Simple one: What is a lathe?

It's a straightforward question: What is a lathe?Here in the heart of the Black Country you would think the answer would be on everyone's lips no matter what their age or background.

The lathe is at the very heart of the area's engineering heritage.

In the Black Country 90,000 people, or 25 per cent of the working population, still make a living in manufacturing

And yet, our non-scientific survey makes depressing reading.

We found just one in every five people under the age of 30 even knew what a lathe was.

Twenty-six-year-old Gareth Fletcher, of Kidderminster, asked: "Is it something you cut corn with? No, wait, that's a scythe. Is it something to do with sewing?"

Michaela Crisp, aged 20, of Dudley said: "I'm not sure. is it something you use in the kitchen?"

In Wolverhampton one of those in the know was Steven Cooper, aged 16, a former pupil of Deansfield High, who said: "I worked on one when I did a college course in engineering so I had better know what it is."

But in Walsall a range of people, from a 28 year-old IT consultant to 16-year-old students, had no idea.

At the Merry Hill centre, Ben Watson, 25, said: "Is it for metal? You use it to whittle metal down don't you? The Midlands used to be a big area for industry, so you'd think more people would know."

In Sandwell two people out of ten correctly guessed that a lathe could be used in woodwork, but no-one made the link to metal or engineering.

The best results were in Stourbridge, where people were evenly spilt between those who knew what a lathe was and those who did not.

Many of the people asked who knew what the traditional wood and metal working device was for said it was because they had used them in classes at school.

Reacting to the survey results, Ian Smith, chief executive of the Engineering Employer's Federation West Midlands, said: "What an appalling indictment.

"But, sadly, I am not suprised. Young people are not exposed to the issues and systems of manufacturing. They don't make that link, to understand that everything they have in modern life is manufactured, designed and made by engineers.

"It is very frustrating, and one of the problems we are trying to address through our work in education.

"Youngsters just seem to think that engineering involves working on a dirty and greasy shop floor.

"And yet manufacturing uses a whole range of skills, from computer design to finance and sales. Part of the problem is the loss of traditional vocational skills.

"We did a survey of the top 30 senior executives and designers in our region and half of them went to university and the other half were trained as apprentices."

The EEF WM runs its own apprenticeship scheme, at Tyseley, and Mr Smith said it was often hard work getting youngsters to adopt a proper work ethic, but the standard of successful apprentices was extremely high - the calibre of entries for this year's Apprentice of the Year awards was "tremendously impressive", he said. "But, as a society, we have lost sight of the fact that everything we use in our lives is the product of highly skilled engineers."

Harco Engineering in Brierley Hill managing director Martyn Hughes says not enough young people want to learn true metal turning skills.

Calibre

"One of the biggest problems is trying to recruit staff of the right calibre. The average of our workforce here is in the mid-40s, and that is deliberate: we need people we can rely on who have the right skills.

"We finally have an apprentice who is interested and a good worker, but he is older than most, at 20.

"And the four or five before him all either left or had to be let go. Their maths and English skills were, frankly, diabolical.

"Too many are not interested and don't want to get their hands dirty."

The CBI recently revealed a survey of its members had found one in three employers was having to send staff for remedial training to teach them basic English and maths skills they did not learn at school. And around a fifth of employers often found non-graduate recruits have literacy or numeracy problems.

Last year barely half of GCSE students achieved a Grade C or above in maths (54 per cent) and just six out of ten (60 per cent) in English. Only 45 per cent achieved both. But the opportunities for unskilled workers is expected to shrivel from 3.4 million today to 600,000 by 2020, according to Lord Leitch's report on skills in the UK.

CBI director-general Richard Lambert said: "We must raise our game on basic skills in this country. The UK simply can't match the low labour costs of China and India. We have to compete on the basis of quality, and that means improving our skills base, starting with the very basics."

Until then employers must go back to real 3Rs. Or as Tony Blair didn't put it: Re-education, re-education, re-education.

l Definition of a lathe: machine tool for shaping metal or wood; the workpiece turns about a horizontal axis against a fixed tool. For more info, go to: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathe

Or ask your dad!