Comments on: Roy Wild, Hop Picker

By: Derek kempster

Derek kempster — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 19:55:33 +0000

Hi, I never knew Roy, but in 1948 I was only two, but my family went to the same farm (Harefield farm) owned by Bruce Neame. I don’t know when my family started going there, but it was well before I was born. I remember being there every year until i was 13, we had 3 huts in a block of 6, the rest were all taken by my aunts, we all came from Chatham, Rochester and Strood, now collectively called the Medway Towns. There were then 3 hut sites on the farm, ours was called the Dipping tank, because it was adjacent to the dipping tank where they used to dip the poles in tar to preserve them, and then used to build the pole structure of the hopfield along with wire cables. The other 2 sites were the Park huts and the homesteads which also had normal huts on plus numerous farm buildings, which looking at Roy’s photos is where I think his family was, it was also where the farms bailiff house was, if my memory’sricorrect the bailiffs name was Mr Pring, anyway if Roy’s reading this we could meet up at the White Lion pub next to Blyths which is now a house, and maybe exchange some hop picking stories, we often go there in the summer for lunch.

By: Pip Field

Pip Field — Sun, 13 Sep 2015 09:03:35 +0000

Hi,
What a great read and facinating photos..thank you so much. It was a delight to meet you Friday, hope you had an enjoyable and fruitful day. Many thanks too for the wonderful book I will treasure. Looking forward to meeting you again at one of the hopping afternoons at Valence House if that would be possible.

Thanks again,

Pip Field

By: Gordon Porter

Gordon Porter — Sat, 15 Aug 2015 10:55:02 +0000

What a great set of photos to have been kept.

By: Sandra wild-Hutchin

Sandra wild-Hutchin — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 18:06:20 +0000

So lovely to see pictures of my nan and pop, my dad and uncle tony on here, I can remember my nan telling my sister and myself some of the story’s of their hop picking days , lovely photos dad xx

By: Pauline Taylor

Pauline Taylor — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 17:56:07 +0000

I enjoyed this but the conditions that Roy describes made me laugh, it was called living in the country, none of us in country villages then had any mod-cons then !

By: Georgina Briody

Georgina Briody — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 06:34:53 +0000

Wonderful memories of a time long gone. I remember in the 1950s primary school mates going off hopping, just part of normal life then. Thanks for these photographs.

By: Jan

Jan — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 21:08:58 +0000

who took the photos? some of them are really great images in their own right, in addition to the fasc inating history

By: Jacqueline Sarsby

Jacqueline Sarsby — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 19:31:17 +0000

This is a lovely story. They used the long troughs of sack-cloth to pick into in West Kent and the bushel baskets in East Kent. I tape-recorded some of the ‘home-pickers’ in East Kent in the 1980s, and was given photographs of hop-picking in the 1900’s. Often little girls wore black stockings on their arms because the hop-bines are scratchy. Mike Winstanley interviewed a lovely lady called Freda Vidgen (member of the Loose Women’s Institute!) whose father used to string the bines in the winter and who remembered the hop-pickers coming by train from London and being brought to the farm with a horse and wagon. She said that the Londoners loved the bright colours of dahlias and used to go back home with apples and dahlias at the end of the harvest. The locals used to grow dahlias for them on their allotments, although they themselves thought chrysanthemums lasted much better. Winstanley’s wonderful tapes are in the Library at the University of Kent.

Jacquie Sarsby

By: derrick porter

derrick porter — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 17:43:18 +0000

What a wonderful historical collection of memorabilia. A working class family escaping from the stress of London to be closer to nature. And perhaps – God willing – to build up a small nest egg to sustain them on their return.

By: Angela

Angela — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 13:46:13 +0000

Another great read about Roy, and great photos too, together they really capture the whole feel of it!