Norman Pearson returned towards the end of January, after an absence in Spain and Portugal, bearing two bananas, two oranges and a pineapple. The bananas and oranges were simple, Hilda and I had one each. Apart from a few green apples and some berries in Cornwall, it was the first fruit that we had tasted for two years. It seemed so unreal that we hardly liked to touch it. The pineapple was different. Even Hilda, the recluse, agreed that we could not eat it alone and that, wartime or not, it called for a party.- Bryher, The Day of Mars: A memoir 1940-1946
Bryher – the pen name of Winifred Ellerman – moved back to London in September 1940, just in time for the worst of the Blitz. She left her home in Switzerland in order to be with her friends – and particularly her lover, the poet H.D. (Hilda Doolittle.)
41-49 Lowndes Square London S.W.1 1935.
She moved into H.D.’s flat at 49, Lowndes Square, Belgravia and together they weathered the war.
In addition to her memoir Bryher wrote a novel closely based on her first few months back in London during the Blitz in 1940 – Beowulf.
The Walls do not Fall (1944), first part-of Trilogy H.D. that explores the themes of war and details her reactions to living through the London Blitz and World War II. She dedicated it to Bryher with whom she had visited Egypt and seen the ancient ruins of Karnak.
But back to the pineapple.
In her memoir Bryher does not hold back on her frustrations with wartime privations and especially not on the bungling, incompetent, uncaring inefficiency of bureaucracy and relentless government propaganda. She rails at the appeasers of the 1930s who failed to heed the warnings about the rise of fascism.
A gift of a pineapple was a big deal and they celebrate accordingly.
By the time that I had telephoned, written notes or gone round in person with the invitations, we managed to collect about twenty people and how we all got into our little sitting room at Lowndes remains a mystery.
Dole paid Georgia O’Keeffe to travel to Hawaii from New York in 1939, in return for two paintings that it could use in its ads. “Pineapple Bud,” is featured in this ad. The other featured her painting of a lobster-claw heliconia.
First we looked respectfully at the pineapple, then with infinite solemnity it was sliced into tiny mouthfuls. We could now boast for a week afterwards, “Oh, the powder in the rations tastes so much better if you mix it with a little fruit.” Norman seemed startled by the result of his generosity but swallowing our separate morsels, they were a symbol that one day the war might end.
Our pineapple belonged to the real world of sun and sea with no Government directives and all of us felt the better for our inch of it. It was people who mattered in the war and how much more work the officials would have got out of them if moments of relaxation had been considered as important as their daily tasks.
We were willing to face conditions of extreme discomfort but not an endless flow of propaganda that eventually nobody believed. So many difficulties, so much despair, could have been avoided if we had only had psychologists in the upper ranks instead of clerks.
Poets and Pineapples
Several poets have written about pineapples – Wallace Stevens, Marge Piercey and Sylvia Plath among them. But this one poem from Paul Muldoon seems appropriate for today and for the theme of this post.
Pineapples And Pomegranates In Memory of Yehuda Amichai To think that, as a boy of thirteen, I would grapple with my first pineapple, its exposed breast setting itself as another test of my will-power, knowing in my bones that it stood for something other than itself alone while having absolutely no sense of its being a world-wide symbol of munificence. Munificence – right? Not munitions, if you understand where I’m coming from. As if the open hand might, for once, put paid to the hand-grenade in one corner of the planet. I’m talking about pineapples – right? – not pomegranates.
Paul Mudoon, from his collection Moy Sand and Gravel (2002)
And the artists too have given us some memorable pineapples – Georgia O’Keefe, Fernando Botero, Andy Warhol and an official portrait painter of King Charles II among them – but here’s Henri Matisse.
Still Life: A Pineapple, Henri Matisse 1924.
The featured image is a crop of Still Life with a Pineapple c.1886 by George Walter Harris (1835–1912)
And finally – a Staffordshire teapot c.1750-1770, from The Met. a small model of which sits on my shelf.
If it helps, I remember in the war being in Baxter’s in Victoria Rd. and being fascinated by a moth eaten sticker of a bunch of bananas.They we’re indeed mythical.The other memory is a piano stool in which old music scores were kept, and Yes, we have no Bananas was one of them .
Not realizing I was deprived at the time, l thought this was how the world was.
You don’t miss what you’ve never had , and other profundities!
Hi Pam – Thanks for sharing that memory! I don’t suppose Baxter’s is still there.
This had me thinking of U.A.Fanthorpe’s poem “A Wartime Education”
“Bananas and oranges, fruit of triumphant
Decimated convoys, were amazements
Of colour and light, too beautiful to eat.
(In any case, eating three bananas
Straight off, one after the other,
Was certain death. We all knew that.)”
Ooh, wonderful! And is that really a Georgia O’Keeffe illustration for Dole?! Pineapples were, as you know, a massive status symbol in the early 19th century, so much so that artists and suchlike gentry used to place architectural finials in the shape of the fruit prominently on the outside of their Georgian residences. But here I am teaching you how to suck duck’s eggs… 😁
I’ve switched that ad for one that I know 100% was included in a commissioned O’Keeffe painting – one of two created in 1940 based on a trip Dole paid for. Quite the contrast – O’Keeffe in Hawaii and the Dole pineapple plantations versus Bryher in Belgravia under the bombing.
