“Born in 1938 in Oldham, Lancashire, Hufton was seven before she saw a banana” is part of a sentence from the Wikipedia entry for historian Olwen Hufton that I’ve been thinking about. I came across it here on 11 July 2018 (about 16:30 EST).
The full sentence shows why the banana information is introduced.
Born in 1938 in Oldham, Lancashire, Hufton was seven before she saw a banana, at the end of the Second World War: this might be deemed good preparation for an historian of poverty.
So, the banana story is to tell the reader that Hufton grew up poor. There is more evidence for this in the brief entry’s following lines, but the statement about the banana goes unreferenced. Where is the proof that Hufton was seven, and that she had never glimpsed a banana before that time of her life? Did she recall in an interview a life divided by pre- and post-banana knowledge? Had she seen pictures of bananas before meeting the real thing? Did she know them to be a desirable food item, or mistake them as something else?
The unsupported factoid raises so many questions, but none more than the question of what the context was for Hufton’s first encounter with a banana. Was she presented with one, expected to know how to peel it, and enjoy it’s deliciousness? Was she overjoyed by the experience, or ashamed that she had reached the ripe (sorry) old age of seven without having seen a banana? We are told that it was the end of the Second World War. Was it right at the end, the banana joyfully purchased as a Victory Day treat? To be sure, in ration-wracked wartime Britain, a banana would have been unusual and memorable.
The banana story is a surprising and strange way to introduce someone’s childhood, but I hope it’s never edited out of Olwen Hufton’s Wikipedia page.
- “Olwen Hufton,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olwen_Hufton, accessed 11 July 2018
Citation
Nathan Smith, “At What Age Should You See Your First Banana?” HIS241.com, 13 July 2018, http://www.his241.com/?p=552
