I remember very many years ago in my parent's orchard, I would get a wooden clothes prop and insert the stem of the chosen apple in the 'V' of the prop and then twist, my brothers would hold a sheet underneath so as to catch the apples.
Other times I would climb the trees and throw the apples down, ah! happy childhood days Mam, happy childhood days.
Tell you what though, they tasted lovely not which can be said about the rubbish one buys in the supermarkets of today.
Must admit I had to look up your word 'posser' only to find it it refers to what we called a ponch.
They came in copper and also solid wood in which four arches were cut out, the wooden one's were great fun to play with, we could push our toy cars in and out of the arches.