Apprenticeships
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The yard takes one apprentice a year. The roll is short and the craft is long.
An apprenticeship at Garrow & Voss runs four years: a year on the bench learning the splices, a year as a walk-boy, a year at the jack, and a final year on the forming top with the foreman. The yard pays the national apprentice rate plus the board at the tearoom, which is a perk nobody has yet refused.
There is no application form. Write a letter to the office on the quay, by hand if you can, saying why rope. Ruth reads every one. Two letters a year get an invitation to walk the length with the foreman, and one of those two, most years, gets the place.
Nell Fitch got hers in 2025 with a letter that began: “I want to know how a thing can be strong and soft at the same time.” The foreman framed it. It hangs over the bench.