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THE RIPPER FAMILY |
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"Our best times together as a family were when we went hopping on Three Chimneys Farm in Kent. It was holiday fun time for me, but Mum was picking hops all day and sometimes, if I wasn’t roaming around the countryside, I would help her and when she had time off we would stroll round the orchards and hopfields picking blackberries or collecting windfalls." Billy Ripper |
HOP PICKING IN KENT IN THE 1940s and 1950sFrom before World War II until the 1950s, the Ripper family, like many families from the South East and East of London, spent late August and early September in Kent, picking hops for the beer industry. The mechanisation of the harvest in the mid/late 1950s heralded, for many people, the demise of the annual hard working jaunt. On this page you will see images taken at the time and reminiscences of family members that were there. This collection of memories and photographs has been collated by Billy Ripper, Ken Ripper and Terry Slynes. The image above was taken around 1948 at Three Chimneys Farm near Goudhurst. It shows 'Grandad' Bill Ripper and 'Nan' Eliza Ripper with their son, Roy, daughter Winnie and daughter-in-law Rosie. The children are both Winnie's; Pat is on Nan's lap and Winnie is holding Linda. The photo was taken during and perhaps towards the end of the picking season. The bines in this hop garden have been stripped bare and are coiled on the ground. |
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In this period the family consisted of 40 people in three generations as shown in the above table. At some point all of them went hop picking; those shown in white were perenniel hop pickers, thos shaded blue were less frequent visitors. Other occasional pickers were the Caine family of Jimmy, Anne, Alan and Pat. These were Nan's sister's family with whom there was a very close bond. There are three people named William Ripper here, being grandfather, son and grandson. For clarity we shall call them Grandad Bill, Bill and Billy respectively. |
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The first hop farm that the family went to was Risebridge Farm in Kent. After World War 2 they moved to Three Chimneys Farm.
.. taken from Mary’s written memories: "Maggie gave us a blanket and a pillow to put in the pram; we covered him up and got on the Green Line and went to Risebridge [Farm]. We got down to the station [at Goudhurst], where the Green Line dropped us off, and we had to walk. We got down there about one o’clock in the morning. It was hopping huts. .. Sheila recalls her mother, Mary, telling her that: .. taken from Mary’s written memories: .. Mary speaking on the 2009 recording: .. taken from Goudhurst Parish During the Battle of Britain |
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 Forty five miles south east of Bermondsey, nestling in the Weald of Kent near Goudhurst, lies Three Chimneys Farm. This is one of many hop farms in this, the Garden of England. The first hop farm that they went to was Risebridge Farm which was closer to the railway station. The living accommodation there wasn’t as good as Three Chimneys Farm. Exactly what prompted the move to Three Chimneys is uncertain but it may have been any one, or perhaps all, of word of mouth, positive recommendation or direct application to the farmer, Jack Benson. It is possible that Mr Benson paid better as well. Three Chimneys Farm had a large farmhouse, four oast houses (hop drying kilns), barns, cow pens, farm workers’ cottages and huts for temporary accommodation for the farm's seasonal hop pickers. There were farm animals on the farm but most of the land was turned over to hop gardens. A hop field is known as a garden. This painting of Three Chimneys Farm was painted by Mary Ripper and shows a more modern facade. Click on the painting for a larger image. |
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There being no motorways, the route by road was along the existing 'A' and 'B' roads, thus: Bermondsey - Sidcup - Swanley - Wrotham - Seven Mile Lane - Paddock Wood - Marden - Horsemonden - Goudhurst - Three Chimneys Farm. After Winnie had moved to Bellingham there was a detour to collect them all on the way via Catford - Lewisham - Bromley and then on to the A21 for Lamberhurst or Flimwell. The hop pickers on almost all the farms would know every one else on the same farm; this would be not just from the previous year's visit but because they were neighbours where they lived alongside one another in Bermondsey, Poplar or wherever they came from. Generally hop picking was regarded as a holiday in the fresh air for the children and a working holiday for the mothers. Menfolk would usually remain behind in London, working on their day job, with occasional visits at the weekend. Billy Ripper - "Bermondsey people received letters from hop farms around Kent. Letters usually arrived in July and August and from the responses the farmer could determine how many pickers were available. The womenfolk would get a bit agitated if they hadn’t received their letter. When it was time to leave for the hopfields whole families and neighbourhoods would make their way to London Bridge Station to get the train known as ”The Hoppers’ Special” to a station somewhere in Kent. The train timetable would determine whether they were able to leave late Friday or early Saturday. "The carts were large boxes mounted on pram wheels about 3 feet long, 2 feet wide and 3 feet deep; as can be seen here. "The family, including Mum and me, would alight at Goudhurst Station. From there it was 2 miles to walk to Three Chimneys Farm, unless the farmer had sent down a tractor and trailer to collect us all. There were quite a few hills to climb pushing the carts. The last hill was a steep gravel track leading to Three Chimneys Farm and the hop huts. "When Dad took over the coal business he converted the open back lorry with a tarpaulin shed contraption and the family went by road on the back of the lorry. He also generated some income by taking other families to their farms.
