HOW many YTS trainees can you pick in to an eight-seater family run-around cruiser?

Michael Smyth and his wife managed 16 - the whole of the 1984 YTS course for which they were managing agents back in November 1984.

At the Bolton-based Radcliffe Road Garage Group, which claimed the largest petrol retail sales in Europe, 16 school leavers were given YTS training last year and 13 had been retained by the company in permanent employment.

Another two had found jobs outside the firms.

Meanwhile at the British Aerospace factory at Lostock, 58 young people were recruited on to their YTS training project. 44 had found permanent jobs, 31 of them within the British Aerospace factory.

The Youth Training Scheme (YTS) was brought into operation in 1983 by the government of Margaret Thatcher. In 1989, it was renamed Youth Training.