The RSAF Apprentices Association is primarily a fraternal old boys and a few girls association to promote and facilitate continued friendships and contacts between former RSAF apprentices. When the factory was still open, membership was confined strictly to anyone who was serving or had served all or part of their apprenticeship at RSAF. Since closure the membership rules have been relaxed to include, by invitation:

• People who though not themselves apprenticed at RSAF were Apprentice Masters, Training Centre Instructors or had managerial responsibility for apprentice training at RSAF.
• A grade of Friends (without voting rights) for people who do not qualify for membership but have connections with RSAF or the Apprentices Association such as the widows of former members or persons involved in researching, preserving and promoting RSAFs history and heritage.

Few records survive of the Association's earliest days but it appears to have started as an association for serving Engineering apprentices at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. It is recorded as being in existence by 1919 when the RSAF apprentices were an Enfield Branch of the Woolwich association. In the years running up to World War II there were separate associations for serving and ex-apprentices and activities were largely if not wholly social and recreational. Membership was still confined to the Engineering stream.

During the war the serving apprentices managed to continued some social activities (at least the local pubs were still open!) but the exs had other more pressing issues to keep them occupied!

After the war Charlie Haynes, who was an enthusiastic devotee of apprentice training and later became Factory Manager, got things going again. There was a major reformation in which the separate associations for serving and ex apprentices combined and the Trade/Craft apprentices were brought into the fold too. The Association continued in that form until the factory closed in 1988. During the years when the apprentices hostel was open, most activities were centred on it but after the hostel closed interest waned.

When the factory closed it was expected that the Association would have to be wound up too, but the final meeting had other ideas and it was reborn with a new agenda in which keeping former work colleagues in touch, now the factory was gone, was a significant factor. Since then the Association has gone from strength to strength, with a mailing list now of some 280 members.

Activities now include:

• A reunion in springtime on a Sunday lunchtime and afternoon during which we enjoy a lot of gossiping, a few beers and a very nice lunch (basically Christmas dinner). The AGM is held after lunch. In recent years the reunion has been held at the excellent premises of the North Enfield Conservative Club. The apprentice models and other RSAF memorabilia are brought out for display. The ladies are invited along too and it is always a very congenial and well attended occasion.
• An autumn technical visit which is always to somewhere interesting as well as affording an opportunity for another get-together.
• Two or three substantial mailshots a year including news both of members and matters of interest relating to RSAF, either historical or new developments. The mailings include both a newsletter of general interest and Apprentices Write, a chat magazine of members news and reminiscences etc. The general newsletters can be viewed on this website, but not Apprentices Write which includes personal material. It is amazing where it all comes from but we are never short of copy!
• Maintenance and circulation from time to time of a list of members to facilitate contacts between them. That list is circulated in confidence and never on the internet to protect members from any unauthorised misuse for commercial cold calling, spam or junk mail.
• Custody of a heritage collection of RSAF memorabilia, arranging and managing the displays in the RSA Interpretation Centre and looking after the RSAF clock.

As a direct consequence of the April 1988 meeting, and as a result of the efforts and leadership of Ray Tuthill and other key folks on the committee, the Association has both survived and gained momentum. The mailing list had grown to over 250 by 2004. Membership has been extended to former apprentice instructors who were not ex-apprentices. New grades of "Honorary Associate Members" and "Friend" have been introduced for people who are not ex-apprentice but who have close links with the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield, its history or the Association.

High quality Newsletters and the ever popular "Apprentices Write" are now published at regular intervals and have provided invaluable material for this history. Newsletters in various guises had appeared spasmodically since the 1950s and, in February 1985, Ray Tuthill produced the first "Exs Write" which, by issue No. 4, evolved into "Apprentices Write" under Peter Hone's enthusiastic editorship.

An extensive archive of written and photographic material has been collected. Significant quantities of memorabilia, including two of the four model machine tools made by apprentices during their training in the 1940s and 50s, have also been acquired and the other two model machine tools have been traced to Forty Hall Museum in Enfield. The model gas engine that was made by apprentices in 1967 has been refurbished by Ken Dee (whose memories of RSAF apprentice life appear in chapter 4) in his home workshop and restored to working order. It is in the care of Forty Hall Museum who were very pleased to have it overhauled. Research has tracked the location of many of the other models and projects made by apprentices though a few still elude us. Details of these are shown in Appendix X.

A well attended reunion is held annually at which a selection of memorabilia, including most of the models, are on display and, at the 2004 event, the gas engine was demonstrated for the first time to be fully operational again after its refurbishment. Technical visits are arranged every Autumn for members and guests and the day's events can be viewed by clicking here.

One outstanding achievement of the Association and its Committee that has already been mentioned, was the significant input made to the Royal Small Arms Factory Interpretation Centre. This has been established in the Grade II listed, and largely preserved, Machine Shop I building that is part of the Royal Small Arms Island Village development on the site of the factory. The structure of this building, including the clock tower and the clock, made in 1783, has been restored and preserved as a centrepiece of the new development. It includes the Interpretation Centre where exhibits brought together by the Apprentice Association, explain the history of the site. Members of the Association, principally Ray Tuthill, and other volunteers wind and look after the clock. They support the Centre and expand its exhibits from time to time and occasionally lead guided tours of the site. A visit to this is strongly recommended.

Short Collection of Poems

• Poem 1
• Poem 2
• Poem 3
• Poem 4

From the many hidden talents of apprentices and an Apprentice Supervisor, poetry emerged as a medium for recalling life during and after Enfield Lock. It is therefore appropriate to end this history by referring the reader to a collection of poems written by various people from the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield that have been read at various Association functions.