Wartime Hopping in the Weald by Michael Berks
The annual September invasion of the Kent and Sussex countryside by Londoners (mostly East-enders) continued during the 1939-45 war. But, as with any activity which exposed large numbers of vulnerable people in a confined area to danger from the air, compliance with Government air-raid precautions was necessary. "Blackout" was enforced not only on hopper huts; the communal cookhouses had screens fixed to prevent glare from fires being seen from above, and oasthouses had sacks and blankets around the doors.
Every hop farm had to have an ARP (Air Raid Precaution) Warden, who could be one of the regular farm workers trained for emergencies. Special equipment had to be provided; anti-gas clothing and masks, fire extinguishers, and First Aid extending even to stretchers. Around some of the larger hop gardens, trenches were dug and roofed over with sheets of corrugated iron to provide shelter against what might fall from the sky.
The greatest danger was not from bombs(destined for London) but from the deadly shards of anti-aircraft shrapnel and crashing or disintegrating aircraft. The fear that pickers might be strafed from the air was widespread, but this rarely happened. There was more danger from what is now termed "friendly fire"; an enemy victim of a dogfight, streaking for home, dropping to skim low to evade a pursuing Spitfire or Hurricane, would not be the sole recipient of the hail of bullets and cannon fire. Those that missed their target would spray indiscriminately but lethally downwards.
The writer, as an eight year old, has a vivid memory of just such an occurrence in Tonbridge on The Ridgeway. A stricken Junkers 88, heading for a crash landing in the marshland beyond Hadlow Road, was being raked by a Spitfire's 20mm cannon shells. Many of the houses and gardens received hits, not only from the scattered debris flying off the doomed plane but from the cannon fire. Not all the shells exploded on impact. Out of six in our house and garden, two were later found intact, one of which, penetrating the garage roof, lay undetected for weeks between the bonnet and wing of my father's car, until revealed at a service inspection.
On some of the larger hop farms with groups of kilns and oasthouses, attempts were made at camouflage because it was thought that enemy pilots might mistake such a concentration of buildings as being of military use; some of the white cowls were taken down after hop-picking, a few even painted black. Despite all precautions, loss of life and damage to buildings occurred: occasionally an unpremeditated attack by an aircraft returning from a London raid with a few bombs to off-load on the way home. In some areas, to avoid the risk to pickers working out in the open hop gardens, hop bines were taken into the villages where "bins" were set up in the High Street - not popular with the growers because it involved the hops being handled more often, to the detriment of quality.
Emergency ration cards were issued and pickers became eligible for extra cheese, tea, sugar and margarine; bread coupons were issued for exchange at the bakers. There was an enormous increase in paperwork as every family member had to have a railway warrant, usually paid for by the hop grower. Also, there was a huge increase in the amount of mail to be handed out from the menfolk and women
in the forces. The traditional weekend influx of boisterous friends and relations became more subdued but, even so, the customary "Happy Hopper" element still prevailed; much missed were the evening sing-songs around an open camp fire, baking potatoes in the hot ashes.
Ironically and sadly, stories were told of pickers, having had narrow escapes in the hop gardens, returning to London to find that the Blitz had claimed their home. Everyone who went hopping in those days had a tale to tell. They shared with the natives of Kent and Sussex a grandstand view of the Battle of Britain. In those clear blue skies of September 1940 was enacted daily the deadly mile-high combat, as Spitfires and Hurricanes attempted to break up the massed formations of Heinkels, Dormers and Junkers, escorted by predatory Messerschmitts.
In 1940 the number of families was down, but increased in '41,42 and '43. In June 1944, long after the conventional air raids had ceased, a new threat
arose - the pilotless Flying Bomb or Doodlebug, aimed at London, traversed the Wealden skies. Down below, watchers would wait for that ominous engine cut-out, or witness and cheer the underwing flip some brave pilots dared to use, directing the "bug" away from its course and down into open country.
Understandably, the number of pickers dropped again, although by September '44 the allies had overrun most of the launching sites of Doodlebugs and V2 rockets. For the children of those days, memories remain not just of the thrilling combats over the hop gardens, but of a method of harvesting hops that has vanished.
The war delayed the development of the hop-picking machines, first proposed in 1937, and even after the war there was opposition from those who believed hand- picking was more efficient and provided a welcome paid holiday for thousands. Whitbreads, in