Abdul Shohid, Youth Offending Officer
Abdul Shohid asked me to meet in the park that encircles St Matthew’s Church, just off Bethnal Green Road. Gangly, teenage boys in stripy tracksuits from the nearby estates huddle on and around the metal benches. They are totally rapt in themselves, chatting, laughing and enjoying the final squeeze of summer warmth.
Shohid grew up in the nearby Goldman Close where his family still live. As a youngster, he was one of thousands who came out of their houses to watch the funerals of the infamous Kray twins, and he recalls the spectacle of the black cortège leaving the church and feeling proud at being able to witness the moment – recognising the association of the gang with his neighbourhood. Yet these days, he is a Youth Offending Officer working with young people who find themselves on the wrong side of the law.
“I have pretty much grown up in the shadow of this church,” Shohid explains. “It’s part of my childhood and part of the person I am. I used to hang out here with friends just like these boys,” he says, referring to the ones in front of us, “A lot of important events in my life have taken place here. I went to St Matthias Primary School off Brick Lane, and we would be brought to St Matthew’s Church once a week and sing hymns, which I really enjoyed. Once I even took communion, but things have changed now. At the time, we were the only Asian family here. Everyone else was white working class then, that’s who I grew up with.”
Working mostly with young British Bengali offenders, Shohid believes that a lot of the problems they face stem from what is happening at home. In unmistakably East End tones, he reveals the lesson he has learnt over the years is that – commonly – the more difficult the home life, the more difficult the young person.
“Many of the parents of these young people came to London from Bangladesh as children, so they didn’t get a very good education and there was also a lot of racism as well. Many of them found themselves having to work to support their families at a young age and they don’t have adequate tools to deal with the issues that their children are facing today – such as crime, drugs, violence, unstable homes, contact with police and gang-related activities.
Generally, the young people I see have poor educational levels. With the focus upon grades and pressure on schools to increase their position in league tables, young people who are considered trouble simply get left behind. Those with behavioural or emotional problems are kicked out of school and sent to the Pupil Referral Unit. The Unit does a great job, but once you have thirty to forty young people who have all been thrown out of schools from across the borough in one place, then – well, you can imagine – that this is not a good place for anyone to be.
The Youth Offending Team usually encounters a young person between fifteen to eighteen years of age. By then, they might have already done an array of things – from getting into fights and selling drugs to stabbing people. I supervise Community Service or Reparations, which may involve the young people picking up litter from parks and painting walls to sweeping up – that sort of thing. But my main work is “Intensive Support and Surveillance” (ISS). This is an alternative to custody, so the ones I see have done quite serious stuff, which may include Grievous Bodily Harm, selling Class A drugs, gang fights and fraud. ISS is a bit more interesting and productive for the young person than Reparations. I set goals and targets with them, which involves creating a weekly timetable. They may be put on courses and need to see specialists such as Mental Health and Substance Misuse Workers. I ensure that they stick to their timetable and, if they miss three appointments, they go back to court.
I block out what they have done – I have to. If I think this boy in front of me may have nearly killed someone, then it becomes difficult to empathise with him and help him to mend his ways. I need to develop a relationship in which there is a sense of trust and the young person feels they want to engage on a personal level. This is one of the most difficult parts of the job. If they don’t get along with me and choose to recognise where they are coming from, then the chances of us working together and, ultimately, of getting their life back on track becomes extremely difficult.
The success rate of this work is relatively low. We only have a few hours a week with each young person, and then they have to go back to their troubled lives and deal with their issues in their own time. In Tower Hamlets, we are working against years of life experience so the chance of having an impact on the majority is slim. By the time they get to us, it’s usually too late and it’s difficult to change their thinking and behaviour. More resources and time are needed – because it is better to intervene at this stage of a young person’s life than wait until they go to prison, where they will cost the tax payer and society substantially more. Yet in this time of austerity, the extra help that these young people could get is no longer available.
I too was once involved in gangs and drugs, but I managed to get out of it. I went to university, got a degree and then a Masters. I had an urge to broaden my life experiences and I lived in Botswana for a while, helping young people to achieve more. For a lot of the young people I work with here, getting them to go to Oxford Circus is a stretch – so anything else is almost impossible, but I still say to them that it is possible to break away from all of this.”
