Alf Biggs (b.1923)

I was born in Woolworth (London) originally and then we moved to a place called Peckham.

When we used to go out into Kent that was really thoroughly enjoyable. Used to go out on the back of a van, you know, what you'd do, at the time the hop picking season started you'd be advised from the farmer that it was about to start and then one or two of the families would group together and organise a van to take you down, but if you couldn't manage a van they had these special trains that used to run from London Bridge down to Kent.

During the period that you were hop-picking you lived in a wooden hut. We used to sleep on straw beds, you'd get inside the hut and there'd be a big bale of straw, sometimes there were two bales of straw depending on the size of the hut. You'd shake all the hay out and then what we used to do the first morning that you were there, one of the farmer's hands would come round with a big cart load of sticks - what they call faggots - they'd be about...two or three feet long and whilst he weren't looking you'd get one or two of these faggots off the back of the van because what he used to do was to dish two faggots per day to each family you see and if he had any left over then you'd get these faggots and push them under the stove to give it a lift sort of thing.

 It's for doing your cooking and that on you see because you had to build your own fire-place you know. Oh it were really nomadic if you like but quite enjoyable - it's something you get used to like everything else.

You used to sit at a thing they called a bin and I suppose it would be, what, two or three yards long and it would be this hessian sacking...and what you'd do, you'd pull down these vines from the top of the wires. I don't know whether you've every seen a hop field, the wires run all the way across, well they must be what, ten, 15 foot high I suppose and you pulled 'em down and just sling one of these wires over the bin as quickly as you could and every so often someone would yell out, 'Get your hops ready.' What you had to do was pick out all the leaves because sometimes when you pulled the vines down the big leaves would fall into the bin so you sorted all those out...then the measurer would come round with a bushel basket and measure your hops out into a big sack, which they used to call a poke, and they used to fill those with ten bushels of hops and he'd mark your card with how many bushels you'd picked and at the end of the season you'd go up to the farmhouse and collect your money, you know, or if you liked...you could draw your cash each week. And then on Sundays, if you wanted a roast dinner rather than over the...outside fire, you used to go to a local bakery with your potatoes and your meat and whatever you wanted cooking...and they'd cook it for you...oh, great fun.