Ben Richards, one of four apprentices taken on by Weedon, Northamptonshire, stone specialists Boden & Ward last September, was runner-up in a masonry competition in the south of France this summer.

Ben, the three other apprentices and all but three of the 15 people working at Boden & Ward, led by managing director Sean Collins, decamped to France for the festival. The four Boden & Ward apprentices were the only British contestants among an international entry of 50.

There were only first, second and third prizes awarded, so Boden & Ward were particularly proud of Ben\'s achievement. His prize was a bag of tools.

The four apprentices are the first Boden & Ward have had. They were youngsters who had approached the company in various ways keen to learn the craft of stonemasonry. Ben, for example, had worked for the company during holidays while he was school. He joined as labourer when he left school, took a year off and when he returned asked if he could train to be a mason.

As the stone specialists had always paid their levy to the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and as the CITB seemed keen for companies to start training, they decided to employ the four men, also enrolling them at Bath College on block release courses.

Having done so, Mrs Alex Ward was amazed to discover that the CITB did not then want to give the company grants for their apprentices. It took the involvement of the local Member of Parliament to get the CITB to pay up for the training, says Mrs Ward.

Ben\'s success is certainly a vindication of the training he and his colleagues are receiving.

Willy Drouet, a Frenchman who is Boden & Ward\'s foreman, was certainly sufficiently impressed to suggest they should enter the competition in France.

The competition is held annually in a quarry and the competitors are accommodated in a large marquee erected for them.