HOP PICKING IN KENT UK
In the summer months many Londoners would come down into Kent to pick the hops.
It was a real family affair, bringing all the relatives, half the contents of your house, and even the dogs!
Everyone would join in and travel to ‘the country’ as it was called, to go hop-picking and singing songs along the way.
For most families, it was the only time they had a holiday, and combined it with making money too.
For many youngsters, the entire school holiday was spent in the fields.
Escaping the noise and pollution of the city, children were excited at seeing cows in a field for the first time.
Heavy green bines of hops growing up poles and across strings in rows along the fields, made it look like a series of tunnels that the children enjoyed running and playing in.
Their parents had the hard task of picking all the hops from the bines, putting them in massive bins, ready to be taken to the brewery’s.
This group of hop pickers, pictured, is at Wakeley’s hop gardens near Rainham, Kent, was taken in 1907
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