Category: Hops

"Gives a taste of the county's cider and perry heritage"

In the pre-mechanised days of hop picking, workers arrived in droves from the industrial heartlands of the Black Country and South Wales. The effect on the children must have been startling: the sights, smells, tastes. It is still felt by many former hop pickers, even some 60 years later. It was a whole new world.

We often wonder who were the people in Derek Evans' photographs, what their lives were like, when did they abandon their lives on the road? We felt we would never know and had begun to accept that the figures frozen in time in the photo would forever remain an enigma. But then life has the habit of sneaking up on you and, when you least expect it, you start hearing echoes from the past.

Far from being the outcasts they are so often represented as, gypsies have long lived alongside settled communities quite companionably, providing niche services to isolated rural economies.

If anyone could represent the 'wise old man' persona, then surely hop farmer the late Barry Parker must be it. His memorable, delightful, and philosophical phrases are remembered long after his interview has finished.