Topic: ~~~the apprentice~~

[piersdad]

 Yippee last day at school.
No more school but dad says I have to get an apprenticeship,
Two weeks of freedom and I am off to an interview.
Gee they asked some simple questions  I have been keen on electricity since I was 5 years old and started school in a remote place called ‘Tuai’ a  remote  power house village  miles from anywhere.
Soon I was accepted and that’s when I found out that I would be going to ‘Tuai’
Well that where I started school so that’s cool.
The long drive there in dads old V8 and I was placed in a men’s hostel and soon settled in.
    The next day was amazing I had never seen so much workshop machinery and soon the foreman took me to a work bench and   showed me how to use a hack saw the correct way.
 I knew that, but was polite, and let him show me all the correct action, the slow strong level stroke and the quick back stroke.
He then showed me how to carefully use a set square and dividers to accurately mark off precisely 2 ½ inches of ½ inch square steel.
    He demonstrated how to accurately start and saw a square end off the long piece of steel.
My first attempt was great and got much praise for it. And after cutting another 3 off he proceeded to a pile of steel lengths and said he wanted 500 2 ½ inch long pieces cut by hand.( that’s 10 x 10 foot lengths of heavy steel)
I had some very extreme and unprintable thoughts but held my tongue and proceeded to labor all day, and the next, and the next, through several new saw blades and eventually by Friday afternoon I proudly displayed to my boss a  neat  wall of neatly cut off lengths of steel
He was able to criticize some of the rougher ones but said I had otherwise done a good job.
When I finally found out what the steel was for, I had some more  unprintable thoughts, they were packing pieces and could have been any length from 2 to 3 inches and they would all be buried in some concrete soon. And that they had a motor driven sheers that could have done the job in an hour.
Monday and more apprentices arrived and when they were given smaller jobs using the hand hack saw I realized that they were hopeless at sawing  it in comparison.
Years later in a practical exam I had a huge amount of hand sawing to do and I was so pleased I had been taught so well.
That week we all started apprentice school and were led to the old school house, not used now as the village had a new school.

With some emotional amusement I found myself in the same school room and the same desk that 12 years before, I had started school as a five year old new entrant.
This was the start of another 12 years of education.
But to this day I will never forget that 12 ½  inch long by 10 inch high wall of steel I had to cut by hand.