Bananas (1956)

M/S of large bunches of bananas hanging from hooks and moving along a conveyor belt in a warehouse in Goodmayes, Essex. The bunches draw level with some young men with quiffs and they take them off the hooks and hang them in a special ripening room; M/S of numerous bunches hanging in this room while others are added. M/S of two men walking along outside the rooms, checking meter readings as we hear that even in the tropics bananas are not allowed to ripen on the plant, because it is only by this artificial ripening process that the best flavour can be developed. The men open one of the ripening room doors and go in; M/S of them walking along rows of many banana clusters, or ’hands’, as we are told the rooms contain gas heated ovens at controlled temperatures. The men seem to be squeezing bananas to check their progress. One man holds a temperature gauge to the fruit, and another starts squirting some liquid over them to increase the humidity. M/S of the first man; now he’s squeezing some startling