Remember Butchers?

We still have 2-3 in town who get in bigger bits of animal than cuts to trim and pre-wrap.

I remember, years ago now, meeting and chatting to some folk who, it turned out had come up from the London area and were returning with enough to stock a small freezer between them ... "We haven't a real butcher anywhere near us."

I asked our favourite apprentice
"What'll that forequarter weigh?"
"Oh, 80-90kg." was the reply.
For you old fashioned folk 85kg = 13st 5lb: and for you furriners over there, who never discovered the joys of easy weights like "Nearly 13 1/2 stone" it's   187lb.
"Hell! That's just a teeny bit more than me."

Then I watched this lad, unerringly cut (1st try) down to the joint, through the tissues and remove the foreleg by knife: without the aid of a saw.

Every time I see that, or do similar to a bird, I think of a long-gone girl-friend's Dad, who, in middle age, was forced to surrender his carving knife to a mere whippersnapper of 20 summers to remove (At the joint) the drumstick he was desperately trying to remove by severing the Tibia with his knife.