There still exists a tradition in Germany where apprentices travel for a few years, working in different aspects of their trade, as part of their apprenticeship. They have a journal in which they record the placements they've done and references from their employers during that period.
A mate of mine, Andreas, is a guitar maker who spent 4 years in Granada during his apprenticeship. On his return to Germany he had to present, I believe, 3 instruments for assessment, one of which had to be made under scrutiny. I'd known Andreas for 3 or 4 years when I turned up when he had a customer waiting in his workshop, as Andreas had to leave for some reason or other. I asked him how good a guitar maker Andreas is. His answer was to ask if I'd ever wondered why Flamenco players would travel all the way from Spain to have their guitars looked at!
Andreas built a wooden balcony behind his house. The workmanship was astonishing and every now and then your eye would be drawn to a new squiggle which became a sleeping dormouse, a cat's head... or a point of mother of pearl I spotted on a bannister which turned out to be the eye of a sperm whale!
I said to him that it was the first time I'd ever seen a balcony built like a guitar, he answered that was better than a guitar built like a balcony!
There is also a living tradition of wood carving, apparent in every Gasthaus and restaurant, and the mask carving (a custom once widespread throughout Europe) for the more traditional Fasnet/Fasnacht/ festivals, masks representing everything from apples and pears to witches, ogres, Wildemann and wood-sprits. There is a club from somewhere in Schwarzwald whose mascot/theme involve a story of a man who lived in hiding in the woods for decades. The story appears to date from the 30 Years War (1618 - 1648), into which, I might add, every major European power threw its spanner.
It was a revelation though, when a friend told me that although there were quite a few very old Fasnet clubs, many of them dated from no earlier than 1945/46, as a nation which had torn itself apart tried perhaps to re-establish some meaningful past.
On a lighter note, I remember Andreas commenting that Dunkerque was the only time the British ever made it onto the beach before the Germans!
Bill.
