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Cooking the earth |
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Tomatoes were graded before being sent to the harbour for export
© The Peter Brehaut Collection |
Around the clock
The grid men were normally either the grower’s permanent employees, or casual labourers hired in especially, and many men looked forward to the extra money steaming provided. But it was not pleasant work, and sometimes workers would try to get out of it. One local woman remembers her father’s employee “disappearing” each year around steaming time, leaving her father to do the work alone, which required a Herculean effort on his part, as he worked back-breaking 19-hour days to get the job done.
Because of time pressures, and the necessity of keeping the boiler alight, steaming was carried out around the clock - the glowing of tilly lamps and of ash underneath the boilers would have been a familiar sight at night in Guernsey from October to December, for much of the 20th Century. 
Some growers steamed using "pans" placed on top of the soil
© Mr G Nicholson |
The steamers worked 12 hour shifts, and it was extremely hard, uncomfortable work in the hot, dusty and steamy atmosphere. Percy Chalker who steamed for many years, remembers you could hardly see, because “the greenhouse was full of steam, and your eyes were full of water”.
It was thirsty work, and many Guernsey women remember going up to the greenhouses as girls, to take food and tea to the steamers. One even recalls emerging through the steam to find the workers taking advantage of the privacy provided by the haze to look at “girly” magazines, which they quickly hid from her! The steamers also cooked potatoes (and even Christmas puddings) in the ground, putting them in with the steam where they cooked because it was so hot.
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