Lewis the Lion and the Cockle Picker

Lewis the Lion was intrigued that most mornings as he yawned and stretched his paws out, that out of the window of his beach hut, he could see someone wading in the shallow waters. Who was it? Whoever, they were they looked very industrious and as if they had great patience.

Being the curious cat that he is, one day, he just couldn’t help himself: he just had to go nearer and find out who they were and what they were up to?

Up close he could see that the lady who was wearing a broad-rimmed hat, a long-sleeved top and trousers to protect her from the sun. She had a sieve in one hand and a bucket in the other. She was painstakingly sifting the sand through her sieve: it almost reminded Lewis the Lion of the gold panners during the Gold Rush in America. But what was she trying to find?

Lewis the Lion then peered into her bucket which was partially filled with water. In it he saw lots of tiny little shells: cockles! She was a cockle picker and Lewis the Lion couldn’t believe how dedicated she had to be and how much time it had taken to only fill the bucket up half full. “What a difficult job!” he thought to himself. Not that he would have known it from the easy smile, the cockle-picker gave to Lewis the Lion. She seemed genuinely pleased that someone had taken an interest in what she was doing and even more so that it was a curious travelling lion!

After seeing the hours of diligent work of the cockle picker, Lewis the Lion only hoped that she would be paid well for her work but feared otherwise. On his travels, he had seen how so many people had jobs that were perhaps not very well-paid but yet the things that they did were important for the society in which they lived. For instance, here in Thailand, seafood formed an important part of some of the local dishes.

Lewis the Lion swore to himself in that moment that he would never take the food he ate for granted again. He’d never thought before how much work went into collecting a jar of cockles and yet back home it was so easy to walk into a supermarket and pick them off the shelf. He wondered then how many other products on the supermarket shelves needed a vast array of people helping to make them?

Lewis the Lion wants you to think of a product that you might buy in the shop. Can you work out how many people will have been involved in its production and sale? How long do you think it would take from the moment it has been created to the moment of its sale?

About Helen Molloy

Helen Molloy has been a Primary Learning and Teaching Consultant, leading on the introduction of Primary Languages in the City of Stoke-on-Trent for the past 5 and a half years. She is passionate about language learning and inspiring children into developing a curiosity and awareness of other people's languages and cultures.
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