It sound like either the shift key you are using is busted, or the most likely cause, is that your keyboard layout is not the same as the keys on the keyboard. You said you use UK English settings, I am not finding anything that acts like it sets the keyboard under xp. So next question are you using xp?
Does your keyboard look like these by any chance?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboar...UK_and_Ireland