GETTING a trade was once a laudable aspiration for young men. It was seen as a passport to regular work and, if successful, the opportunity to run one's own business.

Then a young man's career fancy turned to a computer screen and the flow of skilled craftsmen - joiners, electricians and plumbers - dried up.

We now have a situation in some parts of the country, the South-East in particular, where tradesmen - particularly plumbers - can almost name their price for work.

Last week that skills crisis was revealed in the Yorkshire Dales where a plumber told the D&S Times how he had been unable to recruit an assistant after nearly ten months advertising for one. Darlington College - the leading vocational training establishment in the area - has not run a training course for ten years because it cannot find anyone to teach the trade.

Therefore Darlington Council deserves credit for considering starting its own apprentice schemes. It has already trained its own gas fitters because it could not recruit any in the open jobs market and may try to train more young people in other trades it needs to provide council services.

It is a telling indictment of the short-term outlook of the manufacturing sector that few industries now have apprentice schemes which companies commit themselves to.

The Government too can play a role by shifting the emphasis of its vocational training initiatives away from IT and towards truly practical hand-on skills.

With the dot.com bubble burst and only very slowly re-inflating, perhaps young people might start to believe you don't have to wield a mouse to make a million