Right it is time to get out of the coffin(made by a carpenter)used to be carpenter and joiner.When I signed up to be an apprentice plasterer some 55 years ago there was a thing called an apprenticeship. This entailed a company indenturing you, employing you, training you and packing you off to building college for a day and two nights a week. We were taught lime work including running in situ,external rendering, internal plastering,granite work,screeding,fibrous modeling,mould making,casting and fixing,ceiling fixing,tacking and dry lining.If you managed to last the course you had intermediate city and guilds in your second year,Advanced craft in four years and if you passed these you could move on to ONC building.I remember the first three months of my apprentichip were a trial which I spent perfecting the art of the perfect cupboard where I would put the plaster on, stand back and admire it. then the foreman would arrive wit his lath hammer straight edge and a sheet of paper. If he could pass the paper between the rule and the wall the lath hammer came into action and I started again.By the way the wages were £1 and £1.50 fares. I passed all my exams at the highest level and was recruited by Bovis M&S division (the elite of building companies). They treated workers like people (drying rooms , toilets and a canteen with cooked food) to train as a site manager.I had toleave on the death of my father a plasterer aged 46 to provide for my brothers and sisters so I turned back to the tools.Times were hard on a good week a plasterer would earn maybe £30 a week(the building trade were treated like the scum of the earth) In the late sixties a number of us were working in the film industry and outside on sites when there were no films(the film industry paid big bucks £200 a week cash). This caused a big problem with PAYE as we had to be on the cards outside. So began the self employed plasterer with a little grey book issued by the tax authority.(the beginning of the lump) After watching the boss sliding about in his roller It was time to start my own company so here we go back to the trade. As the years progressed we were given a governing body the CITB who since its formation has managed to tax the apprenticeship out of existence and alter and dilute all the qualifications so nobody can fail. in the early nineties wages were at a staggering rate (£1000 per week) we suddenly had a massive shortage of labour so we invited in the foreigners as you put it. Some were really skilled, I know because I was asked by the CITB to transpose their own qualifications to approved English ones. The we were invaded I remember having to approve nearly 300 European workers on block in Norwich, many who could not speak a word of English. I saw a health and safety risk, complained and was dropped by the CITB.( I have to say in the defense of the Europeans that they were hard workers who worked a full day where many of our own would leave the site at 2pm ).Right now to the point. In my view their is not much left of any trade due to the dilution of qualification. If you want to be a tradesman you need to learn the whole trade not just one part. If you want to earn top money by all means do but give a full days work for a fair days wage.
As for plasteringbooks come on 50p they paid me £45 an hour to take night school.
right back to the coffin
