Seeking Sydney: Remastered footage of hop-picking in times gone past
Video report by ITV News Meridian's Andy Dickenson
Footage has emerged showing what is thought to be the oldest depiction in colour of hop pickers in action.
It was filmed by Sydney Bligh, once a well-known figure around Canterbury, and an electrical engineer and amateur pioneer of radio and film.
The footage has been digitally restored and broadcast at a time when the majority of traditional hop festivals have been cancelled due to the pandemic.
Frank Gray from Screen Archive South East says: "What is fascinating is not just the film, but it is also the film in colour. One of the great revolutions in film technology in the mid-1930s was that Kodak introduced its first colour stock. It meant that the first generation of amateur filmmakers could capture the world in colour."
The glory days of hop-picking would see an annual migration of labourers from the East End to the hop fields of Kent.
It is a unique glimpse into the past that very few have witnessed before now. A snatch of ordinary pre-war life as the hop-picking season draws to a close in 1937, just as it does today.
The footage is a taster of Bligh's work recently remastered by the region's archivists.
More than 70 formerly forgotten reels have been made public through his granddaughter, from the wildly imaginative, to the wonderfully everyday.
The man behind the camera, Sydney Bligh, was a pioneer of amateur film and radio in the 1920s and 30s.
Yet his films, for generations, were forgotten and feared lost until recently.
Watch the second special video report by ITV Meridian's Andy Dickenson: