Colin Hamilton – Different training

They changed from Mechanics to Technicians and the Artificers who were the special ones did a four-year apprenticeship.

They then became Engineering Technicians, so everybody became an Engineering Technician whether you were a Stoker before or a Technician afterwards and they lost a lot of the tradition the Artificers ‘cos they wore different uniform to start with, and that eventually went, and you couldn’t know an Artificer from a Technician. But then they’re all the same so it doesn’t really matter.

Simon: So a Technician is less qualified or less knowledgeable or …?

Yes, less knowledgeable. An Artificer does a proper apprenticeship or did a proper … but now that do that course as an Engineering Technician in Sultan, which is two years, and they keep going back for courses.

I don’t know whether it’s a better thing or not.