Shohid (right) with his elder brothers, 1985
Shohid (right) with his dad and brother Mojid
Shohid and Mojid, 1989
Shohid (centre) skylarking on the beach with friends from Botswana
Shohid (sitting centre) in the bush in Botswana
Shohid stands at the tomb of Peter Renvoize, notorious gangster of Bethnal Green
Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien
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Manda Helal, Urban Beachcomber
Manda Helal
Manda Helal brews tea in her kitchen. The jam she had been making all morning has been decanted into glass jars with neat, handwritten labels on them, “SE23 blackberry and N17 apples.” The postcodes indicate where the fruits were picked. They are packed neatly on top of the cooker. On the table where we sit, there are bulbous tomatoes that she has grown, along with more apples, bowls and cups.
In fact, there is no surface left without something being placed on it. Here, tin-boxes piled on top of one another – there, decades-old postcards and photographs fill an entire wall. Glasses of all shapes and sizes, ceramic vegetables, massive clay heads, vases and teapots cram the room. In the hallway, dainty wind chimes forged out of broken pottery and bits of Lego bricks dangle down. Elsewhere, the severed heads of shop mannequins find themselves attached to rubber skeletons, miniature porcelain cherubs joined to marble columns and colourful feathers emerge from the bodies of Barbie dolls – familiar items put together to create new configurations. Before houses became something to make a profit out of, homes were seen as extensions of ourselves, in essence a metaphor of our lives, histories, experiences, losses, desires, fears and obsessions. In this sense, Manda’s home has a lot to say.
She has lived in the same flat off Whitechapel for the last thirty-four years, which means plenty of time to accumulate quite an assortment of things. Each and every room is packed with her own artwork which includes sculptures, ceramics and loads of teapots. In amongst these, are things she has salvaged from skips, found on street corners, collected, saved from fires, been given, or has simply stored to be used in an indeterminate future. These are the tools of her trade. “I use things I find because I prefer the ruined, unfinished, aged condition of things. I find that they are more interesting than new things,” she explains.
Each item that she collects is a relic of a past. It comes with its own biography and, in turn, rightly commands a story to be told about it – where it was found, how it was once used, who may have owned it and what its new incarnation will be. Take the sculpture of the Sacred Heart in the living room, for example, standing besides the fireplace. Manda found it dumped in a skip outside a school where she works as a gardener. It had had its head accidently decapitated, which is why she thinks it was probably thrown away. The body now has another head attached to it, provisionally – from a child’s plastic doll, something else she found. A miniature teacup is propped delicately on top of the assemblage. The work, like a lot of what she makes, has stories within stories associated with it. While they are often disturbing to look at – troubling and arresting – they are also funny and beautiful.
“I’ve always been like this, I’ve always had a hatred of waste. I was worse before and would get really angry about it, but I’m more mellow now,” she laughs. “It is to do with having a Jewish mother who grew up during the war and learnt to be thrifty, she had the waste-not-want-not culture instilled into her. My mother was a keen gardener as well and I learnt to grow things and compost my food waste from her. Even when I empty my own rubbish, I look around to see what other people in the block have thrown out, sometimes finding some real gems. It’s ridiculous, I know. I can’t help myself. I often can’t believe what people throw away.” Even as a child, Manda collected and made things. She calls herself an urban beach-comber, regularly mud-larking north of the Millennium Bridge when the tide has gone out. “Plastic bags are no good to take with you, something sharp could pierce them and you could loose the best thing you’ve collected that day. I make my own carriers using old rice and laundry sacks that have been thrown away. I find bits of Roman pottery, Victorian pipes, ceramics, old beer mugs that have been chucked and of course, a lot of rubbish,” she laughs. Combining these finds with some of her own clay-work, she gives them a new life, making delicate little figurines and teapots that have stories, creativity and the past infused into them.
