Penknives, pocket-knives, folding-knives – there was a time when every man would carry one, and indeed lots of kids. “Quelle horreur!”, you gasp. Kids, with knives? Yes, in the old days, pocket knives were ubiquitous, and even school kids might have carried one, along with their conkers, matches, cigarettes, and glue bags.

You could divide knives into two camps – the not-so-pointy, and the pointy. I’ll let you into a good use for the not-so-pointy ( generally called lambsfoot or sheepsfoot ) at the end of this article.

On folding knives in general, let me give you a normal domestic example. My grandad ( born 1910, died 1987 ) was a forklift lift truck driver at the local factory. Whilst the 1970s was a time of social change, not much had changed in the sleepy fenland village where they lived. At lunchtime, he would cycle home, and my poor long suffering grandma would make his lunch. When I stayed with them, I invariably spent a lot of time watching my grandma doing tedious household chores, so I would be very pleased to see my grandad. I would watch him and pester him with questions – “Why do cars need gears? What is parrafin? Can I go in the garage and play with the spanners?”, etc. Sometimes, after lunch, he would get an apple out of the fruitbowl, pull out his pocket knife, unfold it and peel the entire piece of fruit, rotating it steadily, so that on a good day, he’d be left with one long snake of peel, and a slippery orb held in his not-very-clean hands that he would further section and consume. He’d put the peel, of course, in the bucket destined for the compost bin at the bottom of the garden. The first time I saw him do this, I’d ask “Why don’t you eat the skin Gandad”, to which he’d answer, quite slowly, “Well, you can’t trust food these days, no….not what with all these chemicals they spray on them”. Then he’d wipe the knife, fold if up, and put it back in his trouser pocket, along with all the other useful items he kept there, which I shan’t burden you with now. But this one time, he thought a moment, pulled out a smaller folding knife, looked at it, and gave it to me to play with for the rest of the day, before he went back to work.

It was a lambsfoot knife, flat bladed with a blunt turned-down point. More on this later. I spent many happy hours with this new knife. I quickly learned to only use the knife in the opposite direction to the way it folded. Yes, you only slip and shut your fingers into a folding knife once, then you learn the lesson. And for the same reason, forget trying to stab it into anything, it’ll just close on your hand and you’ll have go running to grandma covered in blood and she’s got enough to worry about without your injuries.

Now, the difference between sheepsfoot or lambsfoot knives, and most others – is the tip. The former has a tip curved down, like a lambs foot – at least that’s one explanation, the other is that farmers used them to trim sheep’s hooves – and the cutting edge is completely straight.

Curved-bladed, pointed knives are more likely to be used to make holes in things, and you might say that knives without points are more likely to be used by sensible people, to trim, slices and cut things. Sailors, apparently, favoured sheepsfoot knives to cut lengths of cord. The flat-bladed, round-pointed knife was perhaps a safer way of cutting rope without fear of losing footing and puncturing your ship mate, or a mainsail.

Of course, the increase of gangs in the UK, a country with a ridiculously high stab rate, has meant increased alarmism over the possession and carrying of any kind of knife. We even have our own statues.

So, as you are less and less likely to need to cut a piece of twine these days, is there still a use for the humble lambsfoot knife? Of course there is – solving the first world problem of the mass produced frothy-headed lager, with it’s stupid mound of white foam that you have to stick your face in to get to the beer beneath. Now, are you perhaps thinking of picking up a filthy beermat tand using that to knock that soapy mass from the top of the glass? Why, when you have your own implement? After a hard day dislodging stones from sheep’s hooves, you deserve it!