It’s officially autumn here in the UK. Even if you didn’t read my earlier post where I huffed on about excessive air conditioning, a glance out the window at the golden flailing treetops (or peek at a desk calendar if you are bundled away in a corner with no natural light) should confirm the fact.

If you are under the age of about ten and go to a school located somewhere near a park (not admittedly the core readership of this site, but bear with me) then this time of year means but one thing. An ancient tradition, handed down from parent to progeny, from bullying elder child to sibling, from know-it-all kid to their awe struck classmates; a tradition you can just tell is British because of its slightly ridiculous and antiquated name: CONKERS.

It’s surprising there hasn’t been more of a Daily Mail style uproar about conkers, after all, every October, lots of trees in England grow huge spiky green fruits, usually the size of golf balls, which at the slightest breeze rain down upon hapless bystanders before they are snaffled up by violent little children who stamp on them to free the glorious brown conkers within … oh no wait, there has.

The premise behind conkers is pretty simple. Get a drill (cue yet more health and safety shrieking) and bore a hole through the conker. Hang it on a bit of string and get your friend to do the same. Have your friend hold their conker on a string aloft and aim your conker to hit their conker as hard as it possibly can, with the aim of smashing it into a thousand pieces (health and safety officer feels a bit faint). Swap turns and hold your conker aloft whilst your friend aims to smack your conker somewhere into next Tuesday whilst keeping their own conker intact and their eyes free from shards of exploding seed matter (health and safetly officer is out cold on the floor at this point).

The Wikipedia entry has lots of information on further rules and regulations, but frankly I don’t remember it being a particularly complex game.

I do however definitely remember the joys of preparing your conker – baking it in the oven, coating it in vinegar or clear nail polish – there were many ways to try and create the ultimate fighting weapon.

Ah ‘weapon’. Perhaps the shrieking overprotective parents and health and safety experts have a point… that said, I defy you to walk through a London park this month and not see at least one fully grown adult shiftily look around before slipping a perfect shiny brown conker in their pocket.

Photos courtesy of sinjy and nicki pugh and used under a Creative Commons License