Pull no more Poles
Once again we had popular Steve Harris as our speaker and we soon learned that his talk Pull No More Poles was about hop picking. Hops were first used in medieval times as herbs but it was not until the 19th century they were used to make beer.
The hops grew to about 20 feet in height and tall poles were put into the ground in rows then strings were brought down from the top and pegged into the earth so the structure resembled a wigwam. Hops were then planted and were "twiddled" around the strings to make them grow upwards. Hampshire and Kent were the areas where most hops were grown and whole families from the east end of London would have a three week holiday hop picking in the summer. They would arrive at the hop fields in hordes, walking or on horse drawn carts, then in the latter part of the century, by train. On arrival they were given primitive accommodation in stables and sheds, many families having the same place year after year, and they would have to build fires in the open to cook their food. As a holiday it may have left a lot to be desired considering the long tiring hours worked but these families came from overcrowded tenements in a smoky city and must have enjoyed escaping from these conditions for a short while.
They started work early in the morning with a few breaks for refreshment and the call "pull no more poles" must have been welcomed as it meant the end of the day's work. The twenty foot poles were pulled down to the ground to enable the workers to pick the hops off the vines and put into baskets. The talleyman who had pieces of wood hung round his neck on a long string would give them half the piece of wood and keep the other half to enable a record to be kept of what had been picked. At the end of the week it was always the grandmother who was in charge of the money and she would be given the wages for the family. Changes took place over the years and by 1968 everything had become mechanised and nowadays a handful of people with trolleys do the same job that it took hundreds of workers to do.
Probation Service
Mr Turtle came to talk about the probation service. It originated in 1909 when Christian people would go to the law courts and offer help to those people who were in trouble with the law. Eventually the probation service came into being and is now given nine million pounds a year by the government to carry out its work. Each county has its probation officers who all report to a central probation board. Mr Turtle is the manager of Havant branch and is in charge of eight probation officers who have a back up staff of four secretaries.
Offenders who are generally jobless and in the 18—25 age group are put on probation for many things such as burglary, drugs, motoring offences, and the usual term of probation is a year with the person reporting to their probation officer once a week at first, then once a fortnight and then once a month. The probation office has to put in a detailed report regarding each offender and this would go to the magistrate before the sentence was determined.
The officer has the back-up of the many support groups and it would be a condition of the offender's probation that he attended a group that dealt with people with his special problem. Whilst there is a hard core of offenders who continue to get into trouble, most of them by their mid twenties take a more responsible view of life and settle down.
Mr Turtle felt that the drop in the number of people unemployed was a help and with all the specialised backup for offenders there was a gleam of hope that less people would re-offend.
written by St George's Ladies Group
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