164 AN ANGLER'S YEAR 



The Leigh cockle-gatherer alwas packs his produce in 

 bulk, and Leigh pickled cockles, are, I believe, a well- 

 known article of trade, particularly beloved of the 

 thousands of trippers to Southend during the season, 

 and most of them boiled and pickled and sent over daily 

 to the Southend vendors. These shells are also not a 

 waste product, but are used for cement making and 

 other industries, while their most valuable application, 

 namely, for crushing and spreading on garden paths is 

 illustrated by the poet in those beautiful lines of 

 our childhood : 



Mary, Mary, so contrairy, 

 Hovv does your garden grow ? 

 With cockle shells and silver bells, 

 And pretty maids all in a row, 



Leigh and its inhabitants will well repay a visit, even 

 without any attempt being made to fish, for it is a little 

 bit of old England within an hour's hail of the capital. 

 When we come to consider that it is without any 

 definite water supply, save and except its wells at 

 which each morning one sees the population gathering 

 with pails and frames for their daily supply and that 

 the inhabitants are mainly amphibious, and live by such 

 pursuits as sand-heaving, lightering, shrimp-trawling, 

 cockle-gathering, and the like, it is only to be expected 

 that the artist, the photographer, and the student of out- 

 of-the-way types of humanity will all find ample employ- 

 ment for hours, and even days. But it is of the sea- 

 angling that I would specially write. From June to 

 February the fishing at this station is good of its kind, 

 although November, the month when the approach of 

 winter begins to make itself felt, is undoubtedly the 

 best time for flounders. Moreover flounder catching is 

 a very excellent pastime, and from the nature of things 

 is bound to yield more sport than many other forms of 

 sea-rod fishing (such as, for instance, whiting or pout 

 catching), and given a fair tide and wind, a moderate 

 day's sport can always be relied on. The former 

 factor, which does not absolutely need to be taken into 



