F
Frantic
Guest
Just reading Cromwell's comments on another thread prompted me to ponder the demise of "The Trades" as we know them. As a Toolmaker, I served a six year apprenticeship, and then another four years as an "Improver" before I got the top rate. How many young people these days are prepared to work for 10 years on low pay in order to learn a trade. Not many. We are mostly "Old Farts" on this forum and understand the relevance of skilled trades-people in society, but what is going to happen when we have all retired or fallen off our perches. Who will be there to teach future tradespeople, even if you could find someone who wanted to learn a trade. Now; we have young people with a pneumatic nail gun in one hand and a piece of 'four-by-two' in the other and call themselves carpenters. Ask any of them to make you a 'mortice and tennon' joint, or a 'dovetail joint', and they won't have a clue. Not because they are incapable, but because they haven't been taught the skills. Another skill that is teetering on the edge of extinction is Sheep-shearing. Who, in their right mind, wants to stand all day doubled over, and in the certain knowledge that in a few years, they will have permanent back problems. Many have tried to mechanise the process, but none have succeeded commercially so far.
But sheep will still grow wool.
We, as manufacturing nations, are too reliant on getting our products from China or Korea or India, because it's cheaper and more convenient. But consider what is going to happen to our industries in the future (not too distant). America has sold most of it's machines and tooling, and now 'outsources' most of it's products offshore, as does Britain and a lot of other manufacturing nations. Consequently, there is no need to train skilled people, and industry as we know it will eventually die out. Here in Australia, there are,I believe, only two clothing manufacturers left in the whole country, and THEY can't compete with the imported product. When they eventually close down, as inevitably, they will. How can those businesses be re-kindled when the Chinese start to raise their prices. who will be there to compete? No-one, because all of the tradespeople will have moved on.
Consider: Who would want to be a teacher today, with some of the mindless thugs that they are faced with every day? Who wants to be a policeman, when there is no respect for the law? Who wants to be a nurse when you can be beaten up by some deranged drug addict or drunk? Who wants to be a bricklayer when your fingers split in the cold and you put down one brick after another, day after day. Year after year....................Who is going to MAKE things, or FIX things in the future when our generation is being discussed on the Birmingham History Forum.
But sheep will still grow wool.
We, as manufacturing nations, are too reliant on getting our products from China or Korea or India, because it's cheaper and more convenient. But consider what is going to happen to our industries in the future (not too distant). America has sold most of it's machines and tooling, and now 'outsources' most of it's products offshore, as does Britain and a lot of other manufacturing nations. Consequently, there is no need to train skilled people, and industry as we know it will eventually die out. Here in Australia, there are,I believe, only two clothing manufacturers left in the whole country, and THEY can't compete with the imported product. When they eventually close down, as inevitably, they will. How can those businesses be re-kindled when the Chinese start to raise their prices. who will be there to compete? No-one, because all of the tradespeople will have moved on.
Consider: Who would want to be a teacher today, with some of the mindless thugs that they are faced with every day? Who wants to be a policeman, when there is no respect for the law? Who wants to be a nurse when you can be beaten up by some deranged drug addict or drunk? Who wants to be a bricklayer when your fingers split in the cold and you put down one brick after another, day after day. Year after year....................Who is going to MAKE things, or FIX things in the future when our generation is being discussed on the Birmingham History Forum.