The Saturday briefing

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

- by CAROLINE FORD

Is there anything you're yearning to know? Send your questions, on any subject, to the contacts given below, and we will do our best to answer them...

Has anyone ever slipped on a banana skin?

Christopher Cottier, West Vancouver, Canada

While it's often exaggerated in comedy, the discarding of banana skins was once a common and serious health hazard and caused injuries that led to deaths.

We consume about five billion bananas annually, but when they were introduced from Madeira and the Canary Islands in the 1880s, they were an expensive delicacy.

In 1901 the first large cargo of bananas from Jamaica arrived at Bristol's Port Morant - and almost overnight, bananas became a common and cheap snack in cities, which is where the trouble began.

At first, people had no idea that they could be so slippery, and threw away the skins after eating them in the streets. There were press reports of broken bones and concussions - and between 1900 and 1910, banana skins were mentioned in at least 50 inquests around the country, mostly due to complications from falls.

The press was full of letters and editorials demanding something be done about the banana peel menace and the issue was a factor in the introduction of some of the country's first public waste bins.