Fruit's popular a-peel following rationing

Eighty years ago today bananas returned to Britain after five years of wartime deprivation. The arrival of millions of them at Avonmouth made front page news, and, says Eugene Byrne, many children who had never seen one before had to be taught to peel them first.

- Eugene Byrne

YES, we have some bananas," as no end of newspaper headlines and even a newsreel had it.

After five years of deprivation, bananas were finally coming back to Britain, and they were going to arrive at Avonmouth on December 30 1945. Ten million of them!

(Well that's what the papers said. The newsreel said it was five million. Other reports said eight million. Anyway, it was a lot.)

Bananas had continued to arrive in the early stages of the Second World War, but the government banned their import completely in November 1940. At that stage, Hitler had overrun much of Europe and Britain and her empire were standing alone. Germany was now trying to bomb and starve Britain into submission with air raids on cities and U-Boat attacks on merchant shipping.

The trade was stopped because the cargo space on ships was needed for more important foodstuffs and war materials. An old song which had been a huge hit in the 1920s came back into vogue as greengrocers everywhere stuck up signs saying "Yes, we have no bananas."

As the war ground on, more and more things were rationed or in short supply. Fruit tended to be seasonal and although oranges were still imported, they didn’t come in large quantities and were usually reserved for children and expectant mothers when they did.

For the rest of the war years, bananas were an impossible luxury. While the shortage was, at worst, an inconvenience in Britain, the cutting off of the trade had a major impact on Jamaica, where bananas had long overtaken sugar as the main export crop.