The British attitude towards engineering and manual skills was amusingly highlighted to me a few years back at an orchestra concert in London, using instruments I had designed and made. After the concert the conductress brought the borough's Mayor and his wife to meet me and see the new instruments.
They were polite and enthusiastic and said it was "absolutely mwarvellous, mwarvellous " to see a new design in use. After a few question the Mayor's wife asked who made them, I replied that I did. Then she said "Yes, but who actually does all the metalwork for you?" "I do". Her expression changed to disgust, she said "Oh, so it's manual labour" and they turned promptly and left. Clearly I had instantly been demoted from "Designer" to "Grease Monkey" in her and her husband's opinion. I could hardly control my laughter.