So it's back to school for me . . .

My team recently completed the construction of a bespoke training room in the nursery complex of Holland Park. Using a grant of £8,000 from CABE and equivalent match funding from the council and its ground maintenance contractors, Quadron, the room provides the focus of training for six young apprentices and in time this will broaden to include volunteers and other staff on short courses.

For a former apprentice - this is a real high-point. I was fortunate enough to have been provided with a very structured and closely monitored training in the then city of Salisbury, Rhodesia. Everyone from the City Amenities Manager to the most menial of general workers was in some way involved. From the top there was strategic direction and the odd word of advice or encouragement. In the middle there was loads of support and from the bottom there was good humoured challenge and assistance. 

I was shocked to find that by the time I arrived in the United Kingdom in the early-1980's this sort of instruction was being done away with. The introduction of Commercial Competitive Tendering by 1990 was effectively its final death knell. Despite all the warnings of impending disaster for the industry and amenity horticulture in particular, successive administrations turned a deaf ear.

As this country started to face up to the skills gap under the last government - and which included offering degree courses for the skilled trades amongst other idiotic approaches (why?) - talk started to focus on the need to revive the best of the past. That has thankfully included looking at "modern" apprenticeship schemes and the current government is making the right noises on this front as well (see my February blog on the NEET crisis).

We no longer grow things - we import them. We no longer source plants locally - we fly cuttings and plugs from West or East Africa to the Netherlands, pot them on and then transport them by road and ship to commercial "nurseries" to be grown on and then transported further by road to the municipal depots. It is acceptable for our municipal parks and gardens to be husbanded by low paid eastern Europeans with no skills other than a driving licence. But still we have "Britain in Bloom", the Royal Horticultural Society, Kew Gardens, the Worshipful Company of Gardeners ... the trappings but not the skills!

That's the context. Over the past six or seven years I have badgered my contract management to get the project off the ground and to be fair previous efforts have been made: but not with great success. Missing were three key ingredients: 1. a dedicated mentor; 2. a realistic training programme that focuses on the individual; and 3. an area dedicated to the apprentices' instruction and learning when not in college.

Since last year all three have now been provided and the scheme is now looking extremely positive. The young people come from a variety of backgrounds and educational capabilities. Some have difficulties away from the workplace that make holding down a formal training programme difficult in the extreme - but they persist! They are being challenged and facing every day  with smiles on their faces and a growing confidence that is palpable. 

John Tradescant junior

They have a common goal - to be gardeners. It is a noble ambition and one that has provided me with a livelihood and opportunity to indulge every creative and academic interest. Gardeners come into daily contact with art, design, history, geography, different languages, Latin, different cultures,  world religions, biology, physics, chemistry, ecology, biodiversity, social sciences, people, food, floristry, animals, poetry and music ... the list goes on. 

On Wednesday the apprentices will be doing their usual weekly plant identification tests (10 new plants a week). Everything will be as normal to start - but then their trainer is being replaced by the Royal Borough's Leisure Services Manager.  

As a trained adult skills coach, I ran a horticultural training scheme in the mid-1980's on an allotment site on Spa Hill, near Croydon. When I returned to local government parks management in 1989, I rather expected that that would be the end of my having to coach! But of course it hasn't been: as a manager I am always coaching. What is different though, is the degree of preparation that I am having to put into this lesson. Watching will be the apprentices and their mentor - a highly skilled trainer. Inevitably all will be watching for the cracks . . . I trust that is one area that I disappoint them!