Hop-Picking.
Down-Oppin', the bermondsey boys in the Garden of England.We would get the train from London Bridge Station to Paddock Wood, Some of our relatives and friends would have gone down before on the back of a lorry with a few sticks of furniture, a chair or two a bit of a cupboard an upturned tea chest or old wooden crate would do as a table and some big old pots.
We stayed on Tent Common in tin huts, the farmer would supply some straw which we stuffed into ticking covers laid on a rough plank structure, these were our beds.Quite comfortable really. There were cooking huts opposite with open fires. The farmer would provide faggots (bundles of twigs- I think they were prunings from the orchards ). No food ever tasted or smelt as good as food cooked on these fires.
In the middle of the field they would dig a big hole, a hop sacking screen would give a bit of privicey. There was a stand pipe in the corner of the field where we would get the water for drinking, washing and cooking. Getting buckets of water from here was the only chore I can remember having to do.
The grownups and older children would pick the Hops into bins made from sacking and held up with crossed wooden posts at each end. The farmer's men would come round and measure the Hops in big wickers baskets, I think they paid about five pennies a bushel, this was the volume of the baskets.
Ladies from the W.R.V.S. or was it the Salvation Army would come round with tea urns and fruit cake. (I thougt it was nice when the Queen Mum was lying in State' the same(?) Ladies were there serving tea and fruit cake from inside marques in the garden by Westminster Hall.- somethings never change).
We played and explored all those long summer days, and had the best time any child could have didn't we Bermondsey Boys, and it cost nothing ( except for many hours Hop-Picking by the gownups).
This picture is of my nan Sarah Denyer in front of a cooking hut, taken in 1937 judging by the shield's with King George and Queen Mary.I think the others are the Lowry's, but not very sure.
I'ts a real Peasouper of a mystery, apart from my brother Anthony and Charly Lowry I seem to be the only Bermondsey boy who went Hop Picking. Did none of you put half penny's on the railway line ( just at the back of Tent Common ) to turn them into penny's, or go scrumping or climb trees, or just love beeing there.
This picture is of Charlie, behind my brother Ant, and me in the front. The picture was taken on Tent Common.
I could chat for hours about 'opping down in Kent,' they were the happiest days of my life. To escape from the grey and grimey back streets of south-east London for three weeks every year was sheer magic. I was a bird let out of a cage.
Scrumping apples, blackberrying, knocking conkers out of the trees, etc. etc. I would spend hours up a tree, just looking out over the beautiful, unchanging Kent countryside. I certainly remember putting coins on the railway line and retrieving the wafer thin strips of copper, which was all that was left after the steam train had ran over them,. And stones, which left just a smear of white powder after being crushed by those trains. We spent hours playing on the level crossing, climbing over the gates and listening for the trains so that we could run on to the track and place those coins and stones on the lines, seconds before the train arrived.
We would make mud pies out of the wet clay in the hop fields and decorate them with acorns and hawthorn berries and pretend to sell them to the pickers for a penny a time. We collected reedmace, which we incorrectly referred to as 'bullrushes,' from the semi-stagnant pond in a corner of one of the hop fields and pretended they were swords, which we would tuck down our belts and then strutt around the hop fields like Robin Hood and his merry men. The hop fields themselves had a character of their own. No two were alike and they each had a name: 'Tar pots,' 'Twelve acre,' 'Over the lines,' 'Whisky hops, ' etc. (Never knew how that last one got its name.)
On Saturday nights the pickers would go, 'up the hill,' to the pub and me and the other kids would be happy just to be outside with our lemonades and packets of crisps. At closing time the pickers would roll back down the hill, arm-in-arm, singing their hopping songs. I've never seen so many shooting stars as I did in my childhood days down hopping, because the hopping nights were pitch black, with no light pollution.
When we got back to the huts we would sit around the camp fire and listen to the old men's stories and sing hopping songs.
"When you go down 'oping, 'opping down in Kent,
you try to earn a couple of bob to pay the bloomin' rent!'
and
"Oh me lousy 'ops, oh me lousy 'ops,
when the measuere comes around,
pick 'em up, pick 'em up off the ground,
When 'e starts a-measurin' 'e never knows when to stop.
Aye, aye get in the bin and take the bloomin' lot!
