Well, not this chap exactly but someone who did the same job.
I'm not sure if it was a nationwide phenomenon or just something that happened in coastal areas but the Cockle Man was a regular visitor to the pub when I was in my late teens. He brought fresh prawn, cockles, whelks and crab meat (or crab sticks) and they were delicious.
Pubs were very different back then - we're talking late 1970s to early 1980s. For a start, they were the only place you could get booze other than at an off-licence (which, in rural areas, was often based in the pub). Alcohol wasn't sold in supermarkets, newsagents or garages. But that meant that pubs were the social hubs where you met up with your friends and family. Allegiance to a particular pub was common. Everyone had their own 'local'.
All day opening wasn't a thing either. The pubs opened mid-morning and shut after lunch. Then they opened again early evening and called last orders at 10.30pm. And pub food was pretty non-existent. It was crisps and peanuts or, if you were lucky, a cheese or ham roll. Which is why the Cockle Man was so welcome. Sadly, he was eventually replaced by jars of cockles behind the bar and then, eventually, with the arrival of other snack foods.
While this was happening, tastes changed too. Brits became pickier and more squeamish. We stopped eating the wide range of seafood that we used to eat - so much so that some supermarkets have now down away with their fresh fish counters. And not just seafood - it's hard to find offal in some smaller supermarkets now. My local village Co-Op no longer stocks liver or kidneys as 'there's no call for them'.
Meanwhile, the Cockle Man disappeared from our pubs.
Sadly, pubs now seem to be disappearing too. With the deregulation of alcohol sales, it became a lot harder for pubs to compete with supermarkets who can deep discount to the extent that, in the Summer months, places like Tesco or Lidl can sell a bottle of lager cheaper than a bottle of mineral water.
Pubs were forced to diversify. The 2007 smoking ban created cleaner air and a more family-friendly atmosphere. Many became gastropubs or carveries as the result. They put in big screen TVs so that people could communally watch live sport. But society moved on once again and younger people who are part of the TikTok post-television generation don't see the pub as a necessity. For my generation, the pub was part of the social network - now it's all online.
Pubs are closing at an alarming rate. A recent (June 2022) pub closure report by CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) makes sad reading. It states that, in the second half of 2022, 485 pubs were recorded as 'long term closed', and that pubs across the UK were closing down at a rate of around 50 per month. This is partly due to the lingering after-effects of Covid; some pubs ran up big debts during lockdown and many people are still wary of socialising in crowds. But it's also due to the steeply-rising costs of utilities such as electricity and gas. Not only does this affect the pub's prices, it also means the punters have less to spend over the bar.
When I moved into my current house in 2007 - the same year as the smoking ban, coincidentally - There were four pubs within walking distance. Now there are none - one is a veterinary practice, two were knocked down to build houses and the fourth is now a substantial detached cottage.
The inescapable fact is that, like the Cockle Man, our wonderful pubs are vanishing, along with a major piece of traditional British culture.
It's all very sad. But inevitable.
The only constant is change.
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