Eleven

The Hop Gardens

At last we reached the hop gardens, looking for familiar faces, wagons and horses as we pulled through the gateway. We were never the first to arrive on this farm. Some families began their work months before we arrived, tying the hop vines to the thin poles that held them as they grew. Their season was a much longer one than ours.

Some of me dad’s brothers were already settled in, with fires flaring up and black pots boiling. The smell of stew cooking away welcomed us from most parts of the big field. We was full of excitement as we took in what was to be our working and stopping place for the next five weeks: all these lovely families from all parts of the country, scattered over the field in tents of all shapes and wagons of all colours. Those without wagons had trolleys covered over with green canvas sheets, to make sleeping places for their children that were warm and dry. We were a mixed crew from all walks of life. We had our well-off Travellers alongside those not so well-off, and the poor Travellers who worked like dogs but never seemed to have anything to show for it. What we all shared was the family around us – each of our families was a tight unit, and no matter how little we had we worked hard to make our homes inviting for others.

We had no choice but to take our time unhitching the wagon – me dad was approached from all sides, shaking the hands of people he knew and people he didn’t, and there was much laughing and joking as we settled in. We would have a few days yet afore we started to pick our first hops, time to find our old warm clothes – boots and wellies – for if it did happen to rain we would know it! We’d be in for a hard time with the mud clinging to us, as well we knew from past years, and so we piled up our warm clothes and boots just in case, with enough spare for those children that had none themselves, or very little. The farmer had put piles of wood out for our fires, and there was a tap for water which saved us a lot of time. We could get eggs, butter and milk from the farm, so all in all we were set. The hop farmers looked after their pickers as well as making money out of us, but it was work we needed badly.

Come Monday there would only be the very old and very young left on the field. The rest of us would be heading out to pick, packed with prams, food hampers, pots, kettles and a good old frying pan, ready to break ourselves into the work. We considered ourselves lucky compared to the house-dwellers who had come from the big towns to help pick. All they had to survive on was what they could carry on their buses or trains. They had very little compared to us, and had to live and sleep in barns or cowsheds, lucky if they had so much as a Primus stove to heat their food on.

We had our homes with us and, come Monday, the men of our group had a ritual to perform – for if there was one good deed they did each year, it was to see that every child on that field was fed and well, including those of the big town pickers.

♦

Although the weather was dry, the October mornings left us shivering. We were woken early, before dawn, to get out of our warm beds and head to the cold, dark hop garden amid the grown-ups’ cries of encouragement.

“Come on, my babbies,” called me mam. “It’s time to put your shoulder to the wheel! There’s no turning back – off to work we go!”

To say that all we children were sleepy and grumpy in the hop garden that first early morning was an understatement. Our parents took turns alternately begging, petting, praying and threatening us to pick the hops – and of course there were the usual cajoling promises of Saturday treats. If we’d been bought all the things promised to us we’d have needed a second wagon just to carry it all, but that was me dad all over.

The gardens were very dense for the hops grew up very high poles. We pickers spread up and down the rows of them. It was like working under a high hedge.

The hops were picked and placed in cribs made up of a wooden frame and sacking. They were weighed off by the bushel and the farmer would dip that old basket of his into the crib two or three time a day to weigh our work off against our daily target of bushels. He would tell us how we were doing, but it was never enough for me dad. It was a huge bonus for the family if the children picked their share of hops, speeding up the process and getting far more done, and so we all helped from an early age. Me dad would sit me down on the side of the crib and pull the vines down for me to pick bare. Our Alfie was finally tall enough to pull his own down.

♦

The hops weren’t nice to pick, for the vines had hundreds of prickly bits growing on them that ripped the skin from our faces and arms as we pulled them down from the poles. The vines left our hands with a green-yellow stain and smelled like no other plant, a very strong and bitter smell that got right into our skin. We stunk of them after a few days, but me mam insisted that it was a clean stink.

As the day warmed up a little the hop-dogs* began to come out on the move. Hop-dogs are the large, furry caterpillars that live on the hop leaves. The bright yellow and green caterpillars were much prized by we children – if we found one be sure that we hung on to it!

≡ Furry yellow or green caterpillars of the Pale Tussock Moth.

“Hop-dop! Hop-dog!” the shout came from one of the children, and me and our Alfie both stopped picking. “I got a hop-dog!”

We ran as fast as we could through the rows of hops to the crib where the caterpillar had been found, to find that many other children had done the same. Too many sticky little hands made a grab for it, and tears flowed from the child who had found it and made the mistake of shouting out, as the little hop-dog was squashed to death.

If I gets to find one, I thought, I’ll have it in the blue sugar bag before I lets on I got it. That was the only way to keep it safe.

♦

The first day left everyone happy with a job well started, but we were dirty and tired as we dragged all our bits back to camp.

