From The Times, October 15th 2003 :


'COCKLERS HELD'

Nine members of a large group of Chinese men have been charged under the Immigration Act after
they were found wearing pink Wellington boots and scooping up sackfuls of protected cockles from the


beach at Crammond, Edinburgh'

This news captured the Brain Cell's imagination, and so, with apologies to both our Scottish and
Chinese readers:-

I want to live in Scotland

And not in Nankipoo

I want to gather cockles

For that's what Scots folk do

I want to live a happy life

But the three things that I lack

Are a Visa, pale pink wellies

And a little plastic mac


I was smuggled in a lorry

Then across the endless sea

And we ended up in Crammond

Eight other lads and me

We had our bowls and chopsticks

And our clothing in our sacks

And I'd found us pale pink wellies

And nine lovely plastic macs


To fend against the weather,

For the weather's coarse and rough

And we got to eating haggis

But Chen said 'That's enough!

I didn't come to Scotland

To eat a sheep’s insides

Let's go and get some cockles

When the beach has lost the tides'


So we gathered up our sacks and boots

And strode across the beach

And we saw a gang of molluscs

All juicy, within reach

But the Customs lads they caught us

By the Immigration Act

'Ye cannae gather cockles

In pink wellies or a sack'

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