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Case studies

Training in the Trades – Plumbing

Added: 19 December 2007. Last updated: 16 May 2008.

Natasha Greaves, Plumber

When Natasha Greaves arrived to sign up to her plumbing course, the other students asked her whether she had the wrong room. “I was the only woman there and seventy-five men. I had the looks, and the questions...And I’d be like ‘No, this is the line for plumbing’.”

Natasha had made the decision to become a plumber after a couple of years out of work as a single mum. “My children were really young at the time and I was thinking ‘Well what am I going to do? I need to get out there and start earning’... Then my uncle mentioned that theres a gap in the plumbing trade – they need people. And I thought ‘Yeah, Im up for that.’”

Although she’d previously been training to be an accountant, her family background meant that the decision to enter a manual trade felt quite natural – “when I was younger, a lot of my weekends and spare time was spent with my Dad, cos hes into construction – he’s a foreman. He’d be like ‘Pass me this tool Tasha, pass me that tool’...so I’d be at home and helping him around the house.“

She eventually found the training right for her, at the College of North West London – an alternative to the college where shed been met with such surprise at first. After finishing her NVQ 2 training, she got involved with the Building Work for Women project, and did a placement at St George’s. She says she found this incredibly useful, and that she learned loads on site. “College does not prepare you for on-site work. Work experience – you just need it. It really opens your eyes.”

She’s also benefited from the pre-placement training, driving lessons, tools, and PPE that are offered as part of the BWW project.

The best thing about Women and Manual Trades, Natasha says, is “the support. Seeing the need and meeting the need – thats what they’ve done for me, definitely...the needs that I’ve had, they’ve met in all ways.”

Natasha says that she’d definitely encourage any other women, interested in plumbing, to “give it a go“, and says that “just getting on with it” is the only way to deal with the kind of looks she got when she first turned up at a college.

So how do male co-workers treat her now? Natasha says the men she’s worked alongside on her Building Work for Women placement have “been great“, and very supportive of her and fellow plumber Susan Robinson. “The guys have really looked out for us... it was like I was their sister. I suppose they gave me maybe a little bit of privilege, but we did get our hands dirty – they didn’t not give us a job because they didn’t think we could do it.”

And the confidence that her co-workers had in Natasha seems to have inspired an extra confidence in herself. “I know, after this work experience...I definitely cant go back home to daytime TV! I know Im more than just looking after the house. I mean I love looking after the house, my home, and my children – but there is more to my life than that.“