The Apprentice - part 3

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The Apprenticeship...

I have already mentioned the pay scale, and hours of work and these were a small part of the overall apprentice agreement.  At that time the trade apprenticeships were organized by trade guilds and overseen by the Government.

My apprenticeship was made available by the London Federation of Master Builders and consisted of a 5 year term to be completed on my 21st. birthday.  During those 5 years, I had to attend technical college 1 day a week which I got paid for. I also had to attend 1 evening a week in my own time.  If I missed the evening, I lost the pay for the 1 day.  Miss 2 consecutive weeks without a really good reason and you could be thrown out of your apprenticeship.

The 1 day was a long one.  Starting at 9:00am and finishing at 9:00pm with 2 one hour meal breaks. We took building science, building math, technical drawing, building construction and social studies, as well as a 4 hour practical session in the well-equipped workshop.  All practical work was hand tools.  The math and social studies, which included English, were the evening class and mostly concentrated on estimating, bills of quantities and general correspondence of a technical nature.  We were examined every semester and annually.  At the, halfway mark we set the Craft exam for the City and Guilds Examination board and if successfully then went on to achieve a full C&G trade certificate with the final exam that was sat at completion of apprenticeship.  This would then hopefully lead to further study to become a “Borough Surveyor” (City Engineer) or a General Foreman.  Or we could just carry on being a “Chippy.”

Tool Boxes

At my first place of apprenticeship, I had been instructed to build a tool box.  The only wood available was Douglas fir which we used to build the moulds for the concrete panels. Plywood was form ply which was all 3/4” but I put it through a 24” thicknesser to make it 1/4”.  Anyway here it is with its original paint finish minus the hasp because I lost the key to the padlock at some time.

Dovetailed by hand and of a traditional design it has stood up remarkably well even survived a trans-Atlantic voyage.  The dovetails in the tray were nailed for some reason that escapes me.

This box with my inherited tools was fairly well received in the joiner’s shop, and I was told it would do until I was a tradesman, and then I would have to build a proper chest.  I guess at that time it was expected I would have a near complete tool kit and so I should be able to build a suitable custom chest.  Unfortunately that never happened.

Background characters

In 1956 I was living in Lichfield, Staffordshire a cathedral city about 90 miles Northwest of London and about 15 miles from Birmingham.

Late one night during a bad snowstorm there was a knock at the door and 2 totally unexpected visitors arrived.  One was my older cousin; John and the other was Joe who was John’s mentor.  John was near the end of his apprenticeship at Hamptons of Vauxhall, and they were working in Birmingham doing an on site installation.  They stayed the night, and I listened to the work stories they related to my parents.  The most impressive being the time spent working on the fitting out of the Royal Yacht Brittania.

Now fast forward to 1962 and a new joiner joins us.  He was to become the person who taught me a lot about hand railing and stairs.  Several months went by until one lunchtime he remarked about my funny accent, and I told him I had lived near Birmingham for about 5 years and still had some of the dialect.  He then told me a story of him and his apprentice visiting some people in Lichfield during a snow storm.  So Joe ended teaching both my cousin and myself some of the finer aspects of the trade.  When I last saw him about 6 years ago cousin John had his own joinery company.

We also took on another apprentice John Green about the same time.  I was entrusted with his initial breaking in but had very little to do with any craft instruction.  He finally became Joe’s apprentice, and they were moved into another smaller shop next door.

The labourer who worked with us was quite a character.  Cyril did all the odd jobs and loaded and unloaded lorries, as well as make tea and keep the fire going.  He had quite a drinking problem and would often show up for work reeking of rum and covered in coal dust from sleeping in the coal cellar.  He also had a passion for eating raw Spanish onions, which seemed to be his main food intake.

I think it was in 1962 that the company decided to try an advertising campaign in the local paper.  A double page photo spread was done, and there were several shots of work being done in the shop at that time.  One was a large mahogany bow window.  I unfortunately lost the proof picture some time ago, but am investigating ways of getting some copies.

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