I SEE recently that our powers in Westminster feel the need to encourage apprenticeships for the young! Where have they ever been these past 20 years?

Yes Mr Editor, I do keep on, but like many others nationwide, of all walks of life, I am the produce of such past realities that helped keep this country afloat and respected worldwide.

Further education then was one day a week at a technical college, most of us had two proper parents who were nationally responsible for our welfare, our annual vacation was a well-earned two-week holiday, unlike today’s ‘I think I will take a year out and travel the world’!

Growing up and establishing myself locally employing young people on proper apprenticeships, and yes, having their welfare at heart, and that of their concerned parents, these same youngsters are now grown up persons and are well established in society, which is my personal reward.

Unlike any local or national politician my record of genuine unpaid efforts go back some 50 years and is well recorded in our local Andover Advertiser for anyone to check on.

I’ve never needed this continued ‘image’ thing most have to have to succeed in their careers. I was trained by a then genuine, caring society to grow up and be the same.

Just before Christmas I was down shopping in the town centre and I noticed two smartly dressed young ladies in uniform.

At first I thought they were young school girls dressed up for something but then realised they were part of the present brainwave of our Home Secretary’s idea of a front line against our ever-increasing daily acts of violence.

They were indeed PCSOs. Young women dressed up as police.

At 75 years old I, like many others my age, felt responsible for their safety, but not our Home Secretary.

May I wish all readers a happy New Year.

Gerald Stoodley, Turin Court, Andover.