I never wanted to go to bed and I would struggle to keep my eyes open, until I could fight it no more. My nan would then tuck me in and I would snuggle down into my straw bed and watch the flicker of the parrafin lamp, as it cast its dancing shadows on the wall of the hut. The subtle hint of woodsmoke from the dying faggot fires would be the last thing I sensed before drifting off into a deep, restful sleep. I've never slept so well in my life as I did 'down 'oppin, ' possibly because my nan used to make me a 'hop pillow,' a pillow case stuffed with hops. Many years later I discovered that the hop is a member of the Canabis family. Yes, unknowingly, I was stoned!
My hopping days ended in 1960, when the hop harvesting machine took over and hand pickers were no longer required. Fifty years ago this September to be precise, but it all seems like yesterday. If there's one thing in this life that makes me over-sentimental, its 'oppin' down in Kent.'
You can only understand if you've been there and done it!
Sadly, my generation is the last of those who would have had first-hand experience of that wonderful way of life that was 'Opping down in Kent.'
We must make sure our memories are passed on. I hope I've done my bit.
I'm sure you have done your bit Del in keeping the memories of Opping alive.
I only have one photo of Opping, unfortunatley i'm not in it, but my Bruv. is with some of our neighbours.
I grew up around Hops, as my Dad was an Hop Tester, making sure we had good quality beer.
Every day he would come home from work, you could smell those hops on him (luvley)
My Mum would have to clean his turn ups in his trousers which were full of Hops.
The Picture shows my Dad right at the back.
He would take me to work with him some saturdays, he needed to feed the cat which was a bit wild but good at keeping the mice at bay.
I would run wild climbing over and up on the sacks of hops that were stacked 3 or 4 high. each sack about 8 feet high.
I think the name of the Hop Merchants was Hanbury & Jackson, they were near Leather Market Park.
Bermondseyboy
The hop picking tradition in my family started in 1867, when my great grandfather walked from Walworth down in to Kent looking for work. He stumbled upon May's farm at Pearson's Green near Paddock Wood quite by accident, on the very day the hop picking season of that year began. It was serendipity. He never missed another season. His last hopping was in September 1951. He died in the spring of 1952 at the age of eighty-five. He passed the hopping tradtion down through the generations. My nan, (born in 1896,) first went hopping as a child and then, throughout her adult life, she occupied the same hut on the same farm right up to 1960. I was first taken hopping in September 1947, when I was just six months old. I never missed another season until hopping finished at our particular farm in 1960. My great grandfather was farm foreman in the latter years of his life, and my grandfather was a 'pole puller,' who went arond the hop fileds with a long pole with a hook on the end, pulling down the hops that had snagged on the overhead wires. The stories us kids listened to around the camp fires kept us transfixed for hours. One was about the year when the Battle of Brittain raged overhead as the pickers in the fields watched it all going on. According to legend, two german Messeschmitts were brought down right over the farm and the dead pilots were burried in Brenchley Cemetary. In adult life I began to doubt the authenticity of this story, but after some research I discovered it was true. After the war the German War Graves Commission applied to the Foreign Office for the return of the dead airman and in the spirit of concilliation that abounded at that time the request was granted. The bodies were then exhumed and returned to the Fatherland. If I'm boring you please let me know, otherwise there are more stories where that one came from. (All copyright, of course.)
we carried on hoppin till 70-71 at rolvenden near tenterden because the farmer john an his sisters were to old to bother with machines great days never forget them
we first went hoppin about 1955 none of our family had ever been before me mum kept on to dad to take us so he borrowed a van an took us to wateringbury it was dark when we arrived he dropped the stuff off an said you wanna go hoppin here's ya hoppin seeya me mum cried her eyes out we went all over kent it's hard to remember all the names of the farms but we went to wateringbury. teston.hawkhurst.kilndown.near goudhurst.an rolvenden me an my girlfriend got the sack from rolvenden cos we could'nt get out of bed in the morning there were some great little pubs in them villages when we started it was a shilling a bushel me mum used to pick maybe 2 or 3 bushel per measure the gypsies in the next row used to pick 20 we would be there sometimes 6 weeks so i always missed the beginning of school but it was better than school thats for sure happy days seeya
It's great to read your stories, my first post on hop picking was in December and the first responce was not until April. I was begining to wonder if I was the only lad to go, but now I feel much better,being in the best possible company, other Bermondsey Boy's
I have Just recieved a Link from Patrick Long.
It's all about Hop-Picking in Paddock Wood.
There are a couple Video's, well worth a look.
Check it out (click here)
