Jeremy Corbyn came to the region today to meet some of the Teesside steelworkers who lost their jobs last year and are now retraining at Middlesbrough's £20m Stem Centre. Chris Webber reports

 "THE last time I was in a classroom it was blackboards and chalk and no back-answering," laughs Dennis Mavin, a 55-year-old, proud former steelworker, back at 'school' retraining so he can get another job.

He's talking to Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, who has come to Middlesbrough College's £20m Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) Centre to find out how Teesside's men and women are fighting back after the devastating closure of Redcar's SSI steelworks last year.

Mr Mavin and his friend, Andrew Jones, 44, of Brambles Farm, Middlesbrough, have just sat (and passed) an exam about testing and inspecting electrical equipment in people's homes.

The Labour leader, a former electricians' union official who seems at home in front of a class, asks them about how they've coped since the trauma of losing their livelihoods. The two former steelworkers' response is typically stoic.

"You just have to get on with it," says Mr Jones.

"What's it like being back in the classroom,?" Mr Corbyn asks.

"Hard. It's not like when you're a kid, you're not as good."

After touring the STEM centre, chatting to lecturers and students and learning that the Government has invested £3m for retraining purposes on Teesside, Mr Corbyn talked of the "tragedy" of so many men and women losing their work.

About half the SSI workers and those working for supply chain companies have found work, but often for much lower wages. The others are surviving as best they can and many, late in life, are back in the classroom, ready to start again.

Mr Corbyn has been quiet during his tour of the centre, gently and humorously teasing a young apprentice at the lathe by asking his lecturer for a progress report on the young lad's work. He even offers some praise to the Government for investing in retraining although he calls for more money to be invested for a longer, sustained period.

At last, after some prompting, he becomes passionate when talking about the decline of manufacturing and the loss of our region's once-proud and historic steel industry.

Asked what he would have done differently to the Government, he responds: "We'd have intervened much earlier on SSI. We'd have stood up against the European Union and not allowed ourselves to be bound by a very narrow interpretation of its rules. I would not have allowed the plant to be closed in that way. We would at the very least have protected the plant and the infrastructure that goes with it so it could have opened again in the future.

"It's disgusting and disgraceful what's happened to Redcar and we need a steel industry for the future."

What of the region's unemployed? What can be done to get our economy going once again. Mr Corbyn, who noted he hadn't seen many women training in the centre, talks of investment in infrastructure and a return to large-scale manufacturing.

"This area has made the steel that has made the world. This area has all the skills. We cannot just be a financial services economy. We have to have a manufacturing base."

Outside three lads, probably students at Middlesbrough College, are hanging around and approach the retreating reporterrs. "Who's he, like?," one of them asks, pointing at the greying, bearded figure surrounded by the great and good of their home town.

"Jeremy Corbyn? I've heard of him. Can I meet him? What's he going to do, like? What's he going to do for Teesside? He can't do owt, can he?"