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Alive, Alive O!

1948 , Leigh-on-Sea (Essex)

Cat no. 77

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The cockle industry at Leigh-on-Sea.

The film opens with some people examining cockles on a stall at a London market. It follows the story of the cockles from the boat setting out from Leigh-on-Sea to the cockles arriving on the London market stall. Scenes of the quay at Leigh-on-Sea from the boat and then a map showing the route of the cockle boats, along the Essex coast to the cockle beds off Shoebury Ness. The boat weighs anchor and the men begin raking for cockles. The men carry the baskets of cockles on yokes back to the boats. There are shots of the cockles in the sand. Back at Leigh-on-Sea the preparation of the cockles. They are steamed open, riddled, the shells discarded and then washed to ensure that every particle of grit is removed. They are loaded onto a lorry set for London.The film finishes back at the London market and shows customers buying cockles.

Keywords

Cockles; Fishing

Intertitles

Where do these things come from? Actually I get mine direct from Leigh.And so to Leigh Creek on board one of the boats, as she leaves from the cockle beds.The men are on the sands raking cockles even before the tide has gone right out.These are young cockles - only eighteen months old.They continue their work until the incoming tide compels them to give up.The cockles open as they cook and fall through.Bad cockles are rejected with their shells.The cockles are washed again and again to remove every particle of grit.Cockles for distant parts are salted to preserve them.And so to Billingsgate for distribution.The End.

Other Places

London

Background Information

The cockle industry in Leigh-On-sea peaked in 1933 when there were twenty four boats working out of the port. By 1974, there were just seven. The Osbornes had been associated with the cockle trade in Leigh-on-Sea since 1886. Speaking in 1962, Jim Osborne, then aged 58, recalled there having been six cockle boats working from Leigh, each employing fifteen men and able to collect 400 baskets of cockles in a good day. By 1962, a boat would only have two or three men and would collect 40 or 50 baskets a day. The Osborne family were still fishing for cockles in 1975.

  • Producer : John W. Carr

  • Camera : John W. Carr

  • Script : A. Lawrence Wells

Manifestations

Alive, Alive O!

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