An apprentice bricklayer from Stevenage met Princess Anne during her visit to open their new facility yesterday (Thursday, April 25).
Corey Ratcliff, 18, is an apprentice at the National Housebuilding Council's bricklaying training hub near Cambridge.
Princess Anne, 73, wore a hard hat and yellow hi-vis on the jacket as she spoke to young apprentices.
After arriving by helicopter, she was shown around the outdoor learning space, which had a series of partially built brick structures on a concrete slab where apprentices were honing their craft.
The Princess Royal then took the time to speak to apprentices, with Corey saying: “I think she was pretty interested in everything to be honest, I think she enjoyed it.
“She liked to talk to everyone as well and it looked like she enjoyed the conversation she had.”
Fellow apprentice Tegan Pryor, from Shefford, said the Princess “knew about the damp proof course so she’s very intelligent, she definitely knows her stuff”.
Tegan added that she hoped more women would go into construction, adding: “It’s not all the stereotypes that people say it is, it’s really nice, it’s lovely here and good fun.”
Princess Anne also unveiled a plaque, and was then asked to cut the roof of an ornately constructed house-shaped cake.
“Now I normally describe cutting special cakes as legalised vandalism,” she said.
“This is particularly true in this case and can only be done on the understanding you will eat it, preferably today.”
Before leaving, she was presented with a commemorative brick, a trowel and a bunch of flowers.
A typical day for an apprentice at the hub is six hours of practical training on a large outdoor concrete slab – underneath a canopy roof – where they build substantial structures, typical of a housebuilding construction site.
They spend their first five weeks being taught by a dedicated bricklaying tutor who equips them with the skills needed to build high-quality new homes.
Apprentices then learn core practical skills as well as health and safety practices.
The centre, part of a growing national network of training facilities by the NHBC, can train cohorts of 80 people to gain a Level 2 Apprenticeship in bricklaying in as little as 14 months.
The NHBC said there are only 42,000 bricklayers in housebuilding in the UK, with a further 33,000 needed to hit the Government’s target of building 300,000 new homes every year.
It said the average salary of a bricklayer is £50,000 per year.
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