Conkers

Growing up in Southern England I always seemed to be within sight of a horse chestnut tree.  Now these are not the trees that bear "the chestnuts roasting by an open fire" fame, but nonetheless very interesting nuts.  They are inedible for humans but perhaps they're OK for horses, I don't know.  They are big trees and in the early summer grow pink and white blossoms like little Christmas trees on every branch.  Eventually these fade, and pale green nuts grow, increasing in size throughout the summer.  In the autumn these nuts fall off and we boys would break them up to get to the kernel inside.  This would reveal our goal - the conker!

This is a conker I picked up on the 5th of October 2007, when I was in Cassiobury Park in the northern suburb of Watford.  I picked it up and kept it, carrying it through customs, no doubt in breach of some Department of Agriculture rule.  As boys we would collect these brown shiny nuts to play the traditional game of "conkers."  Here you would thread a string through the nut, knot it and then let it hang down about a foot while a similar nut would be struck against it.  The idea was to break the other boy's conker.  You would remember the number of conquests you had and call your conker by that: "It's a tenner!!"  All sorts of ideas would circulate about making your conker the hardest, from baking it to soaking it in vinegar.  I wonder if it's still played, or has it fallen victim to the ubiquitous video game?