Hop-picking was the highlight of summer

IN the years before the Second World War, Black Country folk from different towns used to travel by train, charabanc, car or bicycle to go hop picking in the Herefordshire and Worcestershire countryside, as well as along the Teme Valley.

Horses and carts would be waiting to take them to the farms to work. Many farms had a few acres devoted to hops, and Black Country folk worked for them right up until the 1960s when the hop machine took over.

They would pick in villages such as Bromyard, Suckley, Tenbury Wells, Shelsley Walsh, Ledbury, Newnham Bridge, Knightwick, Stanford Bridge and Eardiston, to name a few.

Children slept on straw pallets and ate rabbit stew, while mothers worked at cribs to fill green sacks by the bushel.

In the evening there was singing around the fire. This all happened in the main school holidays in the summer; the kids loved the fresh air of the countryside.