Her majesty Queen Elizabeth, Betty Taylor and the Bananas

London, Jan 25 (UNI) It was yesterday, 65 years after the World War II, that Betty was able to repay the favour to Queen Elizabeth.

Betty, now 69, gifted the Queen, nothing royal but highly unusual, bananas as she officially opened a CT scanner unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn, where the former worked for 16 years.

Four-year-old Betty Taylor (now Betty Hyde) was recovering in hospital in 1943 after receiving shrapnel wounds from a German bomb, when she was paid a surprise visit by the then Queen Elizabeth.

As a young girl, she was thrilled on being presented with a couple of bananas, a fruit she had never seen before, by the royal visitor.

Back in wartime Britain, bananas of any kind were very rare as the supplies were cut off by Nazi U-boats.

Some bananas were reported to have been sent to Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, but they decided to allow children in hospital to enjoy the taste.

Sixty-five years on, when Betty Hyde returned the favour to the daughter of her visitor, the Queen was amused by the unusual but heartwarming gift.

She smiled and said, 'Thank you. That's very nice'.

Betty, now a 69-year-old grandmother, living in Runcton Holme, Norfolk said: "I was delighted to give the Queen bananas in return for her being so kind to me. I handed them to her and said, 'I would like to return the compliment'.

However, the Queen was not as delighted as her.

Probably because bananas are a lot easier to come by these days.

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