Hop-Picking.
Just an update for Michael and JIMMIKA on hop picking in Wateringbury.We were right that the farm in Cannon Lane was called Home Farm. Been talking to my friends in Wateringbury,who said the locals knew it as Blests Farm,or Broomscroft.Also Michael they remember a pub at the end of the lane,which would have been on the Airfield called THE FIR TREE, this is probable the one you remember.They have asked me if you can remember the hoppers taking their Sunday Joint to the Bakery at the the bottom of Redhill, to be cooked for Sunday Lunch. KIWI
blests farm u got it, well done. just last week me an my girl were walking to a pub in another village and as we crossed a bridge over the river there was a hop bine growing up the side of the bridge ohhhh lovely i scrunched some of them hops in my hand put them to my nose and i was back in kent.my girl had never smelt hops before ,never even seen them cheers mate jim
Hi Lennypat. Glad to meet someone who went hop picking in Marden. We were at Great Chiveney Farm not far from the West End pub. Good to also hear someone refer to the Seven Mile Lane. We always got excited as my dad's old banger turned right off the A20 on that road. It was the first time you got to see the hop fields.
Have so enjoyed reading all your lovely memories of Glorious days down 'opping. We used to go to Moatenden Farm near Headcorn, the Farmers name was Mr Dungey, we went from about 1950 right up till the change over to machines around 1960.
Only the best pickers/workers were chosen to carry on going 'opping after the change over, you kept your same hut and we went right up till about 1964.
But the days picking on the bin were the best, not that us kids done much picking, all that pulling down the bines in the morning, showering you in all that wet dew, and it was all rough, scratching all your arms. We couldn't wait to slide off to play.
Cooking on a primus, the smell of the paraffin and the meths, or out in the cookhouse, on a faggot fire, the lovely wood burning smell, water from a tap across the field, milk straight from the cow and bought from the farmer in his dairy (don't forget to take your jug)
And the toilet !!! A little hut with a wooden seat over a hole dug in the ground, (don't look down) and the smell !!! But I never remember anybody getting ill while we were 'opping, we were too busy having a good time.
Saturday night was spent getting dressed up (well.... sort of) then we all got onto the bus into Headcorn where all the adults drunk the night away in the George and Dragon, while we had a Vimto and crisps if you were lucky.
Happy Days, full of lovely memories, I could go on and on, the smells, the drama's, the fun. As you say........ if only we could go back, just for a while.
Hi Diane Lennypat here. Seems that you and me should be related? like twins... all the things you write I can relate to...the smell of the fires,crushed hops etc, surely takes me back.we 'oppers had some great times didn't we? how about those toilets? thunder boxes we called them..did you have an apple scramble at your farm?it was the Farmers way of getting rid of his excess apples..he would drive a lorry around the sheeps field tipping apples out of boxes, onto the grass us kids would run behind picking them up, when the front of your jumper were full you would take them back to the hut to wash them sometimes we would eat one before we got back only to find it also had 'currants stuck to it (yuk) you had to laugh though.....would you like to go 'oppin again and relive those days again? I would......will write somemore stuff on here soon.......Bye 4 now........
Oh Lennypat........would I love to go 'opping again ? You betcha.........
They were the best time of our lives, and the memories live on forever. My Mum would get the cherished postcard from the farmer in late August, this was necessary because some 'oppers were not invited back every year, if they caused any trouble the previous year ! And the first week in September my Dad would borrow a lorry and everything went on board, then he would pick up several other families and the lot of us would be off, Mums sitting on the chairs or boxes, kids hanging over the tailboard, singing all the way. The usual stop at some pub on the journey and then the shout would go up ' No singing through the village' ...... so we all sang even louder . Then down the notorious Sutton Valence and journeys end, the farm. We loved it.
I live in Suffolk now and it is over 50 years since we went 'opping, but in September we get wild hops growing near here, and I pick the hops and crush them in my fingers..............the smell takes me right back.........then I put the crushed hops into my pocket to savour later, again and again, silly isn't it ? But we were happy then, wooden hut, no electricity or gas, no tv or running water, spiders everywhere, stinky toilet, ........... Would I go back ? Yes.... Yes.... Yes. !!!!!!
Down ,opping
THE PLACES I GO THE PEOPLE I MEET AS I AMBLE DOWN ANY OLD STREET,
SOME HURRY AND SCURRY WITH PLACES TO GO,
OTHERS MEANDER WITH PACE THAT IS SLOW,
THEY STOP AND LINGER 'NEATH THE SHADE OF A TREE,
FEELING THE PAIN IN ANKLE AND KNEE,
AGE IS THE BURDON WITH TIME ON OUR HANDS,
ALWAYS AFRAID TO MAKE FUTURE PLANS,
WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE THEY GAINED THRU' THEIR LIFE,
THE POSSIBLE LOSS OF A HUSBAND OR WIFE,
STORIES TO TELL OF DAYS GONE BY ,
A MEMORY FLASH PRODUCES A SIGH,
REMEMBER THAT TIME IN PADDOCK WOOD,
WE GATHERED THE HOPS IT FELT SO GOOD,
THEN,, ANNIE THE NIGHT SHE FELL INTO THAT DITCH,
WE LAUGHED SO MUCH WE ALL GOT A STITCH,
THEN WALLY GOT DRUNK AND DID A STRIPTEASE,
WE THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY, BUT HIS WIFE WAS'NT PLEASED!!!. HAPPY ,OPPING.
Hi,
I'm an American writing a novel set in Bermondsey during WWII and I'm going to be in London during the second half of April doing research. One of my chapters will be on hops picking in Kent--which I learned of thanks to you and this forum, which has been hugely helpful to me. The time period for my chapter will be in the 20s, but from everything I've learned thus far, it doesn't seem to have changed that radically over the decades of hand picking. I'm writing this in the hope that one (or more) of you might be willing to talk with me about hops picking while I'm in London. I know that many of you who write on the board no longer live in Bermondsey or even the greater London area, but as distances are short in England (relative to this side of the pond) I could possibly come to where you are. I also know that you are all too young to have picked hops before the war, but perhaps you have memories of things your parents told you. There is something so magical in all your accounts of those Septembers picking hops, and it is so unique for an entire community to have this work-vacation experience in common for so many years, that I would love to write about it. You've given me invaluable help in these pages already, but it would be great to hear longer accounts, be able to ask questions, etc. Elsewhere on the forum I've asked for personal accounts about the war--and people have been very generous and lovely in their responses--but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask specifically about hops picking in this thread. Thanks for listening and thanks for anything you might be willing to share with me.
Marjorie Darraugh
marjoriedarraugh@hotmail.com
