« Reply #10 on: Monday 29 May 17 14:27 BST (UK) »
Your grandfather obviously stayed in the same industry all his working life, whether he had an apprenticeship in the beginning or not, he probably attended evening classes to gain his qualifications. One of my father's older brothers was born the same year as your grandfather. From a few stories I heard from my Dad about the 1920s-1930s, finding and/or keeping a job was in the lap of the gods. As soon as their engineering apprenticeship five year term was up three of his brothers weren't taken on by the companies that trained them and they had to join the long "dole" queues until there was an upturn in the country's fortunes. The 1914-1918 war had left Britain practically bankrupt and there was stagnation, which led to the big depression all around the modernised world, which officially started in 1929. The north was particularly hard hit, for instance, my father-in-law's brother was in the Jarrow March down to London of 5–31 October 1936.
The war time prime minister Winston Churchill made a speech in March 1943 where he stated that there had been no planning for the aftermath of WWI and this wouldn't be happening again as a plan to keep the country working at the end of WWII had been devised. (This was instigated by the famous Beverige Report which recommended that the government should find ways of fighting the five 'Giant Evils' of 'Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness')
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