Over Bethnal Green by Sally Worboyes

Author:Sally Worboyes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

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When Jessie entered Whitby’s Farm, and the common where the hop-pickers were living in rows of huts, she did so on the back of a tractor-trailer driven by a South Londoner, Barry, who was there for the season not just as a hop-picker, but a farm labourer too. Jessie took to him straightaway. Shorter than the average man and more rounded, he had a smile to put anyone at ease. His face was open and honest and his blue eyes had a twinkle.

When Barry had pulled up and offered her a lift, Jessie had felt that if she didn’t stop for a rest her legs might well buckle under her. The shock of sudden eviction from her temporary home where she had just begun to settle down had really hit her once she was walking alone down a strange lane. She hadn’t realised at first that she was crying until the tears were cold on her neck. By now it was early evening and the sun was going down and she was not only tired but hungry and that winding lane had turned out to be a mile and a half long and uphill most of the way. Her luggage had seemed heavier and her bags more awkward and Billy was understandably fretful. She had been regretting her impulsive decision to come to Kent and wishing she was back in London at her mother’s house when Barry had rescued her from what seemed like a nightmare.

The noise of the tractor made it difficult to have a proper conversation but Barry concluded that Jessie was a young and inexperienced mother who was very much in need of help. In his wisdom he decided to deliver her directly outside the hut of his own mother Nelly Lisbon, who was in her sixties and had been hop-picking on Whitby’s Farm every year since she was a young newlywed. Nelly would find Jessie an empty hut and settle things with the farmer. She would scrape together linen and blankets from her own trunk as well as cajoling more from other pickers. She would let Jessie borrow her spare oil lamp and see her fed, be it a chunk of bread without butter and soup without meat. And God help anyone if they poked their noses in. Nelly loved helping out; she was a good woman with a heart of gold who couldn’t stand by and see a wrong not being put right. And as far as she was concerned, no one could do it better than she did.

By the time Barry had turned off his engine outside his mother’s hut, Nelly and some other pickers were gathering to see who he’d brought with him. By now, Billy was crying and Jessie was close to collapse.

‘Someone looks as if they could do with a bleeding good sleep,’ said Nelly, introducing herself.

‘My friend advised me to come here… for the country air,’ said Jessie, climbing down from the trailer. ‘I’m to ask for Johnnie and Eve.

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