Hop Picking

A Memory of Paddock Wood.

Paddock Wood, in particular Beltring, the home of the famous Whitebread Oasts, was the centre of the Hop Gardens of Kent.
The Gardens were set out with rows of elevated wire tressles which were supported at intervals by poles. In the spring, from each hop plant, which was cut back to ground level every year, the shoots were trained up, known as "twiddling". A new hop twine which was tied to a metal hook in the ground up to the overhead wire. There were usually four shoots per plant. By midsummer's day the shoots would reach the wire and flop over the top. In early September the hops would be ready for picking.
Hop picking in Kent was carried out mainly by London families that came down for a working holiday. Some farms had hop pickers' huts in the Hop Gardens for the use of these families. Some families used to bring their own wallpaper to make it their own "home". Cooking and heating water was carried out on a wood fire outside. Paddock Wood even had its own "Hop Pickers Hospital".
Where we went Hop Picking, where I lived in Southborough near Tunbridge Wells, was a farm called Nightingale Farm and the farmer's name was Mr Podmore. This was a much smaller enterprise than Paddock Wood, being a "mixed" farm. Every morning at 7.30am we would walk through the fields to Vauxhall Lane pushing an old pram with the kettle and the day's food. The start of the day's picking was signalled by the farm foreman shouting "pull binds". Hops were picked into bins made of two poles from which a sacking "cradle" hung. The poles were supported on crossed wooden legs at each end of the bin. Some families had whole bins others less prolific had "half a bine" shared with others. The bin was divided down the middle with a sacking partition.
By the time the hops were ready for picking in September, the hop twine was almost rotten and all that was required was a good tug to release the bine from the top wire. Sometimes you would find a big hair caterpillar on the bine, we called these "Hop Dogs".
Every day Mr Podmore the farmer would come round with the Farm Secretary and the Farm Foreman to measure your hops. If you had "dirty hops" - leaves and stalks in with the hops - he would shout out "dirty hops" and pass you by. He would measure out your hops with a wicker "bushel" basket and you were paid at so many pence per bushel. As he measured them out he would shout "one- a, two-a, three-a" etc and the secretary would note your tally for the day. The hops were measured out into big sacks called "pokes" which the forman would hold whilst Mr Podmore measures out the hops. The pokes were filled until they were almost solid, and then loaded onto a flat horse drawn cart. They were then taken off to the Oast House where they were dried over a charcoal fire.
Lunchtime was signalled by a shout from the foreman - "dinnerrrr". Our lunch would consist of assorted sandwiches and my Mum's meat pie (with a short-crust pastry - often undercooked towards the centre!) followed by apple pie made with the same pastry! and a cup of tea. The tea was brewed in a black kettle, kept for the occasion, which was stood on two bricks with a fire of dry hazel twigs in between the bricks.   
The end of the day was signalled by "stop pickingggg!" from the foreman. Home was a trek across the fields with the pram and a good wash to try and get the hop smell and stains off your fingers. I always remember that smell when years later I lived at Goudhurst (which was also in the heart of vast number of hop gardens), going into the village shop - Burges Stores - on a Saturday afternoon after the pickers had been in for their shopping, and being overwhelmed!