Manda’s family history is similar to many Londoners – with features of trans-national travel, colonialism, religious conservatism, generational changes and love thrown in. Manda’s paternal family are Egyptian. Her father’s father, the director of Egyptian Railways in the twenties, arrived at Waterloo Station from Cairo where he met his wife-to-be, a Scottish station mistress. They immediately fell in love and left for Egypt where they got married soon after. Later, their son, (Manda’s father) came to London to study medicine. This is where he met a fellow medic, the daughter of a Russian Jewish cabinet maker who was based on the Cambridge Heath Rd. She fell in love with the man who apparently resembled Omar Sharif and, to the dismay of her orthodox father, ran away to be with him – and consequently found herself disowned by her family.
Manda grew up in Hertfordshire where her mother worked as a GP and her father as an orthopaedic surgeon. She also came down to London to study medicine but, unlike her parents, failed her finals. She laughs when she says that, by the end of the six years, she had had enough of it. It was from her mother that she learnt many of the skills which remain key to her work. “My mother had a pottery wheel at home, it was all very seventies. Because we lived apart, we decided to do a pottery evening-course together, after which I went to Goldsmiths College to study it properly.” Manda says that she has made more than thirty “phantom teapots,” out of old, broken spouts and lids – collaging discarded things. “Teapots are quintessentially English and, once upon a time, England used to make all of its own pottery, but today the schools that taught how to make it – some that I worked in – have closed. Wedgwood and Stoke-on-Trent are no longer what they once were and teabags have made teapots redundant. By making the phantom teapots, I’m invoking the technical achievements of a bygone era and reflecting upon the loss of the English ritual of four o’clock tea. I’m celebrating the past and what it means to be English.”
More obvious than her teapots is Manda’s obsession with bodies, especially as objects of rejection, decay, ruin – things that are disused, refused and, indeed, recycled. “In 1987, my mum died and that was the same year I started studying ceramics. They thought it was breast cancer, but it was a brain tumour – she was in denial of what was happening to her. She didn’t want to tell anyone. She had radiotherapy on her brain in Sheffield and only survived a year after that. I cared for her during her final illness and her death affected me deeply, and became formative to the person I am. Five years after, my life partner also died. I was thirty-five at the time. All these experiences manifest themselves in the work that I make today.”
Teapot with transfers designed by Manda Helal
Manda Helal, Urban Beachcomber
Photographs copyright © Jeremy Freedman
Follow Manda Helal’s Blog to see more of her work
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The Musclemen of Bethnal Green
Savvas Kyriacou, known as ‘Sav,’ at Muscleworks
As “Diamonds” by Rhianna beats loud on the stereo, I eavesdrop in on a conversation between three men who are comparing themselves in a mirror. They look like extras from a gladiatorial movie – minus the loin cloth, leather sandals and shields – waiting in the wings before they film the bare-fisted knuckle fight with the famished tiger inside the Coliseum. These men had just completed a workout and were gleaming with sweat under the fluorescent lighting. With their tops off, they were inspecting each other’s chests and six-packs. “Put that away man, you’ve gotten fat,” one teases another. A single gold tooth punctuates his smile. “It’s true, you know, I have,” says the friend being interrogated and begins to put his vest back on. The third, a little more encouraging, says, “you must go along with your age and size, bro. There is no point being something you’re not.” The banter continues in this vein as they pinch, poke and pull at each others knurls, curves and knots.
To say the men are big, or muscled, would be an understatement. They are that and more. Muscleworks Gym’s website explains that this “mecca of bodybuilding” has a startling collection of apparatus to become “bigger, stronger and faster,” including “handpicked gym eighty, hammer strength and cybex machines both plate loaded and selectorised alongside tonnes of barbells, bumper plates and dumbbells all the way up to 180lbs.” All around the two-storey gymnasium, there were more of them: heaving, pushing, grunting, lifting and slamming heavy weights. Their teeth glared, faces strained, veins bulged as they pulled air in furiously and blew out full and fast. Some worked with others, their partners helping count reps, loading bits of metal onto machinery. Older assisting younger, experienced guiding novices. The gym reflected the diversity of Bethnal Green and indeed London. Above them all, hanging from the low ceiling, are those they literally look up to and model themselves on – hundreds of laminated posters and photographs of champions of bodybuilding competitions (what the gladiatorial bouts have been reduced to), many of whom train and have been coached at no.2 Hague Street, including eight time Mr Olympia, Ronnie Coleman.
