Mike Ellsmore has written a memoir about when his family went hop picking in Kent. LINDA PIPER finds out more.

FOR Mike Ellsmore his business life is more than a world away from his childhood memories.

But now everyone can enjoy a glimpse into his past.

Mr Ellsmore is the assistant finance director at Bexley Council.

He has written a memoir about the days when he and his whole extended family would decamp from their home in Elephant and Castle and travel to the hop fields of Kent.

It was an annual ritual followed by many Londoners, who could not afford to go on holiday.

They saw hop picking as a way of getting out of a London threatened by German bombs and into the country.

While his stevedore dad and the other men in the family carried on working in London, Mr Ellsmore’s mum Elsie, his aunties and all their children would be transported to Kent.

They would leave in lorries on the August bank holiday and spend six weeks living in corrugated tin huts, which they wallpapered in advance every year.

Mr Ellsmore, 56, who lives in the borough, was inspired to write the memoir after an impromptu discussion in 2003 between his mother, then 88, and his family, when she talked for more than an hour with them about her life and memories.

She died the following year and Mr Ellsmore said: “I had to write it down.”

The 24-page booklet is filled with evocative descriptions of the lives and adventures of the hop pickers and some hilarious tales about visits to the local pub at the weekends when the menfolk would come down from London.

It is also peppered with crowded sepia photographs of Mr Ellsmore’s parents, uncles, aunts and cousins in the hop fields.

There are also some photographs taken of remembered locations in the present day, put together with the help of Mr Ellsmore’s cousin Eddie Armer.

They recall a gentler time when having an exciting time and being entertained did not depend on having a lot of cash and extended families remained close.

The life of the seasonal hop pickers is long gone, replaced in the 1960s by mechanisation. Many of the hop farms are also gone.

Mr Ellsmore said: “This is dedicated to a generation which worked hard, got on with life and never complained.

“I hope you get as much enjoyment from this book as I have taken in writing it.”

The booklet was first published by Mr Ellsmore for family and friends but demand has resulted in a second printing which is available to anyone who is interested.

Copies are £3.50, including postage and packing, available from thecreativecartel.org or by calling Mr Armer on 01892 826040.