Aspiring to become an electrician. How many young people do?

mapj1:
Then we have the phenomena of "Being Rueben"

Is this new ? - did not Billy Elliot inspire  a generation of miner's kids to learn ballet and move to London,  or is that perhaps another urban myth ?

I'm not sure how many ballet dancers it inspired, but it certainly brought about a realization that just because the old man dug up stuff, the sons didn't need to do the same - but that also took some people at least out of the craft and artisan pathways as for sure it did encourage a lot of talent into university. It's become a bit of a cliché now, and something picked up on by the left leaning desperate to show just how working class they are, but a lot of us of the "Billy Elliot" generation really were the first person in the family to go to university (see my comment about Battersea Power Station). It was a constant source of amazement to me to see and hear guys proclaiming that "no son of mine was going down any bloody pit" - and the same guys proclaiming during the rifts of the miners strike, that they were fighting for a future and "no b****** Tory was going to stop their sons going down a mine" - parental and peer influence is a powerful thing on an impressionable mind.


The other side to this is the UK absence of technocratic management and top floor roles for technical people- the director of innovation in a German Firma ist likely to be addressed as Herr Doktor Inginier or something similarly academic.

In the UK the similar role is quite likely to be occupied by the  second cousin of Sir Burton Tufton, a solid chap from the right school, maybe the horse guards and a jolly good egg for sure, but not especially technical, more of a genetic descendant of Bertie Wooster.

Engineering of all forms needs to be seen to lead to the top, only then folk will be happy to get on half way up.

Exactly - take a look through the Mittelstadt - plenty of companies there where the senior management started out in the same company literally on the shop floor - and bloody proud of it.


 

mapj1:
Then we have the phenomena of "Being Rueben"

Is this new ? - did not Billy Elliot inspire  a generation of miner's kids to learn ballet and move to London,  or is that perhaps another urban myth ?

I'm not sure how many ballet dancers it inspired, but it certainly brought about a realization that just because the old man dug up stuff, the sons didn't need to do the same - but that also took some people at least out of the craft and artisan pathways as for sure it did encourage a lot of talent into university. It's become a bit of a cliché now, and something picked up on by the left leaning desperate to show just how working class they are, but a lot of us of the "Billy Elliot" generation really were the first person in the family to go to university (see my comment about Battersea Power Station). It was a constant source of amazement to me to see and hear guys proclaiming that "no son of mine was going down any bloody pit" - and the same guys proclaiming during the rifts of the miners strike, that they were fighting for a future and "no b****** Tory was going to stop their sons going down a mine" - parental and peer influence is a powerful thing on an impressionable mind.


The other side to this is the UK absence of technocratic management and top floor roles for technical people- the director of innovation in a German Firma ist likely to be addressed as Herr Doktor Inginier or something similarly academic.

In the UK the similar role is quite likely to be occupied by the  second cousin of Sir Burton Tufton, a solid chap from the right school, maybe the horse guards and a jolly good egg for sure, but not especially technical, more of a genetic descendant of Bertie Wooster.

Engineering of all forms needs to be seen to lead to the top, only then folk will be happy to get on half way up.

Exactly - take a look through the Mittelstadt - plenty of companies there where the senior management started out in the same company literally on the shop floor - and bloody proud of it.