150 Rumanians arrive for fruit and veg picking.

[FrenchieBoy]

FrenchieBoy, slight drift.
20 odd years ago my site inspections covered the Jacksons at Man of Ross, Cilla Clive at Ledbury and the Wye Fruits packhouse - I wonder if our paths ever "crossed"

None of those three ring a bell. With regards to Man Of Ross, I knew of them as we were living in the Gate House at Cabalva Estate near Witney On Wye which was (At the time) owned by a lady called "Revel Guest" who was the co-producer of the film "War Horse"!
The farm we worked at in Ledbury was mainly apples (at the timer but it might have changed over the years - It was just a couple of miles north of Ledbury. One big one that we worked at which you might well have heard of was S & A Fruits who were a very big employer. Most of their staff were contracted foriegn workers but the did take on casual workers for the Strawberries but it was not uncommon for us to turn up and see a notice on the gate saying "No English pickers required today"! When we were working around Ledbury we used to drink in The White Hart - A little back street scrumpy house type pub - There's a few stories I could tell about that place!

Edit: It's just come to me - The apple farm we worked at near Ledbury was Hill Top Farm.
Just to pass the time I might start a thread in the "Jokes" section as most of them really were quite funny!

 

[Archer]

Cheers, S&A I knew of but never visited. I called at those sites every 3 weeks and had a room at the Feathers- iirc- but never had the time to go drinking in town

 

[hunta]

This is quite true, especially the part about money being worth a lot more overseas than in the UK.
It brings to mind the first year that we were fruit picking. We were apple picking at Ledbury and there was a gang of Russians there and we got to know a couple of them quite well. One of them was a student called Artur who was a big monster of a young man, built like a brick outhouse, very intelligent and well educated and one of the most polite chaps you could want to meet. He would do the apple picking shift through the day and then as soon as we all knocked off for the day he would be off to another farm and be picking strawberries. We joking said to him one day "Artur, you are going to be a rick man when you go back to Russia, what are you going to do with all your money"! His reply was "I have worked very hard for many hours each day this year in the UK and I have saved as much as I can by living very meagrely and not drinking or buying anything I do not need. When I go back to Russia I will have earned and saved enough money to but my own farm!"
We lost touch with him but I have no doubt at all that is exactly what he did, I certainly hope that he ended up with his own small farm because he was willing to work hard for his goal! If he did get his farm (And I have no doubt that he achieved his goal) then he deserves the utmost respect! Many if not most of the eastern block pickers we knew sent most of their earnings back home regularly to help their families and did not squander it on drink or other unnecessary "recreational" things like many of the British pickers did that were employed on a casual basis!

Yes back in the day the £ was worth double what it's worth to then now and even now it's still worth them coming. I worked with Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians as well as other nationalities. In those days they were very hard workers and, like you say, very nice people.

 

[Archer]

Yes back in the day the £ was worth double what it's worth to then now and even now it's still worth them coming. I worked with Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians as well as other nationalities. In those days they were very hard workers and, like you say, very nice people.

Yes, lots of uni students who worked hard and used the summer work to fund their education

 

[TomT3]

I Learnt something new there then chaps thanks for the insight.

 

[User00043]

Me and my sister used to go Spud Picking on a local farm when we were young
Mum packed us off with a bottle of Tizer and Cheese Sandwich (We loved it)