At the time, and for a few years afterwards, I thought I'd made the right decision, though in truth I'm not sure how much input I had into the decision making process. I wasn't particularly academic and my father decided another year at school would be wasted especially when set against my earning potential.
What to do though? What trade should I learn? Whatever I did would involve some kind of apprenticeship and different options were explored; motor mechanic, painter and decorator, plumber, electrician, but nothing suitable was found.
I left school sometime in July and by the middle of August nothing had been secured. It seemed likely that I would start my working life on the dole which was unthinkable, although that scenario became commonplace a decade or so later.
Being young and idealistic I wanted to train for something that would serve me through my working life, something that I would always be able to fall back on, something that would enable me to do weekend jobs for friends and family. My favoured option was electrician but it just didn't happen. My father on the other hand just wanted me working and contributing to the household.
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| Learning the hard way |
The company, Birkby's Viking, made a range of plastic components for various industries. These plastic components were made in moulds and it was the toolmakers job to make the moulds. It was highly skilled and well paid, but I didn't want to do it.
Even then I wanted a job that would enable me to move from place to place. I didn't want to be stuck in one place doing a job I didn't want to do.
My objections fell on deaf ears and I became an apprentice toolmaker in September 1972 spending the first year at technical college. I duly served my apprenticeship, hating every minute of it, and became a fully qualified toolmaker in 1977 whereupon I was made redundant and have never plied that particular trade since.
Had I become an electrician, a plumber, or a painter and decorator, any of which I would have settled for I would in all probability still be doing it now. Would that have been a good thing? I don't know, but it did teach me to always listen carefully when my children tell me they don't want to do something.
Holes are round, and pegs are square for a reason.
This post was inspired by:
http://richardwiseman.blogspot.com/2012/02/with-everything-to-lose-youth-training.html
Now you're here, why not have a look at my debut novel:
Coming Home
Stuff me Chris! My dad was a tool maker. dad was a tool maker for Taylor Hobsons Optical Instrument Makers in Leicester in the 1950's. Made the tools that ground the first lenses for BBC cameras. My dad did National Service in Malaya and was offered a job teaching at the Singapore Polytechnic in 1957. After that he was a college lecturer. He ended up writing his own CNC computer programs for Boss, Fanuc and Heidenhain controls and selling them to small engineering firms as he had a lifelong desire to keep small engineering firms going. Tool maker is a proper job mate! You're a national treasure if you can do that! If Dibnah was alive he'd do a program on guys like you. Anyway if you have the writing bug then you're born to be a round peg in a square hole; it goes with the territory sadly. The writer lives on that tide line between reality and imagination. It's a lonely spot - never being completely absorbed by the in crowd, but never really belonging. So as you are a great writer, you were destined to not quite fit in anywhere.