A beer pump handle shaped like a knife in memory of a master cutler whose clients included the Queen and Elvis Presley has been withdrawn after a single complaint.
The Little Mesters Brewing Company in Sheffield created a beer called Stan IPA in honour of Stan Shaw who had an 80 year career creating bespoke pocket and pen knives in the city.
The ale is served in local pubs with a handle shaped like a pocket knife and with a tap clip featuring an image of Stan, who died in 2021 aged 94, holding a knife.
But they have now been withdrawn following a single complaint that they 'encourage violence.'
And alcohol industry regulator The Portman Group agreed the logo is likely to promote anti-social behaviour and support knife crime so will have to be changed.
The Little Mesters Brewing Company in Sheffield created a beer called Stan IPA in honour of Stan Shaw who had an 80 year career creating bespoke pocket and pen knives in the city.
The ale is served in local pubs with a handle shaped like a pocket knife and with a tap clip featuring an image of Stan, who died in 2021 aged 94, holding a knife.
But they have now been withdrawn following a single complaint that they 'encourage violence.'
And alcohol industry regulator The Portman Group agreed the logo is likely to promote anti-social behaviour and support knife crime so will have to be changed.
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FunTranscript
00:00Could you tell me what a Little Mester is, please?
00:03Well, he's a gentleman who works for himself.
00:06He doesn't work for the company, but he makes work.
00:09He's an out-worker. He's got his own little workshop and so on.
00:12And in them days, they had to work from home because
00:15they'd come to poor rents for working in companies.
00:18They'd fetch all the materials, take it home.
00:21And they used to generally walk home.
00:23They didn't get on public transport like a bus or anything.
00:27And they'd walk home, do the knives,
00:30then take them back the following week to the firm they'd been making them for.
00:34And they'd get this name.
00:36It's not Mr. So-and-so.
00:39It was Mr. So-and-so.
00:41And he got the name.
00:44He's a Little Mester.
00:46So when you said that, you knew he made knives, you know.
00:51I found this little place on Rockingham Street.
00:54And I went on my own.
00:56The Germans had bombed Sheffield shortly before that.
01:01And I walked through and bombed rubble and stuff.
01:04And I saw this little place, George Emerson Company, Rockingham Street.
01:09And I went up the stairs and knocked on the door.
01:12And there's a chap, all posh, dressed up.
01:14He says,
01:15Now then, lad, what's the want?
01:17I says, I want to join Mr. Emerson.
01:19He says, what do you want to do?
01:21I says, I want to make them knives there.
01:23And I'd seen these knives as I'd gone into the room.
01:26He says, I'd like to make knives.
01:28He says, do you know anything about them?
01:30I says, I don't. I says, I want to learn.
01:32So he says, this little old fella.
01:34And he says, tell me, this lad wants to make knives.
01:37Will you have him?
01:38So he says, if he wants to make knives, I'll have him.
01:41And I started to follow him under.
01:43Started learning how to make knives.
01:46And I took to it like a duck to water.
01:49And I've been doing it all these years.
01:5276 years.
01:54And if the knife's like this,
01:56a one-bladed pocket knife,
02:00I might make a dozen or so at once.
02:03But when I'm making maybe special knives,
02:05I make one at once.
02:06It costs thousands of pounds, some of them.
02:09And they're old and in natural material,
02:12like real pearl, real staggered, real ivory.
02:17I cut old ivory dust up.
02:20Old tortoiseshell, buffalo horn.
02:23No plastics or things like that.
02:26And I make everything by hand.
02:28By hand, file and sawing and hammering and stuff.
02:31So they're purely and simply handmade.
02:33And if you're making one of about 2,000 quid,
02:36it takes you a month or so to do them, you know.
02:41I go to people who sell steel.
02:45She sells steel.
02:46I go up Spitlittle, there's a place that sells steel.
02:50I go up there, order some sheets of steel.
02:53And instead of me cutting it up myself,
02:57I would cut it in strips so that I can handle it.
03:00I couldn't get a sheet of steel on my bench.
03:03So I would cut it up in pieces for me.
03:06And then I'd start from there.
03:08Whatever shape the blade is,
03:11I've got to do everything by hand then.
03:14After the raw material, you see.
03:16So it takes time.
03:18It takes hours and hours and hours.
03:20And you've got to know what you're doing
03:22so you don't waste anything, you know.
03:24And I've had these ever since I was 14 years of age,
03:27these hammers.
03:28Couldn't buy one in a shop, you know what I mean.
03:31So you need hammers and files.
03:33You see a pile of files I've got,
03:35different sizes and shapes to do different jobs, you know.
03:38But it's all hand, everything's hand done, you see.
03:41And I have a four-year waiting list.
03:44And I'm 91, as I said, a couple of weeks down.
03:47So time's running out for me, really.
03:50It is a fascinating story, really,
03:52because it's more by accident than the design
03:55that I'm doing this.
03:57And I've been at this ever since, all these years.
04:00And I love doing it.
04:02I wouldn't have ever changed, you know,
04:04if I had me time to come over again.
04:06And I was fit and able-bodied like most people.
04:10I still don't want to do the same.