local lad called Stephen Boydel!
Also, one of the lads at work was telling me the local boiler suit company who supplied our overalls came in and took everyones names for their suit and one of the lads gave his name as R Thurling and when his ovies came in they were embroidered Arthur Ling!
My parents must have thought I was extra special because they always called me "JESUS CHRIST" for a nickname. Like they'd yell at me: "Jesus Christ, what do you think are you doing on the roof with that umbrella? "JESUS CHRIST, why did you paint your younger brother green!!!" You know - times like that!
My parents must have thought I was extra special because they always called me "JESUS CHRIST" for a nickname. Like they'd yell at me: "Jesus Christ, what do you think are you doing on the roof with that umbrella? "JESUS CHRIST, why did you paint your younger brother green!!!" You know - times like that!
