Someone leaves sheets of peeled bananas on a British street corner

Cassie Brummitt doesn't remember when she first saw the bananas.

Not long after she moved to Beeston, a small town outside Nottingham, England, about two years ago.

She was walking past the intersection of Abbey Road and Wensor Avenue, and there they were – a bowl containing more than 15 peeled bananas “all in a pile”.

“I remember thinking that was very strange,” Brummitt said As it happens hosted by Nil Köksal.

This will not be her last encounter with bananas on that corner. The number of bananas, she says, varies. Sometimes they are in a bowl. Sometimes they are on a plate. But they are always pulled and stacked, and left near a hedge at the same intersection, as some kind of potassium-rich offering.

'It seems mysterious'

At first, Brummitt felt as if she had stumbled upon a secret that no one else knew about, as if it was her own “little private thing” she had seen.

But then she learned from social media that the bananas are a long-standing – and sometimes divisive – local secret.

“I don't think anyone knows (where they're from). Or if they do, they keep quiet about it,” she said. “But yeah, I have no idea. Like, I've heard that they might show up very early in the morning or late at night, so it's kind of hidden.”

Beeston resident James Oviedo walks his dog past that corner almost every day, and says the bananas have been appearing for “at least a couple of years”. now”.

“There's always a big bunch of them slathered on the plate and they always seem to be drizzled with what looks like honey,” he told CBC.

“It's very strange and, to be honest, I'm surprised it's taken this long for people to start asking questions. “

Oviedo says the neighborhood is residential, but the banana corner is not in front of anyone's home. So, as far as he knows, no one has ever caught a film of the fruit leaver in action.

According to a recent story on BBC News, the bananas seem to appear, like clockwork, on the second of every month.

“I was wondering if it was an emotional thing. Like, I don't know, like a superstition, maybe,” said Brummit. “Sometimes people leave bits of food out for fairies at the end of the garden, for example.”

But if that's the case, the fairies don't seem to be hungry.

“Usually they start going and eventually someone throws them into the bush by the corner,” Oviedo said. “Often the plate disappears and I thinking it's because the people who pick up rubbish take it away. I've also seen the last plate on the side of the road broken before.”

The secret of the Canadian banana

The strange British phenomenon has echoes of another banana-related mystery that has long appeared in the Canadian North.

For years, someone has been throwing away banana peels at a stop sign on a concrete traffic island at the intersection of the North Klondike and Alaska Highways in Whitehorse, resident Jenny MacKinnon said in an email after hearing about the Beeston bananas on As it happens.

“It's a fact known by most of the locals,” she said, “with zero context or anyone rising up.” “

Lewis Rifkind, who often cycles past the traffic stop, says he's been seeing the peels for “at least ten years.”

He has heard speculation that it started as a protest against fertilizer bylaws, but he suspects the real story may be far more sinister.

“Maybe it's just normal that this person, you know, has a banana maybe every day or whatever, when they come to town, and they're just hooked on it to burn it,” he told Köksal.

'FURTHER, respectfully: no more BANANAS!'

Meanwhile, back in Beeston, the rotting fruit has become a concern and a concern for some residents.

One frustrated neighbor recently went so far as to erect a sign that read: “PLEASE, RESPECTFULLY: NO MORE BANANAS!!”

“The uncollected plates and the rotten bananas make such a mess!” the sign goes on to say. “Happy New Year to you all! From a Nottingham Clean Street cleaner.”

But it was no use, said Oviedo. The bananas kept coming.

When Brummit saw the sign, she was surprised that someone was upset about the bananas. For her part, she had grown to appreciate the small pleasure of being privy to a strange local secret.

Plus, she says, it gives people something fun to talk about.

“It's not really hurting anybody, and it gave me a little joy, you know, just walking down the street,” she said. “It's weird, and there's nothing wrong with things that is a little strange.”