Submitted by: Hilary Spon, Canterbury u3a
This photo shows me (middle girl) in a hop garden in North Kent in 1954. Times were hard but those were the days when farmers still relied on local casual workers to help harvest the crops and in our area there weren't any Londoners who came to stay for the hop picking.
It didn't matter that we lacked experience or were slow because we were paid at piece rate, meaning we were only paid for what we picked. If mother went cherry picking, climbing the tall ladders into the trees, we played in the orchards; the extra money earned was for my sister's and my school clothes. One year Mum and a friend signed up for hop picking so every day she loaded up her bike with food for the day (a kettle, teapot and camping stove were left in the hop field for the week) and we walked the mile or so to the hop garden.
I think my mother had a romanticised idea of hop picking as she took her Box Brownie camera to record the event! It was dirty work, the hop flowers stained hands and clothes, we had to go to toilet where we could and, although I did do quite a lot of picking I also disappeared at times to play with other children. We didn't earn much that week but it has left me with memories of a different time and three wonderful photographs.