If a little apple a day can keep the doctor away,
Who could be bested by a big pineapple a day?
I’d like to think one could keep Trump at bay….
But if it would take two, it’s a small price to pay.
When I was quite young and still lived in London, I remember that pineapple was regarded as very luxurious and it remained a mystery until we found ourselves (well I did, I think my parents planned it) in SE Asia where there was pineapple aplenty although I don’t remember that we partook that often. There were so many other lovely fruits. But once I did discover it I thoroughly approved. Sadly it is far too acidic so it is but a fond memory. I like the poems and the pineapple party.
Pineapple was something that came in a tin in slices (slices? what do you do with slices?) or chunks in syrup that you would occasionally eat with evaporated milk for Sunday tea.
And then it was discovered that you could put pineapple chunks and squares of cheddar on cocktail sticks.
The next phase saw it on the top of pork chops.
And then of course it found its way onto the great British pizza.
This could be called the culinary rise and fall of the – once opulent and exclusive – great British pineapple.
You can find pineapples all over London on railings and in brickwork and in the name of an old pub. It was the symbol of status and luxury in the centuries after they were first introduced into Europe by the Christopher Columbus era folks.
What a wonderful post! I’m very interested in Bryher and H.D and must read this, thank you!
“The Days of Mars’ makes a great companion piece for Bryher’s novel “Beowulf”.
Delightful post! I love the scent of a ripening pineapple in the house – it conjures up Asia and exotic warmth.
Yes. And I love to see them piled up at the fruit stand.
I perceived the arrival of pineapple as toppings for a pizza as the final stroke of bad taste.
But it goes so well with the Marmite and baked beans!
If it helps, I remember in the war being in Baxter’s in Victoria Rd. and being fascinated by a moth eaten sticker of a bunch of bananas.They we’re indeed mythical.The other memory is a piano stool in which old music scores were kept, and Yes, we have no Bananas was one of them .
Not realizing I was deprived at the time, l thought this was how the world was.
You don’t miss what you’ve never had , and other profundities!
Hi Pam – Thanks for sharing that memory! I don’t suppose Baxter’s is still there.
This had me thinking of U.A.Fanthorpe’s poem “A Wartime Education”
“Bananas and oranges, fruit of triumphant
Decimated convoys, were amazements
Of colour and light, too beautiful to eat.
(In any case, eating three bananas
Straight off, one after the other,
Was certain death. We all knew that.)”
https://www.josieholford.com/a-wartime-education/
Pineapple: a rare fruit. Not wanting to exaggerate but finding any fruit & veg in the supermarkets these days is becoming difficult! 🥴
Sorry to hear that! Fruitlessness – how awful. Back to the future.
Ooh, wonderful! And is that really a Georgia O’Keeffe illustration for Dole?! Pineapples were, as you know, a massive status symbol in the early 19th century, so much so that artists and suchlike gentry used to place architectural finials in the shape of the fruit prominently on the outside of their Georgian residences. But here I am teaching you how to suck duck’s eggs… 😁
I’ve switched that ad for one that I know 100% was included in a commissioned O’Keeffe painting – one of two created in 1940 based on a trip Dole paid for. Quite the contrast – O’Keeffe in Hawaii and the Dole pineapple plantations versus Bryher in Belgravia under the bombing.
If a little apple a day can keep the doctor away,
Who could be bested by a big pineapple a day?
I’d like to think one could keep Trump at bay….
But if it would take two, it’s a small price to pay.
A pineapple looks like a large grenade
With spines and spikes fully displayed.
If handed to tRump
I imagine the chump
Would show how much he’s afraid.
A mathematician from chapel
Who set himself problems to grapple
Would soon start to sigh
If he tried using π
To measure the standard π-napple.
That’s very clever!
Inspired by your response to Mistermuse, I have to admit!
When I was quite young and still lived in London, I remember that pineapple was regarded as very luxurious and it remained a mystery until we found ourselves (well I did, I think my parents planned it) in SE Asia where there was pineapple aplenty although I don’t remember that we partook that often. There were so many other lovely fruits. But once I did discover it I thoroughly approved. Sadly it is far too acidic so it is but a fond memory. I like the poems and the pineapple party.
Pineapple was something that came in a tin in slices (slices? what do you do with slices?) or chunks in syrup that you would occasionally eat with evaporated milk for Sunday tea.
And then it was discovered that you could put pineapple chunks and squares of cheddar on cocktail sticks.
The next phase saw it on the top of pork chops.
And then of course it found its way onto the great British pizza.
This could be called the culinary rise and fall of the – once opulent and exclusive – great British pineapple.
You can find pineapples all over London on railings and in brickwork and in the name of an old pub. It was the symbol of status and luxury in the centuries after they were first introduced into Europe by the Christopher Columbus era folks.