Amongst the dizzying array are pictures of Savvas Kyriacou, ‘Sav,’ who set the gym up in 1988 when competing as a bodybuilder himself. In one black and white image, he is seen posing on stage in a pair of Speedos during the 1992 Southeast Britain Bodybuilding Championships. He looks just above the camera, both hands clenched in fists – right curled above his head and left just above his hip. Growing up, Sav had a predilection for films which starred the nineteen- fifties America bodybuilder and actor Steve Reeves, whose titles include ‘Tarzan,’ ‘Hercules,’ ‘Hercules Unchained’ and ‘Duel of the Titans’. Sav went on to win that competition. He is a busy, busy man these days, organising bodybuilding competitions himself now, with one due to take place in a matter of weeks. When he eventually allows himself a few minutes to talk, he explains how he ended up creating such an influential gym dedicated exclusively to bodybuilding.
“I moved to the UK in 1974. I was fourteen and a half years old. It was during the Turkish War, when they invaded Cyprus. I was allowed to leave because I was under sixteen, otherwise, I would have had to join the army. I stayed with relatives and at fifteen got a job at a cash-and-carry in Stoke Newington. Very early in the mornings, I would go to Spitalfields Market to buy produce for the shop. At seventeen, I got a driving license and would do this before I went to school in the mornings and then after school worked in the shop. I had to do it, there was no one to support me. I couldn’t really study and there was no chance of going to uni anyway as I was foreign and wouldn’t have been able to afford the fees. This made me wonder what I could do with my life that wouldn’t mean having to go to the market and cash-&-carry each and every day. At the time, gyms and health-clubs were not what they are today, they were mostly council run places and not very good. So, at twenty-four, I opened my first gym in Tottenham. I like to think that this was the beginning of breaking new frontiers.
I had begun training at twenty-one and was good at it. I soon started questioning the whole way bodybuilding was being taught. I thought it was archaic, medieval even. None of it was really scientific. The majority of people wanted to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger but what they didn’t understand was that although his genes allowed him to be like that, everybody is different, their bodies are different which means that they can’t be Arnold. At twenty-three, I won my first competition. It felt like a footballer scoring a goal, a goalkeeper winning a save. It felt good.” He since went on to win Mr Cyprus twice.
Half way during our talk, Sav is called away. He has to teach someone how to pose for a competition. Following detailed instructions, the man steps forward, raises his arms elegantly into the air as a ballet dancer might, wrists cocked delicately, one leg out in front. He clenches hard. and the tiny ribbons and rivulets of muscles and veins appear on full display. Others look and stare. With his plumage unfurled, the man lowers his head and beams at his tutor.
Afterwards, Sav says “I love the fact that you are in control of what you do. You are an artist, creating something. It’s difficult to explain to someone who doesn’t do it why someone would want to build up their body. It’s self-satisfying, an addiction. It’s like a religion. If you do it right, it’s healthy.
I try and advocate that you don’t have to do it for hours. Five hours per week is fine. Having knowledge about what you are doing is crucial. It’s like the difference between a black cab and an ordinary taxi: a black cab will take you straight to where you want to go, whereas a taxi will go all over the place, looking for the right destination.
Anyone who knows anything about bodybuilding, knows us. We have trained thousands of people and coached many champions. The whole atmosphere is important to people. If I moved into a bigger place, something I have considered, people wouldn’t like it. This building, here, this is Muscleworks. I have another place in Stoke Newington, one in Enfield and one for women on Bethnal Green Rd. They are all different, but this place is the original. I wanted to create the best gym in London, pure body building, just like the ones in the US. I think I’ve achieved my aim. It’s now not just the best in London, but the most successful in the UK.”
Francisco
“I’ve been training for quite a few years, but it is only now that I want to enter into competitions. I started coming here because I wasn’t progressing much elsewhere. Now that I’m training properly, I do it every three days, with one day off in between. At the moment, I’m dieting to compete. In the morning, I eat oats and eggs. My carbs are brown rice and sweet potatoes. I eat chicken breast, meat, fish and green vegetables. No dessert.”
