The One Banana Banquet

THE ONE BANNANA BANQUET

This story was submitted to the People's War Site by Louise Adamou, BBC Guide at the BBC Open Centre Hull on behalf of Brain Hodgins and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

Alexandra Street, Hull, 1944.

The old man stood by the fruit racks in the super store contemplating at what to buy today, “just for a change” as his eyes took in the plethora of fruit before him, his gaze fell upon an absolute mountain of yellow and green Bananas. His thoughts flew back over the years, when, such a sight would have been absolutely unimaginable.

He remembered a day during the war, when, as a young boy playing cricket in the streets with his two mates, he looked up at what had caught his attention. A sailor in a navy uniform had just rounded the corner and was walking down the street towards them. He was carrying a small attaché case in one hand and something that looked like a kit back on his right shoulder. Puzzled the boy’s gaze followed the sailor’s approaching footsteps, still looking at what the sailor was carrying.
Suddenly his eyes nearly popped out of his head, the sailor was carrying a huge stalk of bananas, and the boy thought “there must be hundreds of them.”
“What’s them mister?” the boy said unable to believe his eyes.
“Bananas son” replied the sailor.
The boy just could not believe it; it had been years since anyone had seen a banana, never mind about tasting one.
“Where did you get them from mister?”
“Can’t say” said the sailor, “I’m only home for a spot of leave and I have bought them home with me.”
With that the sailor placed his small case on the ground, reached behind him and pulled a banana off the stalk handing it to the boy saying,
“Here you are son, a present for you.”
“Thank you mister, thank you very much” the boy turned for home, running as fast as he could, hurrying into his house, he raced to the kitchen where his mam sat by the fire knitting
“Mam, mam, look what I’ve got.”
“Where on earth did you get that from?” she exclaimed.
“A sailor gave it to me mam” he said excitedly. He gave the banana to his mother; she took it with a smile and said “we’ll have that tonight for our tea.
The boy thought “how on earth is me mam going to share one banana between six people, there’s my dad, my mam, my brother and me and my two sisters.”
Came tea time, his mam did exactly that, she made custard, mashed the banana to a pulp them poured the pulp into the custard and gently stirred it together and then spooned it into six dishes. What a feast, there were not many in the land that day who could say they had had banana and custard for tea.

“Aye, thought the old man to himself as he gazed before the mountain of green and yellow before him…
“It certainly was a wonderful feeling to have been seated at that unforgettable, magical, wartime “ONE BANANA BANQUET.”
Brian’s recollections are wholly based on real events. Brian has written them as an outsider looking in to make his memories more accessible to the reader, but he was indeed the little boy in the stories and is now an old man (as he puts it) looking back.

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