00:00Good afternoon. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely to
00:06speak today to John Pitchforth. Now, you are the Managing Director of the Heritage Skills Academy
00:11and you find a very natural home at Goodwood Revival, don't you? Because you are all about
00:16classic car restoration and showing that classic car restoration absolutely does have a future.
00:24We certainly are and we've been going, well we've been invited to Goodwood for four years now.
00:33The Duke obviously likes what we do and the fact that we're bringing new young talent into the
00:38industry and they love what they see and they love being involved with it. And as far as you're
00:45concerned this is all reversing a trend which absolutely didn't have to happen. The people
00:49were saying in a slightly jaded way that classic car restoration was over. You were convinced
00:54it wasn't and you've proved your point haven't you? Yes, that's absolutely correct. The industry
01:00was fairly jaded. The training that was being delivered wasn't particularly relevant to them.
01:06Technology had advanced but it had really not dumbed down the requirements of engineers but it
01:13it had altered them dramatically away from the more traditional skills. So we brought those traditional
01:21skills back. So how come you saw that this was an opportunity, that things didn't have to be like
01:27that? Well the modern cars are very technical, they're very interesting but they're interesting in a
01:37different way to the to the vehicles that race at Goodwood. There are about probably about a million,
01:46million and a half classic vehicle, classic cars on the road at the moment and that's growing. I think
01:51it increased by about half a million over the last five years and there was nobody to look after
01:58them. Because they require special certain skills then? That's correct, whether they're turn of the
02:04century or whether they're pre-war, post-war or 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. But the classic vehicles always hold
02:13a place in everybody's heart. They're drawn to what they saw and what their fathers and their mothers
02:20had and what they were driven around with when they were young. So the classics of 30 or 40 years ago
02:28have been replaced by the XR3s. It takes you back in the same way that a song does, doesn't it?
02:37Exactly. So you turned the tide then, didn't you? You swam against it and turned it because,
02:45give me those numbers again, the number of apprenticeships that you are producing and training.
02:52Nationally, there were no apprentices in about 2017. By 2018 we had eight and they were working
03:00with a company called P&A Wood, a Rolls-Royce and Bentley specialist. And then, since then,
03:06we've been up to about 200 in training now and we have a hundred that have completed. Some of those are
03:15now managing their own departments or beginning to venture into running their own companies and
03:20some of them are employing their own apprentices now. Isn't that extraordinary? You must feel so
03:25proud of what you've done. Yes, it's having been in apprenticeships or automotive apprenticeships for
03:3130 years, this is as proud as I've ever been. Absolutely, and you were saying that the apprentices,
03:38they're the most enthusiastic, the keenest that you've come across, aren't they? They are, they are,
03:43and there's no stigma attached to apprenticeships which they used to be sort of 20 years ago. Now we
03:51have applicants from all walks of life, all walks of society and all educational backgrounds. We've got
03:59them coming in at 16, 18, 21, after A-levels, after university, or they've gone into a career and they're
04:08not quite liking it. So they're thinking, I'd rather do something that I want to do. So they come to us.
04:14And we also have career changes as well. You were saying people who retire early and
04:19decide that they actually want to do what they want to do? Yes. Brilliant. And what better place to tell
04:26your story, to show off your apprentices than Goodwood? It's the perfect home for what you do, isn't it?
04:32It is. And being involved in the Revive and Thrive section of Goodwood is brilliant for us because
04:40what we're about is reusing, revitalizing, restoring and keeping older engineering products and engineering
04:50vehicles on the road and working at peak performance. These vehicles have, in effect,
04:59very low green or very low green credentials. Everything that was done in their production was
05:10done generations ago. And we're able to show that they work just as well in the modern world,
05:18that they can run on the modern fuels, that they can be converted to electric if people want them to be.
05:25And it just shows that things don't have to be thrown away.
05:31Absolutely. Well, what an achievement. And as you say, it's a question of producing a generation of,
05:36I think you said, good old fashioned problem solving engineers.
05:39Absolutely. And what we found is that a lot of the apprentices that are qualifying,
05:46their skill set is completely transferable into the modern world.
05:52In fact, when they get into the modern engineering world, the companies they work for are
05:58fascinated and surprised at just how much they do know. And also the mentality of finding out how
06:05things work and how they're broken and how you can mend them is something which is alien to a lot of
06:10modern engineers because you just replace it.
06:13Fantastic. Well, John, it's a wonderful story of achievement. Congratulations.
06:18And we look forward to seeing you at this year's Goodwood Revival. Great to speak to you.
06:21We look forward to being there. Thank you.
06:23Thanks a lot.
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