grockle, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

grockle n.

[the term originated in the West Country, spec. in Torbay, where a local remarked that the stream of visitors to the town resembled little Grocks (the celebrated clown Grock, real name Charles Adrien Wettach, 1880–1959), but spread throughout Britain’s holiday resorts where the local people thus derided the flocks of annual visitors to their area; however, note Quinion WWW (14/7/00): ‘GROCKLE An interesting note has arrived from Dr Jeremy Marshall, an associate editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED has worked on the word, preparatory to writing the entry for it (which will not, however, appear for some years). “The word was popularized because of its use in the film The System in 1962, the script-writer having picked the word up from the locals during filming in Torquay. According to research by a local journalist in the mid-1990s, the word in fact originated from a strip cartoon in the comic Dandy entitled ‘Danny and his Grockle’. (The grockle was a magical dragon-like creature.) A local man, who had had a summer job at a swimming pool as a youngster, said that he had used the term as a nickname for a small elderly lady who was a regular customer one season. During banter in the pub among the summer workers, the term then became generalized as a term for summer visitors. I have the impression that this had occurred in, or only shortly before, the summer in which The System was filmed: we know of no instances of the word from the 1950s, or indeed from before the release of The System”’. As usual, we are left with loose ends, in particular where the writer of the cartoon got the name from, but this seems pretty definitive; Grockle is also the name of a magic dragon in the strip Billy & Bunny in Dundee Courier 1948-52]

1. a tourist; also attrib.

1964		Films & Filming Oct. 31: Basically, it concerns life’s drifters who wend their way down to these resorts to make an easy living off the ‘grockles’ (holidaymakers) during the four months of the summer season .
1977		J. Fowles Daniel Martin (1978) 405: He was a townee, he [...] looked like one of the countless Midland and Northcountry grockles that invade the West every summer .
1999		Observer Escape 18 July 2: Roger and [...] Owen, two masters of the ‘grockle’ trade, between them ran a cafe, a kiosk on Ventnor pier and a collection of holiday flats.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 171: Tucked away in Brighton [...] complaining about grockles staggering drunkenly along the front.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 110: Lot of places would murder for a murder on their doorstep [...] You got fantastic through-flow of grockle voyeur.

2. (UK society) an outsider, with overtones of unpleasantness and boorishness.

1982

Barr & York Sloane Ranger Hbk 158: grockle n. An outsider, an oik, a weed.