Hop Picking

A Memory of Pluckley.

I used to go to Little Chart Farm, Pluckley as a child, being born in the East End in 1946.  My memories are of freedom and adventure, long, happy carefree days spent in the beautiful Kent countryside, for a few weeks each summer. My aunt and uncle Ivy and Tom Smart had a wooden hut on the farm and my parents and I used to join them for a holiday.  The picking of hops was a hard, thirsty and dirty job, their hands were stained green and smelt strongly of  the hops.  We kids used to explore, the surrounding area, scrumping apples from the orchards, and being chased by then farmer, visiting the spooky ruined church, of which there was supposed to be a haunting by a hooded monk.  A phantom coach and horses was said to be seen or sometimes just heard thundering past one of the local pubs. One of the drawbacks used to be visiting the 'loo', which was on the edge of the woods, you would have to wade knee deep through nettles, in wellington boots and still get stung, also it was a chemical toilet with newspaper hanging on a nail, and a variety of spiders ready to run up your leg.  After a hard days' picking, dinner would be made on an open fire outside the huts, we would all sit around eating and drinking laughing and telling stories or singing.  Often in the evenings we would all go into Pluckley village for a drink, the children, about 8 in all, happily playing outside with a lemonade and a bag of crisps with the little blue bag of salt.  The air smelt sweet, of hay and wild flowers, large moths fluttered about round the lighted pub windows. Under and inky black velvet sky, studded with stars, we eventually either walked or drove back to the farm and turned in for the night.  To me it was a scary time at first.  Huge craneflies danced around the oil lamps hanging from the rafters, and when they were turned out it was pitch black.  We slept on sacks filled with straw, which took a bit of getting used to.  All that could be heard was the screech of an owl and the unearthly cry of the fox, which made our dog, who was tied up outside, bark  My older cousins would scare the life out of me by telling ghost stories and I longed for morning.  Pluckley village is unchanged as I remember it, thank God, a real little piece of heaven, now and then.