Rocky
“I’ve been coming here since I was seventeen. I grew up around here. Everyone comes here to train. It feels good. I do it to relieve stress, it’s a total stress buster, helping me keep focused. Sav has done a lot for us, he’s like a father to a lot of people. The place has history, there are good people here. I’ve been doing it for so many years now that it’s become a part of me.”
Nathan
“I’ve always enjoyed fitness. I want to gain size and muscle mass. I started five years ago in Australia, where I am from. It’s not for others, but about achieving a goal – a personal thing – wanting to exceed my own expectations. I want to compete one day, maybe the under 75kg class. I massively respect these big guys, they have obtained these amazing physics but my optimum body image will be toned, athletic, built. It’s about a sense of fulfilment, when you look at yourself in the mirror. But diet, sleep and negative thoughts all affect your goal and the endless pursuit.”
Brian
“This is one of the best gyms in London, the atmosphere is great. I train for an hour and twenty minutes, after work, five to six days a week. I’ve been doing it for around ten years. I always feel better afterwards. I have my own schedule. If I go for a week without doing it, I feel terrible. I don’t have the ‘Eye of the Tiger’ on my headphones, no, I listen to ‘System of a Down’ or techno or house music.”
Jay
“I’ve always been skinny, believe it or not. But obviously I worked hard and progressed. I’m now entering a competition later this month.”
Photographs copyright © Colin O’Brien
Learn more about Sav Kuriacou’s Total Fitness Bodybuilding Extravaganza on 22nd September
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Arful Nessa, Gardener
It is my pleasure to welcome Delwar Hussain as guest writer for the next seven days, celebrating the publication of his first book Boundaries Undermined by Hurst. Delwar was born and bred in Spitalfields, and he commences with this tender portrait of his mother. Meanwhile, I shall be making the trip to Somerset to supervise the printing of my Album at Butler, Tanner & Dennis in Frome, and thus I leave you in Delwar’s safe hands until my return on Monday 23rd September.
Arful Nessa in her garden in Puma Court
My mother is the first to admit that when it comes to growing anything, the success rate cannot be predicted – some years are simply better than others. But this summer has, on the whole, been a good one. Despite the aubergines not putting in a show, she has had quite a few runner beans, chillies galore, enough coriander to garnish an army with, mulas (a long white radish), potatoes and dhengas (a tall, dark pink stalk, almost like a savoury rhubarb). She has also transferred the olive tree into the ground, as well as the plum tree, and the neem tree and pomegranate followed suit recently. The latter, which she grew from a seed, is a non-descript small shrub with small, shiny, pointy leaves. The trees all seem to have taken well to the positions she has chosen for them, but this is not always the case, as the dry, brittle carcass of a fig tree attests. The bushy orange and lemon trees did not make it into the ground either. My mother is not confident that they would like it there, so they continue to live in the big, black, dustbins that she insists on collecting.
But of all of her achievements this year, it is the gourd that she is particularly pleased with. Neighbours and relatives from far and wide have already been notified of its appearance. The vegetable has always been elusive to her throughout the many years that she has been gardening, building all sorts of wooden and bamboo frames to support them without gain. “I’ve always wanted to grow one, but I never managed to until now. It is probably because we don’t get much sun here. The garden is surrounded on all sides by brick walls.” Today, the perfectly spherical, green and white globe, resembling a small disco ball, dangles precariously in the sky, held on to by its strong, twisty, protective vines. Behind it, the tall, white steeple of Christ Church looms large over the entire garden.
As Patricia Niven takes photographs of my mother on this still, warm evening, together with the greenery that we are surrounded by, we are reminded of the other lives carrying on outside of the red-bricked walls. Against the quiet hum of the cars and sirens on Commercial St, the more prominent chirping of little birds come in from nearby gardens and rooftops. The shrieks of children playing and the long, yawn-like, ancient drawl of the azaan, the call to prayer from the Brick Lane mosque, drifts in too. It is always an unusual experience interviewing a family member, especially one that happens to be your mother. Nonetheless, over the years, I have done so a number of times, usually for university projects. This is the first time that I am formally questioning her about a subject that she herself is actually interested in and not one picked by her son.
