“Why can’t you eat a banana nicely instead of stuffing it in your mouth? Eat it nicely; like a gorilla.”
In fact Paddy had seen gorillas at the zoo eating bananas. They would peel them nicely and bite a mouthful off at the end.
The other kids at school had seen Paddy eat a banana and instantly gave him the nickname of “Monkey”. In fact, when it came to the classroom singing time, the other boys would sing:
With a knick-knack paddywhack,
Give the monkey a banana…
It made the teacher very annoyed.
There was no changing the way Paddy would eat a banana. Even when he grew up and got married his wife would say:
“Why can’t you eat a banana nicely instead of stuffing it in your mouth? Eat it nicely; like a gorilla.”
And then quite a few years later, when he went to the Old Peoples Retirement Village, there were a couple of old men who had gone to school with Paddy and they would sing:
With a knick-knack paddywhack,
Give the monkey a banana…
For Paddy it was all water off a duck’s back. He took no notice. Being deaf has some advantages.