Off to Paris with A Clergyman's Daughter

I have just started reading "Down and out in Paris and London" having just finished "A Clergyman's Daughter". The second book tells the story of .....well perhaps you can read it for yourself so I will not give too much away.  The main character is Dorothy and in the book she has a number of challenging experiences shall we say. One of them is hop picking in Kent. My mum told me about the time when she was young and went off with her sisters to do just the same thing. It was by all accounts considered by Londoners to be a bit of a holiday. Mum recalls the beery smell that covered them as they picked the hops, something that she did not like. It was probably this, she recalls, that put her off drinking. Mum was glad when she got a full time job in a chemist near home and no longer had to go.

Today the first of a number of overseas workers are arriving in our country to go and pick crops. Such is the need that farmers have charted planes to bring them here. Without them some food will not get to our tables. Orwell gives a good description of what it was like in the 1920's and 1930's for people doing similar seasonal jobs. Living conditions then were Spartan, Dorothy sleeps in the hay and the work was tough and not well paid. Today things  are better but those who will go into our fields will still have a lot of hard work to do. Perhaps we should spare a though for them, ask for Gods protection over them and be thankful for them.

Gracious God
We thank you for the food
on our tables.

Sometimes we take for
granted that there will be
food in our shops and
on our plates.

Help us to be grateful for all
those who work in the fields.
May your hand of protection
be over them.

We ask this in the name of Jesus.
Amen.