"Later, when I was about 11 or 12 and being at senior school wasn’t allowed to go ‘opping and miss school I stayed at home (we lived at 77 Vauban Estate) and went down by train for the weekend but had to walk from Goudhurst Station to the farm about 2 miles. When Dad bought the 1932 Austin (pictured here about 1955) we went down in that." |
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Three Chimneys Farm had 87 or huts for most of the hop pickers; others were accommodated in a barn that had been made habitable to a basic standard. The huts were considered superior to those on many other farms as they were brick built. The Ripper family occupied three or four huts - numbers 44 (Nan Ripper), 45 (Mary Ripper) and 47 (Florrie Martin) in the centre block. Rose Ripper may have been 43, 46 or 48 but from this distance in time this is uncertain. In the eastern block was number 5 where Aunt Winnie and her brood stayed. Billy recalls that the Barnes family lived at number 1, "Aunt Kate" ( no relation at all) was at number 2 and the Gillettes at number 3 or 4; these were Bermondsey families and near neighbours who lived on or nearby to Vauban Estate, Spa Road, as did Bill and Mary Ripper.
Each hut was a square single room, about 10 feet by 10 feet, with a corrugated iron roof, a sliding barn door that could be padlocked, whitewashed walls and one small window; it was furnished with just a single bedframe that took up more than half of the available room. The huts were intended for sleeping and occasional shelter; the rest of the time people would spend outside either working, cooking, washing or relaxing. Indeed, when the pickers took time outside at the pub in Goudhurst, even then they sat outside on the wall of what is now the car park. Hopping wasn't an 'indoor' experience. Other furniture, cooking implements and accessories were brought from home as described above and transported either on the train or on lorries with the pickers, as shown in the image above. Some people brought rolls of wallpaper to pin to the walls to make the hut more homely; the wallpaper would be unpinned at the end of the picking season, taken home and brought back in the next year. The wheels were taken off the cart which was then used as a cupboard. Regular attendeees that had spare furniture and who were guaranteed to return in the following year could leave items of furniture in their hut, but this was usually no more than a mirror and a small chest of drawers. Each hut would accommodate a family, or, if it was a large family, part of one. Winnie's hut, for instance, would accommodate her own family of at least six at any one time; sometimes more. Nan and Florrie could have similar numbers in with them. With such large numbers the bed in each of the huts was well occupied - some of us at one end, some at the other. Upon arrival it was necessary to clean the hut and make the bed. For a mattress, each bed had a palliasse. This was large fabric bag stuffed with straw. On the day of arrival it was usual for a tractor loaded with straw to drop off a bale of straw at each hut. Ken recalls that around 1953 or 1954, probably the last time he went hopping, the children were sent to stuff the palliasses with straw that had been stored in the high numbered huts (about 84 to 87). From this supply each palliasse was filled and taken into its hut and rested on the bedframe. Billy remembers that once you got used to them, the beds would be warm and comfortable. The huts had no running water, no electricity, no heating or any toilet facilities, except perhaps a bucket, jug and basin brought by the occupying family. The latrines (pictured here) were well away from the huts, a 30 feet long brick building separated in the middle for male and female. The toilet was a long seat suspended over a deep hole. The smell was dreadful. Lime was occasionally thrown in the hole. Women rarely used the latrines, they used to go in twos or threes to the woods with a shovel. Water was carried from the standpipe, shown on the above plan, by bucket (a different bucket!) to the cookhouse or the hut according to need. Given the number of people in each hut, washing wasn't necessarily a very private practice. The men would often wash and shave on the grass outside their hut, using a mirror temporarily hung on a nail on the door. Lighting and warmth was usually sourced from a primus lamp and/or a paraffin heater. The heaters were rarely lit, but after dark the hissing primus lamps attracted vast numbers of moths and other insects. To get provisions was a 2 mile walk with the pram to Goudhurst. Next to the oast was a hut where you could get some things on credit which came off your final earnings. Each hut had an account book in which the bill for articles was recorded and signed for; this book was kept by the vendor. There were always traders coming around the hop gardens while you were working selling bread, cakes, sweets, clothes, shoes, soap, jewellery, fruit and all manner of things. A regular was an Indian man with a suitcase from which he sold brightly coloured silk ties. There were four cook houses. They were square blocks with a chimney serving four separate fires. From the time of arrival the farmhands would unload faggots they brought on tractors for feeding the fire as the stockpile was burnt away. Each fire had iron rungs to hang the pots over the fire. When people started bringing