Old Chestnuts

[caddyman]

It occurs to me that we are only about a couple or three weeks away from conker season. I used to like conker season when I was a kid, though I never managed to create a killer conker like some of my friends claimed to have done. That didn’t stop me from lovingly marinating them in vinegar for a few days, or trying to persuade Mum to let me bake one to concrete-like hardness (preferably a pre-soaked jobbie). To the best of my recollection she never did let me bake a conker and I never did develop a super conker which would conquer all-comers for years to come before retiring to the honoured spot in the bottom of a satchel, covered in fluff, shell-less and dry shrivelled in all its glory¹.

We had a conker tree on the school grounds, just behind the science block, as I recall. We were allowed to pick up fallen conkers but not to ‘encourage’ them to fall. That didn’t stop us. Generations of schoolboys had developed a stooge system worthy of Colditz to warn of advancing school masters. I do not recall it failing in my time at least. Prefects were more of a problem, but were generally spottable in their black blazers (the hoi-polloi all wore maroon blazers) ². This meant that we could hoof half end bricks up the tree with relative impunity, though the occasional fallen branch caused some concern.

I think the highlight must have been when a chap in my form, one David ”Arfa” Beynon, discovered a rusty gate hinge and threw that up the tree. It never came back down and for weeks we pondered nervously in the anticipation of it falling on and braining some passer by.

I don’t think it ever did; it may still be up there for all I know.

Do kids still play conkers, or is it all illegal drug taking and vandalism these days?

¹You know, that looks far ruder in writing than it did while I was just thinking it. binidj will have an embolism.

²Except for Jan Mateki (sp) in the Autumn term of 1973, whose blazer sported a bright green sleeve for about four months until it disintegrated, but that’s another story.

Comments

[agentinfinity.livejournal.com]

I think they were trying to ban it on the grounds of health and safety, or making kids wear safety goggles whilst playing. Something mindless like that.

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

I still collect conkers, although nowadays it's rather furtively done. They look so shiny! It's terribly sad the next day though when they are no longer shiny, but all dull and crinkly.

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

I always want to polish them. There's nothing sadder than a perfect, plump, round conker which turns into something very disappointing so soon.

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

"polishing my conker[s]" - for some reason this sounds like some sort of dubious euphemism ...

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

I realised that after I typed it, then decided that I didn't care :)

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

To the back of the class with you, Ser Mitchell.

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

*blows a raspberry and larks about about the back of class*

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Ignore him, children. He'll come to a bad end mark my words.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Ah, if only I had been armed with that knowledge all those years ago I could have been a contender.

Still, second childhood to look forward to!

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Harsh but fair.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Do kids still play conkers
I'm sure Health & Safety have happily put an end to that tradition by now.

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

From the Times Online 13th August:

"and conkers, which has been banned in some schools in case it triggers nut allergies."

But from BBC News 22nd August:

"Children are still allowed to play conkers and that's part of life, it's part of being a child, but it's about being sensible about what could go wrong."

And anyway it's not the H&SE lot that tried to do the goggles thing:

"The suggestion that children should wear safety goggles whilst playing conkers is just the type of thing that gives sensible health and safety a bad name.

The issue of requiring Head Teachers to ensure children wear safety goggles whilst playing conkers is not something HSE would ever be involved in, the notion that HSE has inspectors monitoring playground activities across the country is nonsense. Obviously safety goggles are very important within the correct environment, for example, whilst using cutting equipment. HSE inspectors will be inspecting, where there is a real workplace risk, to ensure that these risks are managed effectively."

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Fair play - twas intended more as a sardonic comment than owt else.

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

Apparently the Health & Safety Commission are getting a bit narked at being blamed for things being "banned by the H&SE" in media reports when that is simply not true. They are much more worried about the 200+ deaths in the workplace every yeaer to have time to worry about children and conkers. It's the nanny state and our growing blame/compensation culture that's responsible for these alleged "H&SE bans".

I remember when life was fun, and if you bumped your head or grazed your knee you just shook it off and carried on playing. *sigh*

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

I remember when life was fun, and if you bumped your head or grazed your knee you just shook it off and carried on playing
I'm guessing this was before nice big, fat Liability payouts?

my predictable ten cents-worth

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Ah, what memories, Bryan.

I competed with a conker or two when I was very young, but was turned off by the intense, mean-spirited competition among some boys over what I felt was a rather trivial pastime. So I left them to it.

I recall Jan Matecki (there you go, and wasn't it pronounced Matetski?), but not his green sleeve. He was a hulking boy, and a bully to younger ones, if I remember correctly. Later on, his cousin, whose last name was Budryk, arrived at the school. He was even larger than Jan but a very affable fellow, and always looked like he had not quite woken up yet.

As for Beynon, "hulking" doesn't even begin to describe him, and wasn't he known as Sasquatch for a while, there? Most apropos. He may have been academically sound, but I've never since encountered such a mumbling, socially inept, clueless doink. He had all the sense of humour of a housebrick, and breath that could turn you to stone within a range of six feet. I have met cheese sarnies with more personality. Having said that, he was a harmless enough chap and I am being a rotter.

Re: my predictable ten cents-worth

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I believe your spelling may well be accurate and the pronunciation is spot on. Matecki was later expelled the year after we left as I recall, for nicking the school minibus while on a geography field trip at the school cottage for the express purpose of buying beer!

Re: my predictable ten cents-worth

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Really? Excellent chap! I only went to the utterly crap school cottage once, shared a tent with Beynon. That wasn't the reason it was such a dreadful experience, though. It was all just a bit too outward bound for me. I like to sleep at home, in bed, and I prefer my days to be uninterrupted by fifteen-mile hikes through dense woodland. Call me unadventurous, but I know what I like, and tramping about the countryside with a dozen sweaty boys and a little Welsh rugby fanatic is not it.

[boredinsomniac.livejournal.com]

What are conkers? What's the game?

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Conkers is a game played with Horse Chestnuts apparently it is called Kingers in some parts of the world...