Mention of a Coconut Shy was made during one of the episodes of Manor House last week. From the context, it is (or was) a game played at English country fairs and may or may not be a scam (like so many carnival games). And I guess it involves coconuts.
Then there’s the Danny Kaye song I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts, which most children who have seen The Lion King can probably sing. Danny sings it with a comical English accent, and it goes a little something like this:
I am now forced to conclude that the Coconut Shy mentioned in Manor House and the game sung about in that song are one and the same. However, what I don’t understand is how the game is (was) played.
A number of coconuts are placed (or glued in less reputable cases) on the hollowed ends of upright wooden poles (like an egg in an egg cup) - the punters pay their money and are issued with a number of balls, usually three and usually made from hard wood. They throw the balls at the coconuts and any that they knock to the ground (which is nearly always none), they get to keep.
Not very exciting by modern standards, but coconuts were once a luxury item (here in the northern temperate xone, anyway).
I can’t remember the last time I heard it used in any other context, but in case you didn’t realise, the word “shy” means “throw”. You do still see Coconut Shies at country fairs, but I suspect part of their charm these days is that they seem a little old-fashioned.
There’s also a stage comic (can’t recall who, but probably Ken Dodd) who works a gag into his routine about an earthquake hitting a fair and the only thing left standing being the Coconut Shy.
“Shy” is still fairly commonly used by cricket commentators when referring to a throw, especially a rather hopeful one. See the fourth paragraph of this match report, for instance.
In my experience, each coconut rests (or is nailed) in a cup attached to the top of the stick.
However, for real coconut shy action, visit a village fête or May Fayre, where the people running the shy tend to be amateurs, and therefore less crooked. You could win a second-hand Val Doonican record if you’re lucky.
The word “shy”, meaning throw, is relatively recent, dating from around 1787 in print, and seems to have came from the practice of throwing sticks at timid cocks (and, yes, I do mean roosters – :)).
Probably developed into coconut shies in the nineteenth century, and the height of the British Empire.
We have coconut shies here in Auckland, at the end-of-year galas.
I can buy a coconut for around $1.97, IIRC. How much did one cost back in those days? I mean, seriously, they must have been extremely expensive for one to have to try to gamble to get one.
Furthermore, at a penny-a-pitch, if a coconut cost, say two pounds, the showman would have to give one away no more than once every two hundred throws to break even. But if the public is observing the game and seeing that coconuts are being given away at a rate of once per two hundred throws (or more), then wouldn’t they conclude that the game is too hard?
Can’t you just buy a coconut? Are they still prohibitively expensive in your part of the world?
There seems to be considerable variation; I’ve seen the cup/stick type, but mainly the one-piece poles (they are about 6 inches in diameter and the ‘cup’ is simply hollowed out of the end of the pole).
I’ve also seen it done where the coconuts were nestled(or wedged firmly) into holes cut in a horizontal plank.
In any case, the idea is that nothing short of a medium-yield nuclear blast will dislodge them.
Remember, HeyHomie, in the Golden Age of Coconut Shying two quid would have been 480 (old) pennies. I suspect nowadays it would be more like 50p for three throws.
I always preferred the Crockery Shy, where you chucked balls at old cups and saucers and dinner plates. No prizes but much more satisfying. I haven’t seen one since the Antiques Roadshow began. I wonder how many potential collectables were smashed in the name of charity.
At most shies (shys?), the coconuts are reusable I think (because lead shot is expensive), and the prizes are other crap such as highly flammable teddy bears, or goldfish with fungal infections.
For a number of years, while living in rural Essex, I had the opportunity to run the coconut shy at the village fête. My father would command the beer tent or tombola and my mother would draw coats of arms in the heraldry tent (those fêtes were an eclectic affair).
The village had a number of pieces of equipment, including a set of wooden balls and sticks to hold the coconuts. The origin of these items were shrouded in the mists of time - as far as anyone knew, they had always been there. They certainly seemed to predate the oldest resident (93 years old).
The sticks were made of metal; a long spike that drove into the ground with a broad cup riveted to the top. Most of the cups had a discreet hole at the back through which nails could be driven into the coconuts.
The balls were roughly carved and light enough that you had to throw them extremely hard to have any chance of knocking the coconut free. There were about fifty of them which I handed out in fives for 10p a go. There were usually some younger kids helping out by collecting the balls (the job I had done as an apprenticeship before graduating to running the shy while my father retired to the contemplative serenity of the beer tent).
Unlike my father, I was not crooked. I never nailed, glued or otherwise attached the coconuts to the cups. It was hard enough to win one at the best of times. People would win maybe eight or nine coconuts during a long afternoon. The rest I either gave away or sold at the end for 50p each.
My local supermarket sells coconuts for 39 pence (62.5 cents US) and I can’t believe they’d be much more expensive in Dublin, so the reason why they still have Coconut Shies is not because people can’t get hold of coconuts by a more regular method. It’s much more likely that people still like to play because it’s a tradition, and because everybody likes to play games at the fair.
I have no idea what a coconut would have cost in Victorian times (I presume that’s when these games took off), but in the C18[sup]th[/sup] people used to carve pineapples on their houses as a sign of wealth and the generous hospitality they could afford to offer their guests, because those were exotic fruits to serve at table. Perhaps coconuts were once similarly prized?
But I think you can do a quick mental calculation based on your own comment that a coconut would have to be worth winning but would not bankrupt the stall-holder before the players got bored.
These people hire out equipment for people who want to organise an occasional fair. They claim that the coconuts in their shies are dummies, so presumably you could offer any prize you wanted.
Coconuts were extremely rare and expensive in Europe at one time (I mean, these had to be brought great distance at tremendous risk in the 16th-18th century); I can’t furnish a relative cost for the nutmeat as a foodstuff, but post-market, the shells were often decorated and mounted in sterling silver, at great cost, by the rich folk as marks of their status. These still fetch big bucks in the antique trade:
