Will loss of EU workers sour our fruit-picking?

THERE is concern among agricultural firms that they will not get enough workers when we leave the EU. But we haven’t always been dependent on foreign workers. I can recall a time when only British people were employed on the land. It was great part-time work if you wanted to make extra money. I picked strawberries and mushrooms in Cromer, Norfolk, and in winter I dug up potatoes. You were paid according to how much you picked in a day. I have often asked younger people how they think we managed before we joined the EU. I don’t remember an employment collapse in the UK from 1950-73, though it is true wages were not high in the agricultural sector. Could it possibly be that these days, people get paid for doing nothing, whereas back then, you worked or you starved? I am not saying that was a good thing, but on the other hand, we were all much too busy to go on demonstrations.

SHEILA BELL, Codford, Wilts. WHAT the fruit farmers really mean is they cannot employ local people because the latter cannot afford to work for the same wages as the imported workers. STEPHEN DEAR, Wadebridge, Cornwall. GROWING up in the Fens, all ‘seasonal’ workers were students and cockneys taking working holidays, travellers and local kids. School summer holidays were divided into two three-week periods, the first to free the children to fruit-pick and the second, in the autumn, for potato-picking. I started at five and continued until I left school. It was hard but fun. JOHN RICHES, Stratford-upon-Avon.