Something triggered by memory.
Memory is a strange thing, often you are sure of your facts,
only to discover that your recollections have been subjected to Chinese
whispers or another member of the your party recalls an entirely different
version of events. Most people living in Australia would think the eating of a
banana to be a very ordinary event, most likely they were spoon fed their first
banana as a baby in arms. Thinking back over breakfast with my sliced fruit
sitting on top of the breakfast cereal, I recalled my first encounter with this
tropical delicacy. That first encounter still fills me with wonder, this is
natural enough, and Britain was hardly overrun with bananas during the war.
Such exotic fruit that reach her shores had to run German blockades of U-boats
all the way from the West Indies before they appeared anywhere near our
village. The sheer fact that such fruits were grown far away on some tropic
island far away from the daily bombing and food shortages in itself put bananas
into the dream class.
Our big event occurred when my mother returned
home one morning and presented my sister and myself with a banana she had just purchased
at a Red Cross Auction for the princely sum of one guinea, an amount equivalent
to a weekly wage. As children we had no idea how such a delicacy was eaten.
After much debate our treasure was duly divided into two equal half’s and after
instruction as to how to peel it we proceeded to suck this strange fruit very
slowly so as to prolong the flavour for a long as possible. If my memory
services me correctly we held our banana very gently so as not to squash it, the
consumption or rather licking of that banana took the best part of an hour. I’m
not sure whether we set any sort of time record, but it would several years
