The only occasion during the time I had the pleasure of working with Dave when he was lost for words: Picture the scene, a hot summer's afternoon in the early 1980s, Medium Section Mill in the middle weekend of stop period. We were at the stage of 'non-visible progress', with all the stripping out done and items of plant steadily being refurbished ready for reassembly. Dave and I were at the cold end, walking across the top of one of the piling machines. As we approached a hole where a floorplate had been removed there was a lengthy burst of loud hammering from below. We looked down and saw one of the young contractor fitters who'd been drafted in to help with the workload. There was another burst of loud hammering. Realising all was not well, Dave decided to motivate the lad. During the next pause in hammering Dave called out "Are those pins an interference fit in there, mate?" Without looking up, the response came straight back, "Don't f*cking ask me f*cking technical questions, I'm a f*cking butcher by trade!" What could we say? We had to support each other all the way back to the office for laughing.