大象传媒

Antoher annual tradition took place on the first day of April, when everyone took the risk of becoming an innocent victim of one of several amusing April Fool's day pranks.
This was the day when the mischevious skilled tradesmen took a great delight in embarassing their young apprentices by sending them to the stores for such imaginary objects as a "left-handed screw-driver", a "tin of Elbow Grease", a "tin of striped paint" or a new "bubble for the spirit level".

A young newly-married housewife could fall for the trick of being sent to the fishmongers for a "red herring", whilst a young apprentice overlooker (tackler) in the textile mills would have to be very careful that he didn't end up in the boiler house (fire 'oyle), asking for a "bucket of steam"!

It was, however, the "Manchester Screw-Driver" con trick that appealed mostly to my sense of humour, because the innocent new apprentices would become completely baffled when the store-keeper gave them a hammer, instead of a screw-driver.

The story of the Manchester screw-driver comes from the city of Manchester, where the joiners had the reputation of hammering screws into wood, instead of using a screw-driver. Although the lad had probably just started his apprenticeship, he did know the difference between a hammer and a screw-driver - and this was why he ended up back at his bench, empty-handed. Unfortunately, this meant that the poor lad was greeted with a barrage of foul and obscene language and vulgar expletives from an irate toolmaker - all in fun, of course, as it was all part of the prank!

Although the time-served tradesmen gave the young lads plenty of embarrassing moments during their 7 years, some of the apprentices had a mischevious streak in them which enabled them to embarrass the older men employed in the toolroom. One humourous prank played on the store-keeper was to put a small blob of "Engineer's Blue" on the earpiece of the telephone. This was a dark blue paste similar to boot polish, and it meant that a small blob of this blue paste would spread and practically cover the earpiece on the storeroom telephone. The next time it was used, the store-keeper would unknowingly end up with a blue ear!!

My favourite April Fool prank was the mayhem created by a dare-devil apprentice friend of mine, who had the audacity and cheek to replace the liquid soap in the glass dispensers in the washroom with a look-alike machine oil. When the men went to wash their hands at lunchtime, there was absolute chaos as the men became frustrated as to why they couldn't get a soapy lather to clean their filthy habds. As I witnessed this amazing scene, I had tears of laughter streaming down my cheeks as I heard the men cussing and swearing when they eventually realised they had been well and truly April Fooled.

I cannot print what these irate men threatened to do with the culprit, if they ever found out who was responsible for this superb hoax!!

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