Shipshape and Bristol Fashion.

According to the Telegraph the latest phrase to become un PC is "shipshape and Bristol fashion".

The phrase "shipshape and Bristol fashion" should not be used because it is deemed to be politically incorrect, a group of councillors has been told.

A training firm told them that the phrase originated from the slave trade and described black people being ready for sale.

Sounds very odd to me, very odd indeed. A Bristol historian states that it comes from the city’s reputation for buildiong ships, which also sounds a little odd. But to hte slavery thing.

Bristol was involved in the slave trade, no doubt about it. But the slaves never arrived in Bristol. The trade was a triangle. Manufactured goods from Bristol to West Africa, slaves across the Atlantic, sugar/run/cotton back across the N Atlantic. So when slaves arrived in the Caribbean of America, no one actually cared that the ship came from Bristol. So such a phrase would not have arisen. (Liverpool was also heavily involved. Why not such a phrase for there as well?)

Much more likely as an origin is this (and I write as one who has sailed on the Severn Esturay, the tide and tidal race is indeed the second largest in the world after the Bay of Fundy):

Bristol: Ship-shape and Bristol fashion means that everything is neat and tidy. This saying comes from two aspects of the old Bristol docks in the days before the Floating Harbour was established in the 1830s. Bristol had, and still has, one of the largest differences of water level between ebb and flood in the World, something like 10 metres. At low tide ships in the harbour, if not really properly constructed and laden, would either break their backs or their cargoes would shift. Because of this, Bristol ships were always first class in these respects, hence the saying. The Floating Harbour was constructed by Brunel in order to overcome the tide problem.