A CULLINGWORTH man has retired after more than two decades keeping car-mad teenagers on the straight and narrow.

Len Wright has passed on his engineering skills to countless young people at the Keighley Motor Education workshop on South Street.

Motor Education project is part of JAMES, an organisation that provides an alternative to mainstream school for hundreds of youngsters across Bradford district.

The workshop uses old cars and motorbikes to teach motor maintenance skills to teenagers, who had been referred by schools following problems such as absenteeism or bad behaviour.

Len joined the project 22 years ago as part of a lifelong career as a motor mechanic.

Len, 65, who lives in Cullingworth with wife Janice, originally worked for the former West Yorkshire Road Car Company, repairing buses, after taking his City Guilds in motor maintenance.

When left the company after it was taken over by First Bus in the 1980s, and later worked for Hughes Daf in Birkenshaw, equipping and refurbishing buses and lorries.

Len joined the Motor Education Project 22 years ago, spending the first couple of years with its mobile workshop visiting Bradford housing estates to work with young people.

He then moved to the Keighley workshop – in a former tramshed – and discovered a talent for teaching.

Len said: “It’s been rewarding to see a lot of the lads come in. The schools say there’s no chance of doing anything with them, but they go on to do well.”

Len said the majority of his students had gone on to become motor mechanics themselves, and many others had joined the Army.

He added: “We give them opportunities after everyone else has given up on them. We’re treating them as proper grown-ups.”