In message , "Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)"
writes
I don't think much seems to have changed since the 60s then. A lot of the
intake of apprentices at the company I worked for seemed to think the day
release was fun but the actual working week was for exchanging girlie
magazines smoking in the toilets and being ill after the night before which
consisted of getting a skinful of alcohol then getting their leg over and
waking up in the morning feeling like their head was about to explode. If
that was living, than it was not for me!

I must have been lucky.

I was taken on as a technical apprentice with a mixed (craft-student)
intake of about 20.

One was from a Plymouth Brethren family and terminated after 6 weeks.
The rest spent 6 weeks training in the apprentice school before being
let loose on the factory floor. Day release at the local further
education centre morphed into block release at what is now the
University of Hertfordshire. Factory shop floor time was 6 weeks in
different depts. I spent some time making up lengths of flexible cable
needed for contactors being sold to the Admiralty:-)
After 2 years I was placed in the Electronics dept. which was changing
over from Mullard? Norbit logic to an in house system using a germanium
switching transistor. I spent the next 8 years travelling round Britain
and the near continent commissioning control systems installed by
others.

The upside of my apprenticeship was the afterwork social side. 4 rugby
teams now morphed into St. Albans Rugby Club, regular dances in the
works canteen, cricket in the Summer....

I was very sad when the company was taken over by Allen West of Brighton
and down sized. I ended up at Vickers shipbuilding who, very
surprisingly, had a test tank facility in the town.



--
Tim Lamb