Cockle picking is horrible work

Telegraph.co.uk ^ | 08/02/2004 | Robert Gore-Langton

[Condor51]

Last summer police arrested 37 Chinese illegal immigrants on the sands in Morecambe Bay. They were raking up cockles, bizarrely one of the very few meat stuffs unknown on a Chinese take-away menu. The story had its funny side - until now. Last week Chinese workers met a fate they were totally unprepared for. Did any of those 19 drowned Chinese cocklers have even the basics on them - a compass, map, tide timetable or mobile phone? It is a certain bet that not one of them spoke a word of English.

The gang bosses who organise the labour won't go short: there are plenty more where they came from. The itinerant workers are attracted to the Lancashire coast because the cockle beds in Morecambe Bay are a free-for-all. Unlike the beds in the Thames, the Wash or South Wales, there is no fishing quota or regulation. You or I can go there and take what we like. To make some serious money all you need is buckets, rakes and a mini-bus full of easily-blackmailed immigrants who will work for super-low wages. Lancashire's cockle beds have lately become a giant medieval paddy field with workers only just above the cockles in the food chain.

Rick Stein and the fish chefs now make great claims for the cockle, a slightly naff seafood on a par with the humble whelk. I don't know when you last ate a cockle, but the chances are it was soused in vinegar and tasted - forgive the schoolboy comparison - like pickled snot. The Welsh traditionally fry them up for breakfast with slimed seaweed, about which the less said the better. The home market is limited. But there is serious money in exporting these shellfish. The bulk of our cockles are processed and sent to Spain where housewives, who can't get enough of these orange and grey sea snails, shove them in paella.

Last summer I went "on the sands" with a bunch of licensed cockle pickers (many of them fourth or fifth generation) in south Wales. The tools are much the same as they were in Roman times, except for the Land Rovers. The cockles, like one-inch clams, lie in the sandy mud and are gathered into heaps with a short rake. They are then sieved so that the young spats fall back into the water to grow into large cockles.

A typical daily quota would be 250 kilos per person. It is not a job you would want. Five minutes' raking was enough for me. The sweat pouring off the men in the sun was unbelievable. In winter it must be viciously cold work. Any danger from tides or heavy rain is minimised by the fishermen's expert local knowledge.

The local fishery authorities keep a very close eye on the harvest. A regulated bed means that the cockles are ecologically self-sustaining. In Morecambe Bay, though, the beds are being stripped. I have been told by legal cockle-pickers that the hated gang boss will be making about £20 for every 50 kilo bag with maybe £3 going to the worker. Some processing factories - where the meats are sorted and canned - are not fussy where the cockles come from. Last year's virtual shut-down of the industry over a false alarm health-scare badly shortened the supply.

This latest disaster must surely force through some local regulation. It is time to outlaw the gang masters before the industry is entirely taken over by the triads. Cockle pickers joke bitterly that these days you only hear Chinese vendors singing "Cockles and mussels arrive arrive o". Sadly, that's more than you can for say for those poor souls who got caught by the tide.

[Condor51]

Huh? A cell phone is now a 'basic'?

Anyway don't cockles sound just yummy.. "they taste - forgive the schoolboy comparison - like pickled snot." And those wacky Welsh "fry them up for breakfast with slimed seaweed". Oh boy, I'll have two helpings thank you!

[Alouette]

In Dublin's fair city,
where the girls are so pretty
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone
As she wheel'd her wheel barrow
Thro' streets broad and narrow

(Chorus)
Crying "Cockles and Mussels alive, alive O!"
Alive, alive O! Alive, alive O
Crying Cockles and Mussels Alive, alive O!

She was a fishmonger,
But sure 'twas no wonder,
For so were her father and mother before,
And they each wheel'd their barrow
Thro' streets broad and narrow,
(Repeat Chorus)

She died of a fever
And no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone;
But her ghost wheels her barrow
Thro' streets broad and narrow
(Repeat Chorus)

[Hank Rearden]

I don't know when you last ate a cockle, but the chances are it was soused in vinegar and tasted - forgive the schoolboy comparison - like pickled snot. The Welsh traditionally fry them up for breakfast with slimed seaweed, about which the less said the better.

Ahhhh, Brit Quisine. That's Quisine, with a capital Q.

[4mycountry]

I don't know when you last ate a cockle, but the chances are it was soused in vinegar and tasted - forgive the schoolboy comparison - like pickled snot.

Makes you just want to go out and get a cockle sandwich, don't it?

[azcap]

Don't you remember your Hemingway? It was just the Old Man, the fish and his Nokia.

[New Horizon]

I suppose this is better that cuckhold picking.

[stylin_geek]

Evidently, you've never had seafood Japeno (at least I think that was the name) Growing up on the coast, we used to go cockling, then would later have a party and cook a large pot of Japeno. It was fabulous, to say the least.

[martin_fierro]

I thought the cockle was a muscle. <|:)~

[Pablo64]

"...pickled snot."

Okay. That pretty well sums it up for me. Now I have to spend the rest of the day trying to get that thought out of my head. (On a worse note: how does the author even know what that tastes like?!?)

[CMailBag]

I thought this was a John Fonda Kerry story...

[CSM]

"mini-bus full of easily-blackmailed immigrants who will work for super-low wages"

So a paycheck is considered blackmail if it is low? What level must the paycheck be before it is no longer blackmail?