“I garden because I enjoy doing so. People say that gardening is healthy, that it is good for you to be outside, to stroke the leaves, to smell the fruit, to feel the soil. When I moved to London in the nineteen-seventies I was in my twenties. No one taught me how to do any of it, I learnt instinctively. When I was young, I would watch my parents in the village in Bangladesh. They would grow aubergines, mustard, rice, mangoes, jackfruits, guavas and so many spices and herbs. Your father and I first lived in a small, crowded flat in Wapping where there was not even a single tree to look at outside, let alone inside. Then we moved to New Rd. We rented a house from the hospital and it came with a massive garden in the back. It was so big, you would never have been able to fill the place up with trees. I started growing spinach, coriander and mustard. Your father would get the seeds for me in little bundles when he travelled back from Bangladesh. But unfortunately we had to leave that house because it didn’t have an indoor toilet or bath: the toilet was in the garden and we had a tin bath propped up in the kitchen. We would fill it up with water and by the time it reached the top, the water would be cold. The same tin bath followed us to the present house, where we used it as a pond for some ducks that we kept and then later to grow potatoes in.”
A friend of mine said recently that he has never seen my mother actually getting her hands dirty, let alone holding a trowel or spade. Despite this, she always manages to grow huge amounts. I laughed and, in jest, said that this is because she gets my brothers and sisters and I to do most of the lumbering work for her. However, the more I thought about it, the more I think my friend had a point. Much of the gardening she does involves standing at the kitchen door or on the balconies upstairs on the third floor of the house where she grows the coriander, looking intently, surveying, absorbed in the plants. Occasionally she may walk over to something which she will touch, rub, pick at or uncoil. She moves a pot from one place to another, gives the attention of a watering jug here or there, but most of all, it involves staying still, studying, contemplating.
But of course, there is more to it than the impression she gives. “Throughout the year, I save seeds from things that we eat. If they don’t grow, well, then, they don’t grow, but I will give them a try. Around January-February time, I sow the seeds in pots. I keep them dotted around the house so that they don’t get cold. In March and April, I put the pots outside in the garden and rotate them around so that they can get as much sun as possible. Just before the summer, some of them are transferred into bigger pots. I then just keep my eye on them as they grow.”
Having lived in London for over thirty years, my mother is very much rooted to the house and to Spitalfields. Even so, she will still confess to not being very good at growing English plants. If ever there was a gardening test in the same vein as the cricket one as dreamed up by Norman Tebbit, my mother would probably fail. Mediterranean, African, Middle Eastern and Asian plants and trees dominate her world. “My apple tree is probably around ten years old, but it just doesn’t seem to want to grow. I’ve often thought about taking it out of the ground and putting something else in its place, but we’ve been together for too long. Now that I have my gourd, I would like to try my own apple”.
The tall, white steeple of Christ Church looms large over the entire garden
Arful Nessa, Gardener
Photographs copyright © Patricia Niven
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Copies will be available at bookshops nationwide. If you are a retailer and you would like to sell copies in your shop contact Bridget Latimer Jones who deals with trade orders bridgetlj@faber.co.uk
More Hop Picking Pictures
Celebrating Hop Picking Season and the opening of the new Truman’s Brewery today, it is my pleasure to publish more favourite Hop Picking Pictures selected from the archive of Tower Hamlets Community Housing. Hopping was hard work, yet it was an opportunity for the whole family to enjoy time together with plenty of high jinks, drinking and even the potential for romance.
Taken in September 1958 at Moat Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent. Sitting on the bin is Miss Whitby with Patrick Mahoney, young John Mahoney and Sheila Tarling (now Mahoney) – Sheila & Patrick were picking to save up for their engagement party in October
Maryann Lowry’s Nan, Maggie ,on the left with her Great-Grandmother, Maryann, in the check shirt in the hop gardens, c.1910
Having a rest in hop gardens at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1966. In the back row are Mary Brownlow, Sean Locke, Linda Locke, Kate Milchard, Chris Locke & Margie Brownlow with Kevin Locke and Terry Locke in front.
