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'The site would have been closed down in the UK'

Jason Bennetto,Graham Ball
Sunday 14 July 1996 23:02 BST
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For hundreds of young people struggling to find work in Britain, the offer of at least six weeks' sculpting and painting on a prestigious theme park in Germany seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Responding to an advertisement in the London Evening Standard, they agreed to the pounds 7.50-an-hour fee, with free food, lodging and flight. Work started immediately.

Over the next 12 months the artists, most of whom were graduates in their 20s and early 30s with degrees in subjects such as fine arts and design, transformed a vast building site in the Ruhr Valley into Warner Brothers Movie World.

But far from being a magical experience, for many of the artists it became a dangerous and exhausting endurance test.

They tell a tale of bleak conditions in which people were crammed into tiny portable cabins and fed with poor food, and there was widespread drug taking and excessive drinking.

Perhaps most disturbing was the practice of unprotected scenic artists working next to contractors spraying a hazardous chemical foam. Many artists have complained of injuries and infections to eyes and throats.

In one of the worst casesLynne Caldwell, 21, a mathematics graduate, was handed a grinder on her first day at work and told to start moulding the hard foam. She had never used the tool, which was missing a handle, and was given no training.Within minutes it jumped and badly cut her leg, which needed 15 stitches. She said: "None of us had ever seen a grinder before, I wouldn't touch one now I know how dangerous it is."

Julia Clow, 37, a fine arts graduate, said: "As soon as I arrived I was handed a chain saw and told to use it [to cut polystyrene]. I was appalled. It was so heavy I could hardly lift it. I was given no instruction and their appeared to be no regard for health and safety regulations."

Hard hats were often unavailable, according to the artists, and when the Independent visited the site only the supervisors were wearing them.

Sarah, a scenic artist with a degree in fine art, heard through a college friend that she could earn some fast money working on the Warner Brothers theme park. Within a few days she was on the plane to Germany.

When she arrived she was taken to her new home, dozens of mobile cabins stacked on top of each other, which was at the centre of the park. Here she would remain for five weeks. "My room was dirty and the sheets, although washed, looked grubby and had stain marks. "Two beds were crammed into the room, which was about by 12ft.

Her day started at about 6am, with breakfast. Work began at 6.30am with a 15-minute break at 9.30. Lunch - sandwiches and fruit - was at 12.30. The 45-minute break was deducted from the wages. The day officially finished at 6.45.

On her first day, Sarah (not her real name) was handed a kitchen knife and a roll of foil and told to start covering the metal rods that form the skeletons of huge pieces of scenery. She carried on with this work for the next four weeks."There was no safety training," she said, and masks and goggles often ran out

"Experienced workmen out there said the site would have been closed down in 10 minutes if it was in the UK."

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