Lost Voices: Memories of a Vanished Way of Life

by Gilda O'Neill

In the 1940s, nearly a quarter of a million East Londoners decamped annually for the hopfields of Kent. Most of the pickers were women, who would take their children and other dependent relatives to stay in the hoppers' huts on the farms.

This book records the memories of some of them, in their own lively words. Funny, nostalgic and ironic by turns, they tell of hopping as 'a break from him', an escape from the chesty London smog, respite from the bombs of war, as well as a source of income - and the nearest thing to a holiday that adults or children were likely to get. It was a time of hard graft, of laughter and companionship and long evenings around the faggot fire. In the memories of those who were there, it was a time when the sun always shone ...

Gilda O'Neill was herself a hop picker as a girl. In this vivid book she not only pays tribute to the creative genius of the working class of London's East End, but examines the role of memory and oral history in our understanding of the past.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oral history of East London's 'going down hopping' to Kent, followed by a chapter (that the grannies almost certainly wouldn't have read) on the ethics and politics of oral history.

It covers themes like travel, relations with Kent locals, routines, the work itself, etc. I hadn't realised that this was mostly female labour, or that the huts they lived in in cases took on the guise of a kind of second home / chalet,decked out with your own hand-me-downs. The descriptions of travel from London Bridge are surprisingly: how much people took and how very many were travelling (positively thousands).

The accounts offer already very familiar fare: the sun always shone, 'we were one' and, yup, when you're a kid, you're pretty happy. Would have been nice to have a map of some of the obvious places, but I guess village names aside, we're probably talking everywhere. It's a pretty fascinating phenomenon and now, of course, bar a museum in Maidstone, almost totally invisible now.

Decent little book - one for your 'London' shelf.

[Warwick Stubbs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Certainly not bad, just ok. 2.5/5

Consists mostly of interview segments of what life was like living on a hop farm for about two months every year before machines took over most of the work. Most women went there on holiday... to WORK! For some reasons involved extra cash, others to get away from abusive husbands; but all remember days of sunshine and lots of laughs.

A worthy book that allows a part of history untold to become told, but it does lack a real sense of time and space, and although O'Neill succeeds at remaining relatively neutral throughout so the women interviewed can tell their own stories, she would have been better off using some of her creative skills to evoke pictures in our heads with more descriptions and a sense of narrative. She certainly does order chapters in a sequence from packing to go hopping, arriving, work, after work, weekends, etc., but the interviews often feel repetitive and sometimes not that interesting. I never truly got much of a feel for the work itself, despite having worked in orchards and lived in similar conditions (on the orchard) myself. Some readers may struggle to imagine what the work and its surrounding orchard actually looks like.

[Darla Ebert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gilda O'Neill never disappoints, her research is stellar and her (true) stories are riveting. I have not read her novels, the nonfiction is my favorite and enough

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a East End tradition that every summer the whole community would decamp to kent to help with the hop picking. I think this tradition virtually died out by the 60's when farms became more mechanized and the trend for drinking european beers , which depended on a different type of hops. This book was based on the memories of former hop pickers, it was actually more of a holiday and change of scenery for the women and children as not many men took part unless they were unemployed as you obviously had to leave your job for the summer. Kids were taken out of school and old clothes and bedding collected all the year round to take to kent. The wages were not very high and it was very hard work. The same families went every year and were allowed to leave their possessions in the sheds which were their homes for the summer, although living conditions were very bad, the author does point out that probably conditions at home were virtually the same.
It would have been interesting to get the point of view of the locals who had to put up with a huge influx of Londoners every year and how it effected their lives. I also found the author tended to analyze the collection of data and how oral history is collected too much. At the end is a quick biography of the women who took part, but as the storytellers were only referred to by their initials and you actually never got to know their characters or build up a picture of their lives or get involved with them this seemed a bit of a waste.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Accounts of hop-pickers who travelled from London to Kent in their thousands between about 1920 to the late 1960s. Interesting, though a bit repetitive and sometimes hard to read due to literal transcriptions of colloquial English.

A good insight into the lives of ordinary women in the recent past, however, and particularly interesting introduction and conclusion, discussing the nature of oral history.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite an enjoyable recollection