Margie Brownlow & her Mum Kate Milchard at Whitbreads Farm in Beltring, Kent in 1967. These huts were two stories high. The children playing outside are – Timmy Kaylor, Chrissy Locke, Terry Locke, Sean Locke, Linda Locke & Kevin Locke.
Chris Locke, Sally Brownlow, Linda Brownlow, Kate Milchard, Margie Brownlow, Terry Locke & Mary Brownlow at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1962
Johnno Mahoney, Superintendant of the Caretakers on the Bancroft Estate in Stepney, driving the “Mahoney Special” at Five Oak Green in 1947
The Clarkson family in the hop gardens in Staplehurst. Gladys Clarkson , Edith Clarkson, William Clarkson, Rose Clarkson & Henry Norris.
John Moore, Ross, Janet Ambler, Maureen Irish & Dennis Mortimer in 1950 at Luck’s Farm, East Peckham, Kent
Kate Fairclough, Mrs Callaghan, Mary Fairclough & Iris Fairclough at Moat Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1972
A gang of Hoppers from Wapping outside the brick huts at Stilstead Farm, Tonbridge, Kent with Jim Tuck & John James in the back. In the middle row the first person on the left is unknown, but the others are Rose Tuck, holding Terry Tuck, Rose Tuck, Danny Tuck & Nell Jenkins. In the front are Alan Jenkins, Brian Tuck, Pat Tuck, Jean Tuck, Terry Taylor & Brian Taylor.
Nanny Barnes, Harriet Hefflin, “Minie” Mahoney & Patsy Mahoney at Ploggs Hall Farm
In the Hop Gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall, near Paddock Wood in Kent in the late forties. Alfie Raines, Edie Cooper, Margie Gorst & Lizzie Raines
The Day family from Kirks Place, Limehouse, at Highwoods Farm in Collier St, Kent in the fifties
Annie Smith, Bill Daniels, Pearl Brown & Nell Daniels waiting for the measurer in the Hop Garden at Hoathley’s Farm, Hook Green, Kent
On the common outside the huts at at Hoathley’s Farm, Hook Green, Kent – you can see the oasthouses in the distance. Rita Daniels, Colleen Brown, Maureen Brown, Marie Brown, Billy Daniels, Gerald Brown & Teddy Hart , with Sylvie Mason & Pearlie Brown standing.
The Outram family from Arbour Sq outside their huts at Hubbles Farm, Hunton, Kent. Unusually these were detached huts but, like all the others, they made of corrugated tin and all had one small window – simply basic rooms, roughly eleven feet square
Janis Randall being held by her mother Joyce Lee andalongside her is her father, Alfred Lee in a hop garden, near Faversham in September 1950
David & Vivian Lee sitting on a log on the common outside Nissen huts used to house hop pickers
Gerald Brown, Billy Daniels & Dennis Woodham in the hop gardens at Gatehouse Farm near Brenchley, Kent, in the fifties
Nelly Jones from St Paul’s Way with Eileen Mahoney, and in the background is Eileen’s mum, “Minie” Mahoney. Taken in the fifties in the Hop Gardens at Ploggs Hall Farm, between Paddock Wood and Five Oak Green.
At Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall, near Paddock Wood in Kent
Ploggs Hall Farm Ladies Football Team. Back Row – Fred Archer, Lil Callaghan, Harriet Jones, Unknown, Unknown, Nanny Barnes, Liz Weeks, Harriet Hefflin, Johnno Mahoney. Front Row – Doris Hurst Eileen Mahoney & Nellie Jones
John Moore, Ross, Janet Ambler, Maureen Irish & Dennis Mortimer in 1950 at Luck’s Farm, East Peckham, Kent
The Outram and Pyburn families outside a Kent pub in 1957, showing clockwise Kitty Tyrrell, Mary Pyburn, Charlie Protheroe, Rene Protheroe, Wag Outram, Derek Protheroe in the pram, Annie Lazel, Tom Pyburn, Bill Dignum & Nancy Wright.
