Letters: September 2022

Long service rewards

The article on apprenticeships brought a flood of happy memories from 1955–60 when I was a chemistry apprentice. I had left school at 16 to work in the laboratory of a shipping firm in Liverpool, UK, and found that I could go to college one day a week to study chemistry under the Royal Institute of Chemistry (RIC) scheme. The scheme seemed to be similar to engineering schemes comprising Ordinary National Certificates (ONC), Higher National Certificates (HNC) and then a two-part system to become an Associate of the Royal Institute of Chemistry (ARIC).

There were four chemistry apprentices in that laboratory, at different levels of study; the senior apprentice, about to take his ARIC exams, encouraged me each morning to write out part of the periodic table (a row or column) on a big slate sample table. I learnt all about that table. After passing ONC I moved employer to work in an antibiotic company and studied for HNC. The RIC offered to allow high scorers in HNC to bypass the first part of the ARIC exams and go straight for the second part. Further, my employer offered five scholarships across the country to chemistry apprentices who satisfied the new RIC bypass scheme. The scholarships would allow the apprentice to attend college full-time to study for the ARIC exam; I managed to get one of those scholarships and attended the Liverpool College of Technology (now John Moores University), passing my Grad RIC after that year. My last practical exam (after five days of them) was on Friday 3 June 1960. It was also my 21st birthday! I returned to work, still as an apprentice in the eyes of the RIC – graduate members had to complete two years of meaningful high level professional chemistry work before qualifying as an ARIC.

During all that study I had caught the research bug, so I wanted to study for a PhD in chemistry. The British Government’s Department of Science and Industrial Research was running a scheme that supported graduates from industry for PhD studies. The chemistry department of Sheffield University had some of these awards, so off I went across the Pennines to start my research career, and after two years there I was promoted to ARIC, a professional chemist. A year later I was awarded my PhD. I was 24 years old.

Later, when the Chemical Society subsumed the RIC, I could also claim to be a Chartered Chemist, so the 16-year-old school leaver had come a long way, and my education did not cost me anything financially, just a lot of hard work. I also had great fun, stimulus, intellectual satisfaction and lots of patents. I started as a student member of the RIC at 16, I am still a member of the RSC at 83, so I wonder if I qualify for some sort of an award?

Frank Holland

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