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Hi From Switzerland


GillMar

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I've read a number of the threads on here over the last year, by Googling, and today I registered.

I was born in Cheshire but my grandfather was born in Rotherham of German immigrants. His father was a pork butcher who unfortunately died when he was 40. He was from the Hohenlohe area in Germany, as was my great grandmother and other relations of theirs, most of them pork butchers.

The only concrete connection I have to Sheffield today is in my cutlery drawer!! When my parents died, I brought over the stainless steel Sheffield cutlery which I use everday - it beats all the Swiss cutlery by far.

I'm looking forward to "meeting" you all.

Gill

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Hello GillMar and welcome to the Site

Lots of German Pork butchers around "way back when". Funks of Hillsborough was my local.

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Hello GillMar and welcome to the Site

Lots of German Pork butchers around "way back when". Funks of Hillsborough was my local.

And there continue to be an amazing number of Pork Sandwich shops around! Though it seems to be pronounced "pooerk"

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The only concrete connection I have to Sheffield today is in my cutlery drawer!! When my parents died, I brought over the stainless steel Sheffield cutlery which I use everday - it beats all the Swiss cutlery by far.

I'm looking forward to "meeting" you all.

Gill

Welcome to Sheffield History Gillmar and thank you for posting.

I take it from this comment that you have Sheffield Cutlery in your kitchen drawer and a Swiss Army knife in your pocket. lol

Or is it a Sheffield penknife as well?

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And there continue to be an amazing number of Pork Sandwich shops around! Though it seems to be pronounced "pooerk"

Coorse its pronounced pooerk, as da got beef wi me or summat, - us Sheffield lads allus call it pooerk lol

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Welcome to Sheffield History Gillmar and thank you for posting.

I take it from this comment that you have Sheffield Cutlery in your kitchen drawer and a Swiss Army knife in your pocket. lol

Or is it a Sheffield penknife as well?

I saw this one coming after I mentioned Sheffield Cutlery lol

To all of you, thank you for the welcome.

Gill

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I saw this one coming after I mentioned Sheffield Cutlery lol

To all of you, thank you for the welcome.

Gill

My grandad had a "special" Sheffield penknife which he kept in his pocket and only used for one purpose.

He used to eat an apple a day without the outer skin and he used the knife to peel his apple, remove the core and pips and slice the rest up into mouth sized pieces.

Now, had we been in Switzerland he would have probably put the apple on my head and then tried to shoot it off with a crossbow! he he

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My grandad had a "special" Sheffield penknife which he kept in his pocket and only used for one purpose.

He used to eat an apple a day without the outer skin and he used the knife to peel his apple, remove the core and pips and slice the rest up into mouth sized pieces.

Now, had we been in Switzerland he would have probably put the apple on my head and then tried to shoot it off with a crossbow! he he

And you might have been a goner lol

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And you might have been a goner lol

Well, had we been in Switzerland it is possible I could have got him off eating apples and got him into eating blocks of chocolate shaped like the Alps lol

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Well, had we been in Switzerland it is possible I could have got him off eating apples and got him into eating blocks of chocolate shaped like the Alps lol

I wondered what you meant for a while by the chocolate shaped like Alps until the "Cent" dropped!!

I am very happy here but I miss the English sense of humour, the black type!!

I was on my way home from work with three Swiss girls once and and I asked them "What is the smallest book in the world?" Blackout! I told them "A book on Swiss humour".

"That's not true Frau Schuler", said one of them "I was in the bookshop the other day and saw quite a large book on Swiss jokes."

There's nowt so ***** as folk!!

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I wondered what you meant for a while by the chocolate shaped like Alps until the "Cent" dropped!!

I am very happy here but I miss the English sense of humour, the black type!!

I was on my way home from work with three Swiss girls once and and I asked them "What is the smallest book in the world?" Blackout! I told them "A book on Swiss humour".

"That's not true Frau Schuler", said one of them "I was in the bookshop the other day and saw quite a large book on Swiss jokes."

There's nowt so queer as folk!!

It's not just chocolate you know, it's a cult !! ;-)

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I wondered what you meant for a while by the chocolate shaped like Alps until the "Cent" dropped!!

I am very happy here but I miss the English sense of humour, the black type!!

I was on my way home from work with three Swiss girls once and and I asked them "What is the smallest book in the world?" Blackout! I told them "A book on Swiss humour".

"That's not true Frau Schuler", said one of them "I was in the bookshop the other day and saw quite a large book on Swiss jokes."

There's nowt so queer as folk!!

Switzerland, like Belgium, has reputation for fine, high quality chocolate.

We went to Italy for our holidays last year so had to pass through Switzerland to get there. It was a bit boring by road as the country seems to one big network of underground road tunnels under the Alps so there isn't a deal to see.

We did make a few stops at very expensive service stations for necessary toiletries and food.

Got to admit we did come back with a hell of a lot of chocolate.

Also got to admit I don't know any Swiss jokes, - then again most of Europe seems to lack our style of "British" humour and they don't seem to appreciate it either. Perhaps it doesn't translate very well.

Which reminds me,

The British have a series of jokes which start off "There was this Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman....."

Whatever happens in the joke it always makes out that Irishmen are dead thick (really stupid to the uninitiated)

I have been told that in Scandinavia there are a series of similar jokes which start off "There was this Norweigian, Swede and Dane..."

But no one seems to know which of these 3 countries is portrayed as the "thick" one.

Perhaps their version of the jokes are so unfunny and lacking humour that you just can't tell.

..and when that happens in a joke it just deteriorates into a set of unfounded unnecessary insults.

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Switzerland, like Belgium, has reputation for fine, high quality chocolate.

Switzerland is famous for Army Knives, Chocolate, and clocks and watches.

The Swiss watch industry seems to have gone the way of Sheffield's cutlery industry, - taken over by the Japanese.

There was a time when a mechanical Swiss watch was the best you can get (probably still is, - like Sheffield cutlery), - an accurate ticking timepiece with a 17 jewel Incabloc patent mechanism holding time to a high level of accuracy.

then it all went digital and electronic. The Swiss companies, now suffering with the advance of new technology, regrouped and amalgamated into a "SWiss wATCH" company which then made electronic watches called "SWATCH" (That's a bit like the German LEItz CAmera company making a camera called the LEICA, or the NIppon KONica (Japanese for "Japanese Camera" making one called NIKON)

Although SWATCH watches are highly collectable and have appeal for younger people I personally don't like them. They can appear ugly, they are overpriced, and I much prefer the elegance of a traditional Swiss watch.

Having said that I work as a teacher and in my form of 28 Year 11 students (15-16 year olds) only myself and 2 of the lads wear a watch. All the others just get the time from their mobile phone so perhaps the days of a wristwatch of any description are numbered. :(

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