Hops and Downs

[castle261]

My one & only trip to hop picking ended, after a sing song around a huge fire, was when my mate & I retired for the night, in a hut. I was violently ill,
when I came in contact with the straw bedding, it brought on my asthma so bad, I had to return home 17 miles away from Ospringe,

[grandarog]

Not his normal working clothes .He always dressed up for Hop Picking to show his authority .Some of the women could be quite stroppy about meaurements when the hops were being tallied up. The idea was to fluff tem up as much as possible in the basket.Woe betide any of the kids that knocked into a Tally basket and shook the level down a bit. Here he is driving the Caterpillar,his normal job when not tending the hops as and when they needed work like stringing twiddling etc.

[Dave Smith]

grandarog. Very smart, your Dad. Would those have been his working clothes, or for the " photo call"?   Smiffy. Thanks for that film- farming so labour intensive; it's easy to see why all the fruit trees now are on dwarfing stock- developed at the Malling Research Station. Great shot of the Golden Arrow at Dover.    jima. The Shorts flying boat on the Medway at Rochester, was a Solent- civil version of the RAF Seaford- & photo' taken in 1946.

[grandarog]

My Dad was the Hop Foreman on Grove End Farm until he retired in 1961 .After he retired the Hop garden was grubbed out and no hops have been grown on the Farm since. He was the Tally man every year at Hop Picking.The photo shows him on the right with my mum and both  Nan's sitting. Dad is the smartly dressed man with  the Cap and Tie.The other chap was the Polepuller. Each Cant of hops had a polepuller to look after the pickers. The other photo shows pert of days worth of picked hops in greenbags heading to the Oast to be dried.

[jimawilliams]

Thanks for posting this Smiffy, I enjoyed seing a new colour film of kent on the KHF.  I do think this one had ben posted before.  Interesting to see the Shorts plane at 32min 25 seconds.

[Smiffy]

A lovely compilation of old films set in the south east - the Kent part starts about 30 minutes in. Makes you wish you had access to a time machine