SOMETHING stirred in the dark of the ship's hold. There was a sudden movement and a brief scuttling sound. Could it be the beast of the bananas?

Southampton stevedores have always been, and remain to this day, a fairly robust bunch, tackling some of the most demanding jobs in the city's port but there are just some things that make even the toughest shrink - spiders and creepy- crawlies.

The past days when dock workers would regularly come face to face with all sorts of creatures lurking among the cargo were recalled when, earlier this week, a shopper, handling bananas at a Fareham supermarket, reported a suspected spider bite which was so painful that it needed hospital treatment.

Shop staff searched high and low, no banana was left unturned, but despite a thorough search of the fruit section no eight-legged pest was tracked down.

The incident reminded a few of the more experienced hands at Southampton Cargo Handling, based in the city's Eastern Docks, of the days when they used to regularly unload the many banana ships that brought the fruit into the port from the Caribbean.

Much of the trade was centred around the old Empress Docks where gangs of 16 stevedores would work down in the holds of vessels manhandling the bananas which would be loaded on to railway wagons drawn up alongside the berth.

Between them Vic Gale, Tony Noyce, and Ron Brown have given more than a century of service to the docks as stevedores and, back in the 60s, all three used to work on unloading bananas.

If the stevedores knew they were going to work with bananas there was one simple precaution all the men used to carry out before going down into the hold.

"We would always tie something around our sleeves and the bottom of our trouser legs to make sure anything nasty among the bananas would not be able to crawl up our arms and legs,'' said Vic.

On average it would take the stevedore gangs around two or three days to completely unload a vessel, although on one occasion in July 1933 a total of 60,000 banana stems were packed into 420 wagons in one day.

"First, what we called a 'stripping gang' would begin work at 6am making the ship's hold ready for the rest of the stevedores who came on at 8am,'' said Tony.

"Their job was to put in place a special continuous rubber conveyor belt which was lowered down into the hold and used to lift the bananas up to the dockside where another similar conveyor was put in place that would take the stems or the boxes to the wagons.''

While in the hold the stevedores were always on their guard in case a spider or even a snake should emerge from the bananas.

"We used to come across quite a few creatures, but I have never known anyone to have been bitten. I think they were more scared of us than we were of them,'' said Ron, who is about to retire after 33 years in the port.

"Mind you, there was always a bit of joking about and often one of the guys would come behind another chap and tickle him on the neck with a piece of cardboard to feel like a spider on his shirt collar.

"Some of the older stevedores even told stories about finding a monkey in the hold.''

In more modern times it is still not unusual for the stevedores to come across the occasional creature among fresh produce as it is landed in Southampton.

"We have discovered lizards, moths and even a scorpion,'' said Ron.

"If we don't know what it is, one of the blokes puts it in a box and we take it up the university to be identified by the experts.''

Even this varied list of insects and creatures does not come close to the time in 1970 when a small cargo ship arrived in Southampton and was found to have a donkey, monkey, five dogs and a kitten on board.