paraffin cooking stoves, the cookhouses were used mainly for boiling water. The fires would be maintained by the older, more responsible children throughout the day. Billy Ripper - "On Fridays Dad would come and stay and give Mum a hand. Saturday or Sunday he would walk up to town to have a few beers in The Vine public house, or The Five Bells, with whoever had come down from Bermondsey. There was a sign at the pub doors firmly stating “No Gypsies”. Dad would come back and Mum would have cooked a roast dinner, which we would all tuck into. Later he would walk to Goudhurst Station to get the train home. "Many a time we would all go for a walk at the weekend. Adults and kids would troop over past the Great Lake and the Mansion and go through Donkey Farm into Bedgebury Pinetum. Donkey Farm had the most enormous sweet blackberries which we would pick. The grounds of the Mansion had lots of Horse Chestnut (conker) trees, crab apples, hazel nuts and beech trees. "The weekends were more or less a booze up at ’The Vine’ in Goudhurst, so all the men walked up to the town while the women got the dinner ready. On the way back they had to pass the ’the haunted house’ via a footpath that ran alongside it where the ghost of a white lady was supposed to wander. Everyone was a bit lightheaded and there was some banter about people disappearing along the path. One of the party, can’t remember for sure who it was but could have been Johnny Martin, stopped to relieve himself and didn’t arrive at the farm for dinner. "When we came down in the car Dad would drive to the Vine and all the men were already there. When it was time to leave it was decided to all go back in the car. It was only a four seater but 10 all managed to squeeze in, The approach to the farm was a very steep loose gravel hill having the name 'Shitty Hill’ (I don’t know why). When they got to the bottom Dad made everyone get out and walk up the hill much to their annoyance. I think he had visions of being overloaded and breaking down. Of course when he got to the huts everyone wanted to know where the others were and he just said that they preferred to walk. "One of our highlights was the concert. Doctors (students I guess) and nurses would set up a marquee and you could go there if you had any ailments. But in the evening they would have a concert playing instruments and we would sing all the old favourites of that time and my favourite was always “There’s a Hole in my Bucket Dear Liza” which could go on forever. "And so it continued until the harvest was complete. At the end of ‘opping there would be a bonfire and music on the meadow where we would cook apples or potatoes on a stick and all the young girls and blokes would enjoy going their separate ways with a bit of canoodling before they got back to Bermondsey, where most people came from. Mum and I went home, not much richer, but it was a working holiday for her and wonderful time for me. [Click on this image to see hop pickers from near Bodiam waiting for their train back to London Bridge Station. A typical scene at many stations at the end of the season. The fully picked hop gardens can be seen behind the station.]
Florrie (pictured here with husband John Martin and daughter, Maureen) kept a hut at the farm and her daughter still did hop harvesting until around 1970. Florrie's grandson, Martin, can recall his times spent at Three Chmineys farm in the 1960s." |
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Billy Ripper - "Bill Pope, the tallyman, would come round the huts at 6.00 a.m., banging on the doors to get people up. Mum and I had to get washed in cold water, dressed, have breakfast, don our wellies, get lunch made and then make our way across wet fields of dew to the allocated hop field. "Picking would start at 7.00 am and go on until 4.00 pm with an hour for lunch for 5 weekdays and half a day on Saturday. "Mum would be allocated a row with hop bines either side. Each alternate row had a six foot long hessian sack mounted on a wooden frame for a bin. Mum would pull down a bine and pick the hops into the bin. Some mothers made their children pick and they might have a basket or bucket to pick in so they could sit down on the ground. Mum never made me pick. If I was hanging around she’d give me a bag or something and tell me to go along the row and pick up all the dropped hops where she had already picked, but if one of the other kids came along and said they were going to get newts or something I would leave my task. Mum didn’t mind. "Bill Pope would come around twice a day and tally up the bushels in your bin with his basket (about the size of a laundry basket which held just one bushel). He would count off the number of bushels picked and empty the contents into a ‘poke’, a very large sack. The tallyman had 6 inch flat sticks (like ice lolly sticks) and he would count the bushels using these so that the picker would know there had been no miscount; the total was then recorded in a book. "A ruse adopted by pickers was 'Fluffing up', whereby pickers would put in small leaves as well as hops; then the pickers would put their hands and arms in the bin to fluff up the contents to get more air between the hops before Bill Pope arrived. This made the bushels have less hops and more air and dispersed the leaves. If the picker put in too many leaves, this was called a 'dirty bin', Bill Pope would tell the picker to