Cockney Holiday! - Hop Picking - Londoners - 1972

For many East End families the only holiday they got each year was the trip to Kent Hop Picking during the summer months.
This extract is taken from the Thames TV award winning documentary 'We was all one'
First shown:1972
If you would like to license a clip from this video please e mail:
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Quote: VT49748
16 MM film available

[@xXLifesLiesXx]

From 3:00 onwards. The lady on the left and the small lady in Black in the middle are both my great grandparents

[@xXLifesLiesXx]

The woman on the right was a neighbour of them

[@nl59]

That's amazing, I loved watching the full interview of them. Real characters!

[@silviopozza8413]

The lil' old lady in black is a relic of Victorian times, look at her style. Are you telling the truth? This is priceless!

[@xXLifesLiesXx]

@@silviopozza8413 If what my mum says is true haha! My dad passed away when i was 11 so its great to have this to look back on and see what his side of the family was like. I'll try to get some more info today but i think the lady in black is my great/great great grandmother!

[@elizabethsheffield6609]

........how wonderful having your relatives saved for posterity on a real "Hopping Down in Kent" video. I've been looking for my own too but no luck so far!

[@HoofinBob]

my god that is my old nan and friends in the pub. wonderful ladies, absolute gold standard they were. Well im now in Austrlia after dad sent me off and above my dining table is a big photo of nan, unties, uncles round a Hop Cart full of kids in kent. God Bless them and god bless England x

[@zivkovicable]

it was so wonderful that they sent you to the other side of the world.

[@baldy_locks167]

These old dears sound just like my old nan used to. Don’t hear many accents like that anymore god bless them.

[@elizabethsheffield6609]

......my "Sarf" London Nan & relatives too!

[@PaulRoseGuitar]

Wonderful piece of film. What happened to our great country.

[@zivkovicable]

Child labour was abolished. No one is forced to sleep on rodent infested bails of hay. Workers get holiday pay and a proper time off.

[@user-lx6bl2wd8g]

So interesting. I originate from Kent and remember going apple picking with mum around the Paddock wood area in the 70's.

[@garyneeves9642]

I come from Teynham and remember hoping in 1980. I worked in the oast house bailing the dryed hops for 12 hours a day Lost loads of weight in the month and a free half barrel of Guiness every week for the bailers! As kids in the 1960s, we loved ridding the tractors up to the hopping sheds and back. Loads of tiny cuts from the vines. A lost world.

[@Backs4more]

My mum, from Wanstead/East Ham, used to go hop picking as a kid. It’s a fond memory for her now that she is approaching 80.

[@ModelRailwaysUnlimited]

LOL I love the old girls in the pub, wonderful characters, I'm dying listening to them lol

[@paulgilson2347]

Reminds me of my old nan...proper salt of the earth types. God bless

[@pommiebears]

Us kids used to go yearly to a place in Norfolk to work with the horses, mucking them out and feeding them and riding them. That was our holiday! We bloody loved it.

[@bridgettecampbell1018]

Rough diamonds spring to mind.

[@beery52]

hi all in east kent from rob beer in australia iam originally from west malling i have memories of hopping but mostly strawberry picking. regards.

[@susiel9612]

Love those ladies xx they had nothing but were happy

[@DeansBeerReviews]

Salt of the earth folk

[@borderlands6606]

Older ladies drank from bottles, stout mainly. I think it was more ladylike than drinking pumped ale.

[@oscarosullivan4513]

Interesting as stout is a more stronger in flavour drink

[@Fredney17]

East End? East End?? Bermondsey, the Old Kent Road and the Elephant & Castle are most definitely *not* in the East End! They are, in fact, the pride of south London.

[@spencerkay6131]

Defo, had a grandad from Hackney. He currently wouldn't be associated with the unwashed :p

[@Backs4more]

Right at the beginning he says “South east London”.

[@stephenjackson6415]

Dead right

[@stephenjackson6415]

Dead right mate

[@the_trooper_72]

@@Backs4more looks like your the only one who can hear that,.. Apart from me!! Haha

[@Eric-the-Bold]

West London Chiswick , Devonshire Road/William Street. A relation had an open backed lorry, he and his wife would take us all down to Paddock Wood, leaving his wife with us. Open fires spuds on a stick, black pot cooking rabbit stew. Cant wait for the Fish and Chip van. Tucked up, on the straw the rain bashing off the corrugated roof. Outside the Pub, bottle of Lemonade and crisps. Our own kids gang, didn’t know that East London existed, but kids are kids we all mixed, even with the Gypsy kids , our Chiswick heritage, Hawkers etc . Off scrumping. Being told off for putting leaves in the bin. Whats that your cooking? On the Gypsy fire? First you gut it son , then roll it in clay and when its cooked pull off the clay and off comes the spines? It was an hedgehog. I was not offered any. Mum said if your hungry enough. Off down to Paddock Wood summer 2023, down memory lane.

[@tobywardrop6870]

Luv it

[@michaelsimonds4032]

I worked at Paddock Wood for 2 seasons, 1969 and 71, if you worked in the oast house you got 3 pints of beer free per day! Driving tractors was more fun but no beer..

[@sarahjrobinson9792]

Yep.. This was my Dad's holidays in the 40's and 50's..

[@garryleeks4848]

Great characters 👍

[@elizabethsheffield6609]

........it was our HOLIDAY and were paid too. And of course, the sun ALWAYS SHINED!

[@CD-cg1dc]

My family from old Kent Road did the hop picking!!

[@originalpickaxe]

A bed made with straw full of lice , gaw blimey , that's an all inclusive 'olliday.

[@jameshills2845]

Bev this is an aunt you might not of known about she is the first one to speak on this video

[@HarveyPaul007]

Great

[@borderlord]

One of the richest countries in the world...that so many of our population led such hard ,poor lives is beyond me...I guess it is still organised that way!

[@dougiemontana4815]

Most of London was working class.

[@alecneate76]

Still a better life than now in many ways

[@ignignokt-6050]

No surprise when all the profits of colonization and industry were hoarded by the haves and the have nots had to make do with whatever they can scrape up in days hard labor. Not to different today

[@BOZ_11]

@@dougiemontana4815 it always was and always will be. the higher ups are more efficient now with managing their wealth, and thus, ours

[@jap7384]

'ops is wot they make me beer out of, 'andsome it was

[@zinastanescu]

Romanian people from villages speaking cockney

[@Folk_var]

I miss the cockney accent.

[@bigdog7140]

Wen Britain was British good old days

[@alecneate76]

So sadly lost

[@PaulRoseGuitar]

Yes, it's a real shame where we are today. This film shows what we lost.

[@zivkovicable]

I really wish we were forced to work on our holidays because holiday pay didn't yet exist, Oh yes the good old days...You bunch of cap doffers.

[@RobinMagpie]

Here is picture about hoping in Kent

[@nutcracker2916]

A "holiday" but still having to work hard. Ironically it's fashionable to live in what was known as the poorer areas of London. Ironically a lot of the gentrified ones. Are the middle class "Socialist" Guardian readers. Who the ex council properties that cost a fortune. Ironically the same people who would be anti Thatcher who further down the line allowed them to purchase these ex social housing properties.

[@greg0uk]

What a shit holiday.

[@glenlilley4757]

Gummies