Conker bonkers

The one crop that always tells me that Autumn is here is the one crop I can't eat. 

Conkers. 

(Although, to be fair, you can - with a lot of prep - make flour from them and they did so during the wars).

I don't have a horse chestnut tree in my garden but there are lots of them around where I live. The September and October pavements are littered with hundreds of those spiky green spheres and their gorgeous occupants. I say gorgeous as I think that 'conker brown' is one of the richest and most attractive colours in nature. I love it. 

The roads are smeared with the powdery white corpses of those that didn't roll all the way to the kerb and I'm already seeing small boys lobbing sticks up into the trees to knock down a champion.

Because that's the point of conkers isn't it? They're there to be played with. 

All over the country this Autumn, small, grubby humans will be preparing their horse chestnuts for the field of battle (though, sadly, nowhere near as many as there used to be). Certainly, when I was a kid, the annual ritual of conker matches was taken deadly seriously. We would try all sorts of tricks and wheezes to turn our conkers into weapons of mass destruction. 

We roasted them or baked them in ash, we soaked them in vinegar or cold sea water, we froze them and we dessicated them with hairdryers. Some lads did strange experiments on their conkers using chemicals pilfered from nearby farms. One lad used a hooked wire to hollow his conker out (I suspect he'd seen a programme about Egyptian mummies and how the brain was removed from the corpse through the nose by way of just such an implement). He then filled it with a tough expanding foam. Others coated theirs with polyurethane varnish, or boot polish or massaged oils into the conker skin to stop it splitting. Still others attempted to cheat further by filling their hollowed conkers with washers and bolts and, in one memorable instance, that quick-setting plastic resin you used to get in hobby sets for making transparent paperweights and keyrings having first entombed something within like seashells, a flower or a wasp (yes, I did make a wasp keyring). 

I don't think that kids are allowed to handle resin like that now as the Health and Safety people have declared it too dangerous. It does get very hot as it sets and it gives off narcotic fumes. But no one I grew up with got burned by a homemade keyring. 

Or lost an eye to a coathanger or makeshift sword (a stick). 

Or got trapped in an abandoned fridge. 

Or became a psychopath because Mummy bought them a toy gun. 

We took risks and we learned from our mistakes. We knew the difference between playtime fantasy and reality. And most of us made it to adulthood without the need for helmets, gloves or any other kind of padded clothing or specialist equipment. Life is for living, after all. 

All of which means that it is with some annoyance that I must lay to rest one of the UK's more persistent urban myths; namely that the Health and Safety Executive banned school children from playing conkers unless they wore safety goggles and padded gloves. I'd love it to be true so that I could rant and rave ... but it's a load of old conkers. 

It never happened. 

It's true that some head teachers either banned the 'sport' or insisted on safety goggles. It's also true that some teachers banned them over fears of 'nut allergies' even though - as I confirmed with a few phone calls - there has never been a single recorded case of this in modern medical history. But, whatever the reason for a ban, it's not because of the Health and Safety people. I may whinge and moan about them occasionally but, in this instance, they are quite, quite blameless. In fact, they are even helping to promote conkers as a safe and healthy sport. 

Yes indeed, the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) have even sponsored the annual World Conker Championships in the past in an attempt to dispel the myth. 

They championships are held on the second Sunday in October in the pretty little Northamptonshire village of Ashton. Thousands turn up every year, as do competitors from around the globe, to swing their nuts on a foot long string. The championships have been going since 1965 and the winner gets to sit on the Conker Throne and wear the Conker Crown. The whole event is organised to raise money for charity. Which is how it should be, of course.

In 1999 the Irish Conker Championships began in Freshford, County Kilkenny in the Republic of Ireland and then, in 2004 and alternative competition - called the World Annual National Conker Championships - was established in Newport, Wales. Playing conkers is one of those simple pleasures that everyone enjoys. 

Yes, you may occasionally get bashed on the finger. 

And yes, you may see your prize conker disintegrate before your eyes. 

But it's healthy, it's usually played outdoors in the fresh air and Autumn sunshine, and it encourages kids to play together. 

It's traditional too and very British. The first mention of the game is in Robert Southey's memoirs published in 1821. He describes a similar game, but played with snail shells or hazelnuts. It was only from the 1850s that using horse chestnuts became regular, the first ever recorded game being played on the Isle of Wight in 1848. It will be a sad day when people no longer play it.

Computer games may be addictive but there is a genuine visceral thrill in coming home proudly from school with your conker intact and declaring that you now own a Sixer. 

(I once had a demon twenty-sixer. I always went for 'cheesers' - conkers with one flat side, like a blade.)

Brilliant.

World Conker Championships website.

P.s. Oh, by the way, despite many people claiming it to be true, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that placing conkers around your house deters spiders. It's been tested many times - including by the Woodland Trust - and it's simply an old wives' tale. However, they can deter moths as, when they dry, they give off a chemical called a triterpenoid saponin that moths find repellent. Oh, and they also contain aescin, an anti-inflammatory, which is an effective remedy for sprains and bruises. People once used them as medicine for lame horses, which maybe why they picked up the name of horse chestnut.