You can download hop picking booklets published by Tower Hamlets Community Housing
Readers are invited to the opening of the New Truman’s Brewery, 2-3 Stour Rd, Hackney Wick, E2 2NT, today Saturday 14th September 2pm – 10pm with Opening Ceremony at 4pm
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Hop Picking Pictures
Celebrating Hop Picking Season and the launch of the new Truman’s Brewery this week, it is my pleasure to publish this selection of favourite Hop Picking Pictures from the archive of Tower Hamlets Community Housing. Traditionally, this was the time when East Enders headed down to the Hop Farms, embracing the opportunity of a breath of country air and earning a few bob too.
Bill Brownlow, Margie Brownlow, Terry Brownlow & Kate Milchard, with Keith Brownlow & Kevin Locke in front, at Guinness’ Northland’s Farm at Bodiam, Sussex, in 1958. Guinness bought land at Bodiam in 1905 and eight hundred acres were devoted to hop growing at its peak.
Julie Mason, Ted Hart, Edward Hart & friends at Hoathleys Farm, Hook Green, near Lamberhurst, Kent
Lou Osbourn, Derek Protheroe & Kate Day at Goudhurst Farm
Margie Brownlow & Charlie Brownlow with Keith Brownlow, Kate Milchard & Terry Brownlow in front at Guinness’ Northland’s Farm at Bodiam, Sussex, in 1950
Mr & Mrs Gallagher with Kitty Adams & Jackie Gallagher from Westport St, Stepney, in the hop gardens at Pembles Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1959
Jackie Harrop, Joan Day & George Rogers at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1949
Mag Day (on the left at the back) in the hop gardens with others at Highwood’s Farm, Collier St, in 1938
Pop Harrop at Whitbread’s Farm, Beltring, Kent in 1949
Sarah Watt, Mrs Hopkins, Steven Allen, Ann Allen, Tom, Albert Allen & Sally Watt in the hop gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in 1943
Harry Watt, Tom Shuffle, Mary Shuffle, Sally Watt, Julie Callagher, Ada Watt & Sarah Watt in the hop gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in the fifties
Harry Watt, Sally Watt, Sarah Watt holding Terry Ellames in the hop gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in 1957
Harry Ayres, a pole puller, in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent
Emmie Rist, Theresa Webber, Kit Webber & Eileen Ayres in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent
Kit Webber with her Aunt Mary, her Dad Sam Webber and her Mum, Emmie Ris,t in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent
Harry Ayres with his wife Kit Webber in the hop gardens at Diamond Place Farm, Nettlestead, Kent.
Richard Pyburn, Mag Day, Patty Seach and Kitty Gray from Kirks Place, Limehouse, in the hop gardens at Highwoods Farm, Collier St, Kent
The Gorst and Webber families at Jack Thompsett’s Farm, Fowle Hall, Kent in the forties
Kitty Waters with sons Terry & John outside the huts at Pembles Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1952
Mr & Mrs Gallagher from Westport St, Stepney, with their grandchildren in the hop gardens at Pembles Farm, Five Oak Green, Kent in 1958
Sybil Ogden, Doris Cossey, Danny Tyrrell & Sally Hawes near Yalding, Kent
John Doree, Alice Thomas, Celia Doree & Mavis Doree in the hop gardens near Cranbrook, Kent
Bill Thomas & his wife Annie, in the hop gardens near Cranbrook, Kent
The Castleman Family from Poplar hop picking in the twenties
Terry & Margie Brownlow at Guinness’ Northland’s Farm at Bodiam in Sussex in 1949
Alfie Raines, Johnny Raines, Charlie Cushway, Les Benjamin & Tommy Webber in the Hop Gardens at Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall near Paddock Wood in Kent
Lal Outram, Wag Outram & Mary Day on the common at Jack Thompsett’s Farm at Fowl Hall near Paddock Wood in Kent in 1955
Sally Watt’s Hop Picker’s account book from Jack Thompsett’s Den Farm, Collier St, Kent in the fifties
You can download hop picking booklets published by Tower Hamlets Community Housing
Readers are invited to the opening of the New Truman’s Brewery, 2-3 Stour Rd, Hackney Wick, E2 2NT, this Saturday 14th September 2pm – 10pm with Opening Ceremony at 4pm
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