Earlier this month, I attended a seminar organised by the Guild of One-Name Studies. The topic was "Hops, Pubs and People", covering a variety of aspects of the brewery trade. Initially, I wasn't sure I was overly interested in the subject, but a Guild event is always a good opportunity to meet up with other members. I also noticed that one of the talks was going to be about hop-picking in the West Midlands. Since I know my paternal grandmother, and at least one of my aunts, had been involved in picking hops in Herefordshire, and I can remember seeing the hopyards whenever we used to drive across to visit, I thought I might find some relevance for my personal family history.
Little did I realise how 'personal' much of the day would end up feeling!
[And this is why I am writing about this here, rather than on my ONS blog.]
The talk about hop-picking, by Marsha O’Mahony, was based on the research for her book "The Scratch of the Hop", which is described as "a social history of hop growing in the West Midlands". This featured many photographs, including some from the Derek Evans studio, based in Herefordshire, which gave me an insight into the work my relatives would have been doing. (I've included some links at the end of this, since many of the photographs are available online.)
But I was intrigued to spot a surname I recognised in one photograph. On further investigation once home, I discovered one of my uncles was closely related to the men mentioned as setting up wirework for the hopyards. I hadn't previously known that.
Links to my own life featured in two of the talks - in one, by Simon Fowler, on researching ancestors who worked in pubs, he showed an advert for a pub that I can't admit to knowing well - but which happens to be the closest pub to where I spent my teenage years. In the second, a talk about the Temperance Movement, Dr David Beckingham was explaining how the movement went far beyond 'anti drinking', and affected many aspects of life, including financial organisations - at which point, I remembered that the Leicester Building Society, which I worked for, many years ago, had been formed from the merger of the Leicester Temperance Building Society with the Leicester Permanent Building Society. Suddenly the name 'made sense'.
[It also set me wondering whether some old newspaper cuttings I had found in the strong room in the 1980s, relating to the previous companies, which were passed to the Company Secretary, ever found their way into an archives. I do hope so!)]
The final talk which made my day feel special was by Andy Kerridge, describing the "Norkies". These were farm labourers from East Anglia who, after the harvest there, travelled up to Burton-on-Trent, in order to spend the winter working in the breweries there. One of the main sources Andy referred to was a book by George Ewart Evans, called "Where Beards Wag All" - and I thought, "I recognise that."
I haven't read this book (yet), but it is one of a number of books, by the same author, that I brought back from my parents' house, when I had to clear that. (I basically kept anything relating to history!)
Since I associated the books with the East Anglian counties, where very few of my ancestrors were from, I did have a slight 'panic' as to whether I might have recently taken all of them to a charity shop.
But fortunately not:
Having now read the descriptions of the books, I realise they aren't all about East Anglia (George Ewart Evans was born in Glamorganshire, Wales) and I can imagine many reasons why my Dad would have found them interesting.
Dad was born in Worcestershire, but most of his father's ancestry was based in the border area of Herefordshire with Wales. My grandfather spent much of his working life as a "farm worker", in one form or another, so the rural life was very much part of my Dad's upbringing. Dad could probably relate to the information about farm-workers, and the way life in the countryside used to be.
Dad had also been in the RAF (as George Ewart Evans was, for a time). He had a keen interest in history, which he had been unable to pursue beyond 'ordinary level' qualifications, due to his family's financial situation. (His scholarship to a grammar school didn't provide for 'advanced level' study.) But, having settled in Bedfordshire, when the opportunity arose for further study, Dad took it. He attended a local history course, followed by a course in archaeology, and then took an Open University degree.
He, along with other contacts made during the two local courses, were involved in the establishment of a history society for the town they lived in, in 1977, and Dad became the first chairman, a position he held for about fifteen years. (The Society is still going strong and is only on its second Chairman!)
As well as researching for the society, Dad began the research into our own family history, in the early 1980s.
So I have a lot to be grateful to Dad for.
As well as the feeling of 'connection' to my Dad that the seminar prompted, another feature of the event, for me, was the reminder of how important it is to record our own stories, however 'mundane' they might seem to us.
Several thinks all linked together regarding this:
The subtitle of "Where Beards Wag All" is "The Relevance of the Oral Tradition" and, according to the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, George Ewart Evans was "a pioneer oral historian before either the term or the activity became fashionable."
Marsha O’Mahony is also an oral historian and, in her talk, she mentioned that several of the men she had spoken to, for her research, had since passed away.
And, when meeting with other Guild members beforehand, one of the 'topics of conversation' was our own histories with the Guild, and what we have been involved with over the years - which also included references to members who are no longer with us.
Oral history is all about capturing the memories of those still alive, before they are gone.
It is somewhat frustrating that, for all my Dad's involvement with history, he didn't record his own personal history (not even in a 'Grandparent's Book' that I'd bought them!)
And so I am left with trying to 'reconstruct' as much of it as I can, from my own memories, and from the items I saved. (Fortunately, there is a good few of those!)
The recent bulletin from the Family History Federation also connected to this idea, with its lead article about "Working with Letters: A Personal Experience". In this, the author, Liz Whitehouse, described how she discovered letters that her parents had written to each other during the 1940s, and how she has now set up a blog relating to these.
Frequently, such items are lost. If I had a time-machine, one date I would go back to is when my grandmother died and my mother had to clear the council house she'd lived in. It was only years later that I discovered Mum had burnt some letters she found at the time, which my grandparents had written to each other, without even reading them! (and yes, she did regret it, once she developed an interest in researching her own family history.)
But this has also reminded me of some of the items I have, which I need to deal with, transcribing them and adding the details to our family story. Such as a box of notes to me, which Mum wrote almost each week during a period when I was studying, to accompany any relevant newspaper cuttings she'd found that week. There's also an album containing Dad’s postcards to my brother and I, when Dad was away for a year, on an unaccompanied tour in the Middle East.
My "ToDo" list just became a bit longer!
A few relevant links
The Scratch of the Hop, a social history of hop growing in the West Midlands (Logaston Press 2021) https://www.marshaomahonywriter.com/books-publications
Hops in Herefordshire on the Herefordshire Through Time website: https://htt.herefordshire.gov.uk/herefordshires-past/the-post-medieval-period/agriculture-and-industry/herefordshire-agriculture/hops/
Herefordshire Life Through a Lens "website which contains video, photographic and educational content relating to old Herefordshire life as seen through a film, photographic or video camera." https://www.herefordshirelifethroughalens.org.uk/
Hop Picking (from the Derek Evans studio): https://www.herefordshirelifethroughalens.org.uk/photos/hops-yards/
Dictionary of Welsh Biography entry about George Ewart Evans: https://biography.wales/article/s6-EVAN-EWA-1909.html
Wikipedia re George Ewart Evans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ewart_Evans
Liz Whitehouse's blog relating to her parents letters: https://stan-and-grace.blogspot.com/
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