Picking in the Hop Fields

“I used to go to beerfests in Belgium years ago for some reason. This was in the 1960s when our generation were the first to take package holidays abroad. We used to go for a few days with Young Conservatives. I didn’t take a lot of interest in the beer but I loved the dirndl dresses. Would you believe it was the first time I ever ate mayonnaise? Seems unbelievable now but none of us had. In England we ate salad cream which we still do but we also eat mayonnaise. We had it on chips that came in paper cones and we also got paper cones of mini hot doughnuts, the baking powder type with sifted icing sugar on top. They were both delicious especially when you ate them outside walking around in the cold.

“I was interested in the hop picking because Kent was a big hop picking area when I was a child. Everyone used to go. When my mother …