FOR A FRESH START

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21464, 4 May 1935, Page 16

FOR A FRESH START

Reconditioning Britain's Wbrkless TRAINING CENTRES . VISITED (By William Teeling.) (II.)

The Ministry of Labour in England is not only administering unemployment relief; it is also finding work for the unemployed themselves. Large numbers of these unemployed are running their own schemes and organisations, but the Government's deserve special notice. There are training centres where unemployed learn for six months, and reconditioning centres where they remain for 12 months. There are eight training centres for men, some of them dating back to 1925 The numbers trained in each vary from 200 to 250, and they have six-month courses. Last year nearly 5000 people passed through these centres. At the Wallsend centre near Newcastle ore about 250 men, one half of whom ore local and live at home, coming to the centre, an old stadium, every morning. The rest are lads from 13 to 25 years who have come from the English northern counties. They live like University students in lodging houses approved by the centre authorities. Trainees. Keen and Willing I. found in a large hall young men provided with overalls, working in batches, with an instructor, who was often difficult to distinguish from the men, working just as hard and just as keenly. Some men were working on motor-cars; others learning tc be filters, sheet metal workers, turners or millers. Upstairs, around the gallery, men were learning to paint walls, signs, and shop fronts. They were given a certain scope for their constructive individuality to show itself, and, as a result, the top part of the stadium was full of strange colour and slightly futuristic in appearance. As far as possible the trainees were; placed in an atmosphere similar t' that likely to be experienced when they find "their first jobs. This was specially noticeable in the hairdressing department. I watched young men, just starting, and much braver men who allowed themselves to be shaved and have their hair cut. A few old men who were on relief, and some women, came in regularly, the former to be shaved every' day, the latter to hava their haii waved and shampooed. On certain days the old men were requested by the instructor to be particularly disgruntled, to complain about everything, and so to prepare the trainees for future clients. I was struck by the great .:ee mess and willingness of men, who kept very full notebooks in which they marked down details of their jobs;, and often made the most elaborate drawings. When I visited the centres in the south I found them full of young men from the north and from Wales, and it was amusing to see how they haveto be got out of certain northern habits before they become acceptable to prospective London employers. They must give up wearing mufflers, and wear collars, and they must rid themselves of the large number of badges they like pinning to their coat lapels. The centre at Watford is in a street and is a disused chocolate factory made up to date. Here I saw the most modern methods used for teaching house-building and carpentry. Furniture ranging from occasional tables to modern electric radio gramophone cases was being made; also tongs for the fire grate and leather tea cosies. Most interesting of all was the group of 32 glass-blowers preparing the Neo:n signs for London's streets. This is typical of what the Ministry has been doing for small trades. It v/as found that this particular industry insisted on having aliens from Germany and other countries as the only experts in the craft. Immediately the training centres are supplied with instructors, and as soon as they produced men capable of doing the work the aliens were told that their work permits in England would not be renewed. So it was with the Neon glassmakers. In the last three years the Watford centre has placed m work more than 300 men in this very intricate craft. Before then the work v/as all done by Germans.

Behind the Scenes At Park Royal, another centre near London, I walked along a road with business works and factories on each side, and at first missed the entrance to what looked yet another factory—the Government centre. The men here told me quietly something of their lives. Undoubtedly, many of the men feel homesick at first. If, after a time, they cannot get over It, they are sent home again; but few, indeed, are the cases to-day that do not feel better after a couple of weeks. They are given money with which to pay for their lodgings in houses which they choose for themselves from a list—there are usually six to eight trainees in each. This sum pays for their breakfast, their supper, their washing, and a dinner in addition Oi. Sunday. They can go to bed when they like; they can get up when they like if they are at the

centre at 8 a.m. They work until 12 noon. From 12 to 12.30 they have a good lunch, and then continue work from 12.30 to 4.30. During the afternoon, at 2.30, for a quarter of an hour the instructor gathers his group round him, and explains to thern the reasons for every single thing they have been doing that day. Alter 4.30 they are entirely free citizens to do what they like and go where they like, but they must .be back at . work" again next morning at 8 o'clock. Their weekends are their own; and as I watched them just before Whitsuntide. they were getting ready, almost all of them, to go by the cheapest omnibus route to Whitehaven or to Cardiff, to Spennymoor or to Liverpool for the Bank Holiday.

They have no money of. their own, these boys on the dole, but relatives at home all subscribe a half-crown here or a shilling there to make up the boy's fare home for a break in the six months. They get no pay—only their keep; but they are given pocket money that amounts to 2s a week for boys at a training centre while they are still living at home; and when away from home their allowance is 4s a week. Their upkeep cost to the State works out at about 30s a head a week over and above the ordinary weekly benefit. But that cannot be considered too much for six months, when even last year, in the most difficult period of depression, more than 80 per cent, of all trainees were placed. To-day still mare are finding work through the good offices of special officials sent round to the centre — some, as at Park Royal, from the factories down the street —and interview the men in rooms specially set aside. Park Royal has one specialised form of training in addition to that of engineering, motor work, and cabinet - making. It trains waiters 40 at a time. The boys learn first on dummy tables with instructors. After thai they appear in the restaurant which is run by the centre. It is open to the public, serves extremely good, cheap food, and is entirely furnished by the trainees who are working on the furniture side. The waiters, looking extremely smart, line up round the wall and wait on people from the local factories who completely fill the restaurant every day. Afterwards, almost all these boys are placed with the very best hotels in London, the manager not allowing them to obtain anything but good employment. Reconditioning Centres

The instructional or reconditioning centres take boys from 18 upwards, to a camp usually near some Government land where aiforestation is in crogrcss. Here tne boys live in huts for about 12 weeks, and all is done Jo make them fit and cheerful again. That is all. Roughly, they spend one week in the kitchen, one week doing woodwork, one week on a very elementary educational course, another' week on "camp site," that is, looking after the buildings, the paths, etc The rest of the time they spend actually working on the land. They may do trenching, if they are strongly built, or drainage work for forestry, or construct fire rides or do work on metalled roads; some do gravel pit work, others are in a quarry, and yet more are at forestry clearing. I stayed with them a bit. and, of course." there were grievances. But there were no grievances against the personnel of the staff. In Norfolk, in Suffolk, and up at Hamsterly, in Durham, everywhere the right men seemed to be in charge and immensely popular. Some boys complained of the food, but only because it was not tlv same as they got at home. Most complained that they must go home again to stand at street corners; onlv a few seemed homesick after the. first few weeks. Letters by the dozen could be quoted from boys who have since got jobs, testifying that, coming as they did from areas suffering from long depression, their physique had been such that, but for the 12 weeks in camp, they could never have fot their present 'job, still less have been able to stand the strain of work for a prolonged period That is the' most constructive thing ; these camps are doing, besides taking voung men for the first time in their lives from their villages to other parts of England, to meet other men, to feel Ices homesick, and perhaps to develop an ambition to move away from a place where there is no work. The criticism is that there are not enough such camps, and that up to the present men have not been able to return again after one visit, while three months more at home and they are physciallv back to where they started. These 17 camps, with about 200 men in each, mostly in East Anglia, in Northumberland, Durham. Scotland. South Wales, and Lincolnshire, take about 15.000 men a year, which includes extra summer camps. The men get no wage, only their lodging, keep. work, clothes, and 3s a week pocket money. The cost to the State is Bs, plus benefit a week a head, as compared with 30s, plus benefit for a training centre; and the cost of starting, a comn is anything between £BOOO and £12,000.