As in the pea fields, the young boys would leave earlier in the evening to light the fires and ready the kettle for dinner on our return. The thought of frying tatters, eggs and bacon would have us all dropping our vines and scrambling back to the fire. Once there it was all go again: fires had to be lit, food cooked, and – worst of all – children had to be washed! One woman called out to us as me mam tried to scrub the smell of hops right out of our bones.

“You’ll wash your lot away one of these days, my Vie!”

“You won’t say that when you can’t get the dirt out of your lot’s necks and ears, Rody,” me mam shot back, never letting up with the scrape of soap across my neck.

“A bit of dirt never killed nobody,” laughed Rody, “and this dirt is clean dirt!”

Never mind the dirt – the comb pulling through my long wet hair nearly killed me. “Ow, Mam, let me do it!” I cried.

“No.” She reached up with the comb. “You only combs the front, and you got a mat of tangles on the top of your head!”

It made me wish I never had any hair on me head at all, but to have it short was against the rules in those days. My hair was supposed to be my pride and joy, but right at that moment I couldn’t have cared less about anyone’s pride. When it was over I settled by the fire, eating and drinking as I listened to the grown-ups’ banter.

“How many bushels we pick the day?” Old Joby asked me dad.

“Not enough, my Joe,” he replied.

Joby nodded. “Each day it will get better. Though me hands is sore with they vines.”

“Well, you know what you gotta do about that,” me dad said seriously. “Take a walk down to the copse and run your own water over them. Let it soak in, then make sure you wash ’em good and clean.”

“I ain’t gonna piss over me own hands, is I now?” he laughed. “Good job I knows you’re joking, Lenard!”

Me dad laughed before taking pity on Old Joby. “Salt water is the thing, an’ bacon fat rubbed in after. It works a treat, as well you knows, old man.”

“I’m off to do it now,” he said.

In fact we all used the salt water and fat to harden up our hands against the vines. In a few days we would be able to pick through the day without any pain at all.

The warm fire and delicious smells would bring the town-pickers’ children creeping after us, and no matter how many children were in each Traveller family, we would all welcome a number of town children to share our food and drink with us. We would usually keep the same children through the season, as if they were our own.

I don’t know when this tradition first started, but even when me dad was a young boy he shared his food with the town-pickers. I don’t remember their mothers ever asking us to feed their offspring, though on occasion one would drag her child away, growling at them about eating the ‘Gypos’ food’. They were usually new to picking with us, but even those children soon found their way back to the fire. Those new pickers would soon be put right by the other townsfolk for, over the years, they had got to know us and grown used to our ways – and that involved making sure that no child would ever grow cold or go hungry if we could help it.

Besides, after being out in the fields for so long it seemed best to have a few mouthfuls of hot grub rather than just bread and cheese all day long.

♦

With the weather kind and food in our bellies, the mood in the garden would change from a quiet place to a jolly one. One Traveller would start singing an old song to himself, and softly the old words would infect everyone – town-pickers and all – so in the dense garden other voices would join in the song, though you would not be able to see the singers, spread out as we were. Nothing could beat it – nothing could come near those songs sung amid the hops. We had sometimes heard choirs singing on the wireless on a Sunday afternoon, but I would bet my lot singing in the hop gardens were as fair a chorus as most of them. Every crabby-tempered Traveller turned into a song thrush.

The hop season was also a time for making deals, and across the singing and chatter we often heard the men discussing grys.

“That’s a nice little tit* you got,” I heard one man say.

≡ A filly – a female horse under four or five years old.

“Yeah, she ain’t for sale,” said the owner, though we knew full well she was. It made for a better and longer deal, and the men all knew it. They would go through the breeding of the horse, chamming* on for what seemed like hours before we’d hear the smacking of hands that sealed the deal, loud in the garden. It was more entertainment and enjoyed by all.

≡ Boasting about the horse’s virtues in a kind of game.

You’d get young bits of boys and gals making sheep eyes at each other, trying hard not to be noticed – for a hop-vine round the chops is not so nice, if the parents caught on. Most families didn’t want their children to be courting too early. They’d lose a worker if they had a runaway! Parents kept a strict eye on those that wanted to start courting and even if they were deemed old enough it would be a long old engagement. No family back then wanted a runaway on their hands before they were married. This is a strict part of Romani culture and any scandal was talked of for generations, giving the family a bad name.

There was another thing that could crop up in the hop-picking season, though not often by any means. I remember, on occasion, one of the gals or women from the big towns would come to talk with us, having got themselves in ‘a bit of trouble’ – that is, having a baby. Unable to take it back home with them, many things could happen to the baby – things that were never talked about. On the rare occasion, a Romani family would give the baby a home and a life with them. I know one man who has been in our family for the past sixty-odd years. He knows how he came to us, because his family told him as he grew up, but this is his way of life and he will always be a Traveller man.