clean it up and he wouldn’t bag it up until it was done. He would come back when it was done and when he was satisfied with the bin's contents he would record the amount picked. Some pickers put in hops and no leaves and got reprimanded by other pickers for being too clean and spoiling it for everyone else. "The more pickers you had around the bin the greater your reward and some families made their children pick and go along the row picking up fallen hops as well. Each person with a bin would be allocated a row and the quicker that row was finished the sooner another would be allocated. A person picking on their own would do one row. Someone who had five or six pickers on the bin could do four, five or even six rows. It was not permitted to move to another hop garden until the one being worked had been fully picked. This meant that three or four bins could be seen in one row towards the end of picking that field.Click on this image from Associated Press to see a typical family gathered around their bin and note the pram with, presumably, a babe in arms therein. "As stated above, work was from 7.00 a.m. until 4.00 p.m. with an hour for lunch. Lunch was taken by your bin; someone would go back to the huts just before lunch to brew some tea and make sandwiches if that had not been done around breakfast time. At 4.00 pm the call went out, “Pull no more bines”. Each unfinished bine was completed, the count was then completed and everyone went back to the hut to cook dinner. "Pay was piecework. An adult would fill ten baskets each day, for a shilling a piece. Pay, therefore, was about ten shillings per day, making it about three pounds per week. The more you picked the more you earned. When the annual hop picking venture came to an end I think the rate was about a shilling a bushel, although previously I seem to remember pickers moaning that they were to be paid just 3d or 4d a bushel. A deputation went to Benton and he agreed to pay them 6d a bushel. This gradually increased over time to about one shilling per bushel." |
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Terry and the Cesspit - about 1953 when Terry was 4 years old |
Terry Slynes - "I have often wondered who was the girl who broke her arm that saved me from sure death by drowning in the cesspit at the bottom of the hill from the huts. "I was playing in one of those big prams, a Silver Cross I think. I jumped into it and my twin brother, David, was pushing me down the hill, but it was going too fast and he let go with me on board. I was shouting "Mum, Mum, Mum!" as it was picking up speed going towards an open cesspit. A girl threw herself under the front wheels and it tipped me out onto the grass. I got a bloody nose and a few minor cuts and bruises. She got what I believed to be a broken arm. David got a kick up the backside and I got shouted at. "While Mum was cleaning me up the mother of the girl came into our hut, shouting "She has broken her *!@!* arm!"; a large women she was. An ambulance came and took the girl to the hospital with her mother and after treatment someone brought them back. My Mum, Winnie, got some stouts out of the water bucket and gave the girl 5 bob. Mum and the girl's mother had a good old drink round the bonfire that night. We weren't allowed out. David and I had to stay in the huts that night, I think they call it grounded now, and for the rest of the holiday, or hop picking - it was a holiday for us. I believe David and I had to do all the girl's chores but we didn't mind, her mother used to give us sixpence between us every now and then.
Billy Ripper - "The girl who broke her arm was Susan Barnes. [This is Billy's map, click on it for a larger image]. "At the bottom of the sloping meadow were the brick latrines with a ditch at the front and back where the effluent would seep from the inside into the ditch. The smell was so bad to be indescribable. The latrines themselves were separated between the sexes and consisted of a 20 feet long wooden plank and a drop of about 5 feet. They were so bad that most of the girls and ladies would walk across the meadow to the woods carrying a shovel and toilet roll to the mocking cries of “We know where you're going”. "I don’t think Terry would have died in that quagmire but he certainly wouldn’t have come out smelling of roses." |
Chris Cross (Roy's daughter) - "I saw my Dad today ... and he ... told me a story about himself (left) and his twin brother, Ronnie (right). "Dad and Uncle Ron were cycling into the village to get papers (he said about 45 mins there and back). "After a few hours Ronnie still hadn’t returned and they were getting worried when a car arrived at the huts. Uncle Ron got out - he had a big plaster on his chin where he had a couple of stitches and two big plasters on his head. He’d been going too fast round a bend and had crashed his bike into a brick wall belonging to a house. A man came out of the house and inspected his wall before he put Ronnie in his car and took him to the hospital! "Uncle Ron’s bike was a write off. Dad said it was all squashed and broken, but that the back wheel was saveable which Dad pinched and replaced it for the punctured one on his own bike." |
