Handle the man with deep affection, nothing held back (5)

I believe the answer is:

helve

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'handle' is the definition.
(I know that helve is a type of handle)

'man with deep affection nothing held back' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'man' could be 'he' (pronoun for a man) and 'he' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

'the' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for helve that I've seen is " Handle".)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.

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