George Orwell in Wateringbury (1931)

Post date: Feb 21, 2012 11:45:22 AM

George Orwell (1903-1950), the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, the author of '1984' and 'Animal Farm', spent 18 days hopping in/near Wateringbury at Blest's farm in 1931 and his experiences are described in his 'Hop Picking Diary' and a short essay he wrote for the New Statesman summarising the experience. The diary is available at https://hoppicking.wordpress.com/. His novel 'A Clergyman's Daughter' (generally reckoned not to be his best) also uses these hopping experiences. The diary was originally published in 1931 and then republished in 1970 by Bridge Books of Wateringbury in a limited edition of 300 copies with a critical introduction by Medway Fitzmoran and a postscript by John Blest (1924-2018) of "Home Farm, Wateringbury" (total length 45 pages). The Bridge Books edition only goes to September 19th and does not include the period in London from 19th September to 8th October 31. It puts blanks where Orwell wrote about the vermin in Lyons Coffee houses, presumably to minimise the risk of legal action. The diary, without introduction and postscript, is also available in several Orwell biographies/collections.

Orwell had a strong socialist streak and this, together with his power of observation particularly of the seamier aspects of life, is what is reflected in 'Hop Picking Diary'. However, he was also a strong anti-authoritarian and this side is reflected in '1984' and 'Animal Farm', his final and best known works post WW2 before his death in 1950. Some of his views about why the hoppers were not able to organise and get better pay would be regarded as very politically incorrect today.

He describes the hoppers he met as three types: East Enders, mostly costermongers (a person who sells goods, especially fruit and vegetables, from a handcart in the street); Gypsies (all knew Romany and used a word or two when they did not want to be understood); and itinerant agricultural labourers with a sprinkling of tramps (Orwell and his companion Ginger were tramps). On the way to Wateringbury, mainly on foot although with one lift from a lorry driver, they stayed one night at West Malling "spike". The West Malling Union Workhouse to give it its full name took in "casual inmates" (i.e. tramps) as well as ordinary inmates. It was located between West Malling and Kings Hill, where the private upmarket road now there is called Orwell Spike.

Orwell and Ginger picked hops on Blest's farm along with 200 other pickers, of which 50 or 60 were gypsies. Frank Blest (1887-1975) lived at Broomscroft, Canon Lane, Wateringbury and his grandsons believe the farm involved was likely to be Brewers Hall Farm, Mereworth (at the back of Mereworth Church with entrance from A26) , although Bull Farm, Mereworth (just across the A26 from the entrance to Mereworth Castle) which was rented from the Falmouth estate, is also a possibility. There are a number of distances quoted in the diaries which tend to support, but do not prove, this view. Peter Blest, Frank's grandson, wrote an article for WLHS on Hop-Growing in Wateringbury published in 1999 in Wateringbury People & Places Volume Two in which he states Orwell stayed at Brewers Hall farm.

Like most of the pickers they slept in round tin huts about 10 feet across, accommodating 4 people. They slept on hay, apparently "rotten stuff to sleep in", rather than straw. The lucky ones slept in stables, the best accommodation. Orwell notes that government legislation to improve hopper's temporary accommodation had the effect in some places of favouring local pickers over East Enders.

He remembers "uproarious scenes in the village [Mereworth never mentioned by name although Wateringbury is] on Saturdays, for the people who had money used to get well drunk, and it needed the police to get them out of the pub." "I have no doubt the residents thought us a nasty vulgar lot, but I could not help feeling that it was good for a dull village to have this invasion of cockneys once a year." They did not work on Sundays. On the last day of hopping Orwell reports a "queer game" "evidently an old custom" of catching the women and putting them in the bins.

Orwell remembers one occasion when of the 15 people sitting round a fire he was the only one never to have served time in prison. Ginger tries, unsuccessfully, to persuade Orwell to rob the [Wateringbury? /Mereworth?] church poor-box¹ with him. On their way to Wateringbury station as they are leaving, Ginger goes into a tobacconist and 'cheated the tobacconist's girl of four-pence by a very cunning dodge'. They made 26/- each from 18 days picking, but in addition made another 6/- by selling stolen apples.

In the essay Orwell mentions Wateringbury Station on a couple of occasions, once when he helps a woman, who was leaving before the end of the hopping, to get there with her luggage; and when he leaves himself, when as well as the incident in the tobacconist, he encounters a tramp he knows exposing himself there. The Hopper's train they caught at Wateringbury was ninepence cheaper than the normal fare but took 5 hours to get to London. Hoppers were paid at the end of their stay (less if they left early) and hopper train times were timed to minimise the time between payment and departure to reduce drunkeness in the village.

John Blest's 1970 postscript notes that Orwell came at a time the hop growers were going through a period of low prices and, by the end of that year, 50% had gone bankrupt or made arrangements with their creditors. He notes with approval the formation of the Hop Marketing Board in 1932 and that "machines have taken over the work of picking the hops since 1958." (see newspaper article from 1958 about mecanisation at Brewers Hall Farm.)

Postscript: in an article in the Sunday Telegraph of 17th May 2020 Dominic Cavendish, the theatre critic, describes this "odd chapter" in Orwell's life as very important in his development as a writer but "It would be an exageration to say that all roads in Orwell's ensuing work lead back to Kent."

For hop-picking in Wateringbury, generally for the period to WW1 see the 75 articles below https://sites.google.com/site/wateringburylocalhistory/topics/hopping.

Notes

1. Poor boxes are referred to by Orwell in his 1941 book "The Lion and the Unicorn - Socialism and the English Genius": " it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God save the King” than of stealing from a poor box."