First Job.

A Memory of Luton.

For about 6 wks prior to joining the navy in 1963, I worked at the Fyffes banana warehouse in Williamson St. (in photo). It paid about 3 quid a week (and all you could eat). Still, a handy easygoing fill-in job for a naive halfwit 15yr old about to take the Queens shilling and sea the world.
The bananas arr. from the West Indies, on the stems and were hung in the firm's hot rooms to ripen, before being cut and boxed for sale. I never got to use the sharp knives, but WAS trusted with the (seemingly) less perilous job of sticking a fyffes label on each hand of banana. I recall being quite chuffed at the two handed speed in which l was performing this important duty. However the foreman, (who ironically happened to be an ex R.N. Petty Officer), on seeing me licking the labels burst my bubble when he said, ''if you keep doing that your mouth's gonna taste like a Shanghai ... erm outhouse''!
This (albeit implausable anology) immediately prompted me to use the wet sponge provided. Alas, (along with the resulting slowdown in production) Shanghai, as an exotic city, took an Acapulco like dive on my bucket list.
All sorts of huge, wierd and wonderful insects used to stow away in the bunches. Naturally, l'd take the bugliest specimens home to show off. Reactions ranged from wide eyed wonder to backpedalling fear.
Fear was always good, so suspecting an elder brother's girlfriend might be an interesting case study, l cornered her with a particularily sinister looking tarantula. The scream that echoed round the neighbourhood was gratifying to hear, but it was only when she kept trying to climb up the wall that l knew l'd struck the Mother lode. At last! ... 24 carat ARACHNOPHOBIA! Eureka!!!