Terry Slynes was born in 1949 and here following recounts a story from 1953, give or take a year “I was in the hospital with bee stings in Tonbridge ... I kicked a beehive and they were all over me and Uncle Bill picked me up and ran to a pond where he jumped in with me in his arms, waving his hat just above the water until the bees dispersed. I was stung badly and had to be kept in hospital for a couple of days. I don't remember it but my mum used to tell the story every time she took us to see Uncle Bill & Aunt Mary. Uncle Bill used to say 'Yeah, I saved your life and my new hat got ruined'. When he dried it, around the fire outside the huts we slept in while hop-picking, it shrunk and lost its shape ... “The thing is I am not afraid of bees, quite the opposite, they never sting me now, but I am afraid of water and still am to a point. I really can't remember that episode, but I am sure it isn't a tale. I am sure it happened ... I have still got the white spots scars all over my arms legs and the back of my neck, getting more prominent as I get older. I was only 3½." [The hop picking season was in late summer and Terry was born in the summer of 1949 which places this incident in 1952 or 1953]. Chris Cross - “I saw my Dad today. He remembers a boy, presumably Terry, jumping over a fence and landing in a bees' nest. Uncle Bill picked him up and ran to the pond with him where he dunked him in the water. Uncle Bill brought him back to the huts and they called an ambulance, Terry spent a couple of nights in hospital and Dad says when he came out his face was as red as a beetroot!" |
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Billy Ripper - "There was little danger until one particular day Mum gave me a paraffin bath. It came about because I was balancing around the edge of a tar pit and fell in up to my neck. I had managed to grab the side before I went right under. My clothes had to be burnt. I was scrubbed down with paraffin and then with soapy water. Mum went off alarming, not at me but to the farmer, for allowing a six foot deep pit full of tar to be left uncovered. The next day it was covered over and cordoned off." |
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Billy Ripper - "Close by was Captain Blunts' who had an apple orchard and Harry and I got chased out of there once when we were out scrumping. One of our chores was to walk to Goudhurst to fetch paraffin or some other shopping that was needed. We would take a gallon can to be filled at the oil shop which sold virtually everything. Getting there was a bit of a laugh because we had to pass a gypsy encampment and if you were accosted by one you had either to buy something or give something like an apple or two or you would get bewitched. It was also a bit scary as we were told not to associate with them as we could be kidnapped or even murdered. Their camp was at the bottom of the hill and half way down the hill we would run as fast as we could past the camp and over the railway bridge. We did get stopped once by a girl about our age who asked if we had any apples. As it happened we had passed Captain Blunts' and picked some windfalls from inside the fence which we gave to her and were saved. Coming back we went via footpaths and fields across the railway line to miss out the gipsy camp because it meant running up the hill with a heavy can. We always found a stick to pass through the handle so we could carry between us and even out the weight. 2 miles there and 2 miles back would take us about 5 hours." |
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Harry Slynes - "Me, my Dad and cousin Bill stood under a complete rainbow at the lake at Three Chimneys in 194?; mothers were picking hops in the fields. There was only us and a few others fishing. My Dad hooked a pike, but in those days you had to kill pike. It ruined the day for us kids." |
In 2011 a series of films made by The Lord Bragg (broadcaster Melvyn Bragg), featured cinematic images of Britain's industrial past. One film in the series featured hop hicking in Kent and was entitled 'Opping. Lord Bragg's film company advertised in Bermondsey, and other areas, for people with experience of hop picking to attend a presentation of films which would also be filmed to capture those experiences. Bill took his Mum, Mary Ripper, and wife, Doris, along to the gathering and they were filmed, featuring in the 2011 final cut. Click on the link for 'Opping to open the film in YouTube; to see Mary and Bill, wind forward for two minutes. |
This is a selection from YouTube. The fascination with hop picking and particularly the hop pickers is evidenced by the regular, if not annual, reportage on the migration to Kent from South East and East London.
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My father-in-law gave us the money for the coach fare."
On one occasion we got as far as Sevenoaks, I think it was, when the lorry (not sure if it was the Bedford or the Austin) spluttered to a halt in clouds of smoke. His language made the smoke blue, in keeping with the colour of the lorry. It turned out that the engine had seized up. Off he went with Albert and had to buy another lorry. After a couple of hours he came back with an Albion (I think). Everything had to be transferred over and fortunately it didn’t rain. Of course he and Albert had to go back and tow the broken down lorry back to the yard. It was a long day for him and Albert and he vowed never to take anyone ‘opping again. But of course he did.
Dad’s bike got a puncture and they couldn’t fix it so Dad wheeled the bike back and Uncle Ron went on, on his own. 