https://spitalfieldslife.com/2024/08/15/hopping-season-i/ In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London Fri, 16 Aug 2024 15:08:32 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://spitalfieldslife.com/2024/08/15/hopping-season-i/#comment-1608498 Fri, 16 Aug 2024 15:08:32 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=200457#comment-1608498 The equivalent in Scotland would have been to go raspberry picking at Blairgowrie in Perthshire. I had a widowed aunt who used to go to “the berries” for 2 weeks in summer. Now it’s all done in poly tunnels with labour from overseas. Autumn would have been potato picking which was very hard work and could be dangerous. Local farmers would pick people up with a van, fields were divided up into “bits” with adults getting a whole bit and kids a half. Potato picking was better paid than the berries.

]]> https://spitalfieldslife.com/2024/08/15/hopping-season-i/#comment-1606483 Thu, 15 Aug 2024 08:57:06 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=200457#comment-1606483 I wonder when the last hop pickers made the trip to Kent from the east end and who or what does the picking now.
Thanks.

]]> https://spitalfieldslife.com/2024/08/15/hopping-season-i/#comment-1606348 Thu, 15 Aug 2024 07:20:41 +0000 https://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=200457#comment-1606348 In 1959, we moved from Chelsea out to Mitcham in Surrey, just in time for me to start at Senior School. I was always quite envious of the girls from certain families there who’d miss the first few weeks of the autumn term as they’d all gone off to Kent for the hop picking. My eldest brother was a Mountaineer & Climber, but used to take me to Harrisons Rocks in Kent to teach me to climb safely. I loved those days out with him, and especially walking across the Hop fields to get there from either Eridge or Groombridge train station.

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