BUILDING a brick wall isn't easy. I speak from first hand experience.

Walls made of brick are all around us: in the houses we live in, the offices where we work, the schools that our children go to to learn.

We take it for granted that they'll be straight; and regular; and strong; and that they won't crack or crumble.

But have you ever tried building one?

The first problem I had, in the course of a quick lesson at York College's impressive new £6 million construction and skills centre, was simply to get the mortar (nobody seems to use the word 'cement') to stay on my trowel.

Bricklaying tutor Mike Burdett was being very patient. The mortar was already mixed for me, and had a nice consistency. I just had to work it with my trowel - a process known as 'knocking up' - before using it to cement a row of bricks to the practice wall student bricklayers had been building in one of the construction and skills centre's new workshops.

"You're just making sure it's usable, and the right consistency," Mike explained.

In Mike's hands, a trowel is a thing of beauty. He used it to chop and roll the mortar, before hefting a trowel-sized scoop with a deft movement into the air. He turned the trowel upside down, and the mortar clung there.

My turn to try.

Mike taught me to chop out a trowel-sized piece of mortar; roll it over on itself to improve the consistency; drag it back with the edge of the trowel; then repeat the process.

"Now you can pick it up with the trowel," he said, watching me intently. "Scoop it."

York Press:

NOT THAT EASY: Stephen Lewis tries his hand at laying bricks with bricklaying tutor Mike Burdett

I tried. But where his movements were all deft and sure, mine were bumbling and uncertain. Bits of mortar splattered everywhere, like rain. The little I did manage to gather up began to slide off the edge of my trowel...

Eventually, I got to the point where I could apply some to the top of the wall where I was going to lay bricks.

You want to end up with a 10mm thick layer of mortar, Mike explained: which meant initially spreading about 15mms, so that you can settle the brick into place.

I spread a clumsy layer of mortar, settled a brick, then nudged it into place. All very satisfying: but now I had to check it was straight and level. That meant laying a level across the top, to make sure it was flat: down the side, to make sure it was flush with the wall below; and along the side edge, to make sure it was correctly aligned lengthways. Only then could I scrape off the excess mortar with the back of my trowel, and stand back to observe my handiwork. Job done. A single brick laid. How many are there in the walls of my office in Walmgate...?

Anyone who lives in York will have noticed that the building industry is really beginning to pick up again after the long recession and slump.

But a revitalised industry means a need for more skilled construction workers: everyone from bricklayers, plasterers and joiners to electricians, plumbers and surveyors.

York College has long been a leading trainer of just such skilled workers.

But the opening of the college's new £6million construction and skills centre this September was a real statement of ambition.

York Press:

Head of Construction, Kevin Clancy, at York College's new construction and skills centre

"We want to be a national powerhouse for construction skills," said the college's head of construction Kevin Clancy, who used to work in the industry himself, for York-based Shepherd.

"Our aim is to be a centre of excellence for the training of workers for the construction industry, so that we can supply the skills and the training that the industry requires."

The new £6millon centre is perfectly equipped to do that. There are three large, well-equipped new workshops on the ground floor. On the day of my visit, one was being used to train scores of young bricklayers. They included a class of full-time first years - such as 16-year-old Jake Bovingdon, who wants to work on a building site - and, in another part of the workshop, a group of much-envied apprentices. These are young workers who have already got jobs, and are sent to the college on a block-release basis by their employers to further hone their bricklaying skills.

York Press:

Jake Bovingdon, left, and a classmate practising their bricklaying skills

In another ground-floor workshop, meanwhile, a group of 27 full-time joinery students were being taught basic joinery skills by tutor Paul Manuel: how to smooth and work wood; how to make different types of joint. Carl Asson, 20, was using a rebate plane to put a rebate in a long piece of timber. And what is a rebate, exactly? "It's like a ledge," said Paul. The kind of ledge you could fit a pane of glass into if this was a window frame, for example.

Carl had only been at the college for eight weeks. "But I've learned quite a lot of different basic skills," he said.

York Press:

Carl Asson learning to become a joiner at York College's new construction and skills centre

Upstairs, there is a whole suite of classrooms - where, on my visit, classes were in progress on everything from gas assessment to electrical installation and plumbing - plus an IT suite where a group of young would-be quantity surveyors were studying. A noticeboard held details of the latest apprenticeships that were available.

One of the college's strengths is its links with employers. Many construction businesses send their apprentices here for training - and many of the staff, such as Kevin, used to work in industry themselves. Traditional 'heritage' isn't forgotten: the college runs a strong stonemasonry programme, where young masons from across the north of England - including apprentices from York Minster - learn the skills of their trade.

Just how effective the college is at training the construction workers of the future is proved by the success of its students in the annual World Skills competition.

Earlier this year, stonemasonry apprentice Sam Turner won a bronze medal at the World Skills final in Sao Paolo, Brazil - meaning he has the right to call himself one of the finest young stonemasons anywhere in the world.

This weekend, three more students who trained at York hope to follow in his footsteps. Apprentice stonemason Sean Roberts, apprentice bricklayer Tom Macdonald and apprentice painter and decorator Michael Leaf have all won through to the UK final of the World Skills competition, which is being held at the Birmingham NEC from November 19-21. If they do well there, they could go on to represent the UK (and York College) at the next World Skills world final, just like Sam.

Sadly, despite the very best efforts of bricklaying tutor Mike Burdett, it's unlikely that I'll ever be able to follow them...

York Press:

Stonemason and UK Skills finalist, Sean Roberts

  • If you'd like to find out more about construction skills courses offered at York College, call 01904 770400 or visit www.yorkcollege.ac.uk Very few of us ever spare much thought for the people who built them, however.