Hop Pickers (1957)

[@VerbranntiChaib1]

1957, A third of our class at junior school went hop picking with their family every year. When they come back, they were all sun- tannned, and looked happy and healthy. How I envied them.

[@oscarosullivan4513]

Sad to see the decline of hop growing over there and the old style hops such as fuggles, goldings and challenger. Some breweries here mainly use English style hops.

[@thra5herxb12s]

@@oscarosullivan4513 French imports killed the industry.

[@elizabethsheffield6609]

....my family - parents - grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins - all descended on Paddock Wood in the 50's & 60's from London Bridge Station until the picking became mechanised. prickly Straw beds to sleep/rest on,army blankets, candles, cooking outside, playing on the faggot piles i.e.the wood for the fires, weekends at the local pub "THE HOP POLES" singing outside and staggering back in the pitch black night to the hut, blackberry picking, the smell of the fresh hops - everyone happy! everyone dead now.

[@ianrobert6239]

The days when everyone looked happy.

[@alanjones3631]

I remember whitbreads hop farm in the days gone by the delivery man in the video taking the telfers meat pies into sids cafe best pies on the camp they was great days hop picking at whitbreads and weekends families would come down from London and have a wonderful time enjoying them self's at the pub opposite the farm the blue Bell Inn cherished memories

[@crickcrot]

I went hop picking in Kent in the mid-1950s it was just an adventure for the kids and being chased by the farmer through nicking his apples in the orchard next door.

[@bianchikat]

thanks for the videos lovely fascinating stuff..a time long gone. not really a holiday was it? a long interminable journey behind an ancient loco in ancient carriages if they were lucky all other traffic had priority over ahop pickers special

[@mjrussell414]

So interesting. The kids get right into it too.

[@alanjones3631]

The cafe come shed was run by Sid and his wife Elsie on whitbreads hop farm I remember the end of season banquet when micheal holiday sang at the banquet then everbody afterwards when the hop season was over go to the hop farm office with their tally book and redeem their books and collect their money for their season for hops picked my mums two brothers drove the chevrolet Lorrie’s to the fields when it was mechanised to the hop picking machines which was done automatic picking the bines of hops those was the days hard work for the hop season but througly enjoyed it cherished memories i wish they would come back again but the memories still stay on myself never to be forgotten

[@sg0730]

Now the hop farm is more of an amusement park. It has a park and rides

[@nosmallo]

It was a museum when I was a kid. We had a school trip there most years to go see the drey horses (big grey percherons from memory).

[@donlogan83]

To think people are nostalgic for the 1950s…I don’t think many working-class people today (under 50) would swap with them!

[@turokforever007]

Probably not as they are used to the life now.

[@Takeawayinataxi]

Loved hop picking

[@bobcharlie7982]

Going on holiday and working hahah.

[@fuzzzeballs]

good old days of child labour!

[@Buggsy61]

No harm done - they weren't sending them up chimneys or out picking pockets. Its character building anyway

[@johnniethepom7545]

Those children built a work ethic and it taught them the value of earning a dollar . Perhaps you would prefer they lived in a tier block , playing on Play Stations and smoking Pot . Well truth be told that's what's happened . I had a paper round at 14 that was two villages , at 16 I was pea picking and glad of the 50 pence a bag ( June 1977 ) , 10 bags a day . An engineering apprenticeship at 17 and never looked back . I wouldn't have it any other way .

[@fuzzzeballs]

@@johnniethepom7545 "those children" were some of the poorest families in london that traveled to the hop fields with the families to earn money and take a holiday from the smog of the cities, they were housed by the hop producers in whar were esentaily sheds with no amenities, The work is long hours and physicaly exusting leaving a residue of sticky arromatic pollen on eveything> There were no childminding facilities so the kids joined in, they had no choice. you tell me it gave themawork ethic. I disagree. It was more likly to have given raise to asthma, COPD, and alergic rhinitis from dust exposure. The industry wasonereliant on cheapmigrant labour with next to no regard to the child welfare. Dont glamorise what was a and still is a hard buisness. My family are stil lone of the last few remaing hop producers in kent. it is not glamerous

[@johnniethepom7545]

@@fuzzzeballs so which is it then , the smog of the cities or the pollen from the Hops ? I love working when I was a kid , plus it was seasonal . Your making out I'm proposing to send children back down Pit .

[@fuzzzeballs]

@@johnniethepom7545 your still inflating you dented ego, did you miss the point i amoneof the fewremaining hopgrowing families inkent?