Postcard of the Day No. 96 - Kentish Hop Pickers

The Kentish Hop Pickers formed a migrant labour force who travelled south from London to gather the seasonal crop every summer. Special trains run by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway would deliver entire families to the hop fields and the event was a major milestone in the working class Londoner’s calendar. Others would make the journey on the back of a lorry, piled high with bundles of bedding, pots and pans, and associated paraphernalia for survival in the Kent countryside. For many it was their only experience of rural life and a rare exposure to unpolluted air. Newspapers and magazines would record the event in a tone of sentimental familiarity, portraying the hop pickers as cheery ruffians, stout of heart and spirit, and always ready with a Cockney quip. Some typical press coverage can be seen here on the British Library blog. Postcards were produced in great numbers and presented a rare opportunity for the workers to be in front of the camera and see their likenesses mass produced for sale to the public. Pathé News cameras were often on hand to record the great exodus and the heartwarming spectacle of the labouring classes doing their bit for the nation’s beer drinkers.

In the postcards we see the full age range of the workforce from grizzled grandparents to babes in arms. Only a handful of children and young women defy tradition and go bare-headed - every man of working age shelters under a flat cap, a sun hat, or a bowler. The only collars and ties to be seen are worn by the Tallyman and his assistant whose job was checking and weighing the hop baskets. Some groups are posed with great solemnity, their faces frozen and devoid of expression - elsewhere, in less formal groupings, we get a sense of individual character and personality, some look exhausted while others look relaxed and cheerful. Most surviving participants, by now well past middle age, look back with fondness, recalling an exhilarating sense of exchanging the routines of city life for weeks of adventure in the great outdoors. These are the voices of those who took part as children - the views of those who laboured in the fields may well have been different. 

Folkestone Warren and a Railway through the Chalk

Folkestone Warren is an area of landslip between the cliffs and the coast to the east of the town. It’s composed of fossil-rich chalk and provides an excellent habitat for birds, insects and plant life. Since 1884 a railway connecting Folkestone with the port of Dover has run through it – there’s a network of footpaths through the thick vegetation but no public roads traverse the site. Two years later a station (Folkestone Warren Halt) was built on the landslip, much to the displeasure of the landowner, the Earl of Radnor whose objections forced it to close within a few months. In a more favourable climate it reopened in 1908 and tea rooms, ornamental gardens and picnic sites were developed to attract visitors by train. Between 1915 and 1919 it was out of action following a major landslip that necessitated complete rebuilding of the railway. Final closure came in September 1939.

Panoramic views of the entire undercliff and the railway can be seen from the cliff top at Capel-le-Ferne. The area is designated and managed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and operates as a Country Park. Such a photogenic location offered lucrative opportunities for the postcard industry and cards were printed and sold in great quantity. Many of them include the railway, and a few focus on the station itself. Some even succeed in capturing something of the incongruity of a station in such a remote location – an effect that the Belgian Surrealist, Paul Delvaux brought to life in his Gare Forestière.

Postcard of the Day No. 94 – Tunbridge Wells Pantiles

Royal Tunbridge Wells to be absolutely correct. It’s one of those place names that’s synonymous with bourgeois respectability. A bastion of propriety in a world of depravity. Spiritual home of the Daily Telegraph reader and, when these postcards were on sale, a popular spa resort with an Opera House. At the centre of town is this Georgian colonnade and pedestrianised shopping street, named the Pantiles. Much photographed, often from the very same spot, it offered fashionable shops, galleries and restaurants, and an elegant space for gentle perambulation. It survives more or less intact, without much evidence of its former gentility, and can be visited on Streetview thus avoiding the need to travel to Kent. The five cards that share a single viewpoint also share a cast of characters – woman with small child/pram, a young man hungry for attention and various canine companions. The night scene is deeply unconvincing – a clumsy exercise in over-painting in which every window glows with an identical lurid shade. Only a local could confirm whether the residents of Tunbridge Wells continue to conduct themselves with such ostentatious dignity as they do in these scenes.

The Leas Cliff Lift Folkestone

The Leas Cliff Lift has been mothballed since the end of January. The operator, a non-profit Community Interest Company lacks the funds to replace the braking system to comply with HSE demands. Shepway District Council divested themselves of all responsibility in 2009 and have no part to play in what, if anything, happens next. The passenger cabins have been locked in a mid-way position and the keys handed over to the legal owner, the Folkestone Estate. It would be a great shame if some way to keep it going cannot be found - it's been in existence since 1885. The sum involved is £67,000, which in the grand scheme of things is minuscule. The last photo is taken from the summit in 2015 when the lift was in full operation. My efforts to ride the lift that day came to naught – when the lift reached the top, the operator exited at great speed, padlocked the cabin and marched away with the air of someone who wouldn’t be back in a hurry.