You may be familiar with or have used or still use the phrases ‘knock off’, ‘fast and loose’ and ‘happy hour’. What you might not know is what the three phrases have in common. A hint: they all emanate from a single source – actually, from a single industry. You might not be that familiar with the industry because, as far as I know, South Africa has never had such an industry. However, depending on your age, you may be familiar with or have seen its products.

The irony of this industry is that it is no longer in existence, having been confined to history by its plastic equivalent. Yet we are at a time in our planet’s history where finding a replacement for plastic is imperative. Talk about going back to the future! Even more ironical is that, although the product in question is made of wood and is thus biodegradable, and the manufacturing process is not only sustainable but also environment friendly, the product can never be resurrected in its past form. Even if it ever returns, it will not be as carbon neutral as it was in the past.

On the morning of the semifinal of the Rugby World Cup, when the Springboks took on Japan, the host nation, I was many miles from Japan, standing inside what is now a working museum, a mill built in 1835. It still produces, but only on occasion. It is the sole remaining mill of over 65 such mills that operated in the Lake District of Northern England.

Owned and run by English Heritage, the Stott Park Bobbin Mill is a nineteenth-century bobbin mill that manufactured wooden bobbins for the weaving and spinning industry. A bobbin is a cylinder or cone that holds thread, yarn or wire and is mostly used in weaving and machine sewing.

Depending on your age, you may have endured many a frustrating hour of what is known as French knitting, or tubular knitting. The wooden bobbin, with four nails at the top, served as an introduction to knitting and, yes, the Stott Park Bobbin Mill does sell these knitting kits. But, alas, I am still healing from my childhood knitting scars, so I passed up the knitting bobbin.

Back to the three phrases. To ‘knock off’, within the context of work, means to finish work. In the mill, you find an array of pulleys of varying sizes that are used in conjunction to change the rotation. When making bobbins, one could not simply switch the mill on and off. When the day’s work was done, the workers would use a piece of wood to knock the drive belt off the moving pulley and on to the stationary pulley.

As for ‘fast and loose’, in the mill there were pulleys that were solidly attached (‘fast’) to the shaft and adjacent pulleys that turned freely (‘loose’) on the shaft known as ‘idlers’. Any misjudgement normally had detrimental implications. Thus, being reckless or irresponsible was described as acting ‘fast and loose’.

The last of the three phrases, ‘happy hour’, which you might wrongly have assumed to have originated in a bar or at a club, also has its origins in the bobbin mill. It referred to the last hour on a Friday afternoon, when the bobbin’s weekly production ended, and the bobbins had to be painted. The paint applied was very toxic. Consequently, workers became intoxicated, getting ‘high’ on the paint fumes. Owing to this resultant state, the hour came to be known as the happy hour.