Apprenticeships provide the best training for those who put the effort in - Yorkshire Post Letters

I agree with the comments of David Jackson, founder of Hudson Contract, about the value of training through an approved apprenticeship scheme (The Yorkshire Post, February 9, 2023).

I started my career in horticulture on June 1, 1973 as an apprentice gardener at Blackpool Parks and Recreation department, and I can remember my first job to this day, it was working with a skilled gardener, Frank Clarkson, setting out and planting the floral clock in Stanley Park.

Working off a scaffolding plank supported by two hard plastic soft drink crates, which spanned the flower bed was hard on your knees, as we weren't given knee pads in those days.

It was two weeks of hard back breaking work but being outside in sunshine was fantastic and the finished job was a 'moving (hands/dials) floral clock', which is admired by thousands of visitors to Blackpool every summer.

The job satisfaction that this task gave me has stayed with me for 50 years. I spent six months in each of the different sections of the parks, from a park which had six crown bowling greens to maintain, growing flowering plants for bedding displays in glasshouses, and time in the drawing office designing minor landscaping schemes at Blackpool Zoo was great, because I had some great ‘old hand’ mentors who took me under their wing.

The knowledge I learnt from a number of skilled gardeners and foremen was immense and I couldn't have been taught a lot of this at the local technical college on a Thursday evening after work.

If you are willing to put the work in and demonstrate your commitment, there will be work colleagues in every industry from construction, hospitality, administration and engineering who will pass on their skills, which are tried and tested.

There were moments of fun, when Frank sent me to the stores in Stanley Park and he told me to ask Stan, the store keeper, for a piece of string with a long shaped weight on it.

Half an hour later, I returned to the floral clock and Frank said what took you so long, holding back the laughter, and I said that I had the piece of string and metal weight. I naively realised that the joke was on me, and my work mates were all in on the act of making me look a fool for a short while.

I was in on the joke a few years down line when a new apprentice gardener started.

Fast forward 39 years, I was in charge of 20 horticultural apprentices, who worked in one of London's eight Royal Parks, and it was my job to arrange both formal training at a college, and on the job training for the apprentices to ensure that they learnt the practical skills which included working in the new super plant nursery in Hyde Park which was operated by a separate contractor.

Some of those horticultural apprentices under my stewardship have stayed with the Royal Parks; where one is now an Assistant Park Manager, one went to work in a botanical garden in Canada and others are chargehands. In my opinion, and my own experience, apprenticeships provide the best training for those who put the effort in and want to get in their chosen careers.