Does anyone still play conkers ?

[ed_pete]

Whiled away many happy hours when I was a kid, just wondered if anyone - or more likely their children - still did...

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Not half! Some mega-sized ones this year.

[Muttley]

Health & Safety put paid to that little game. Now it's safety goggles all round apparently.

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

I used to get bruised fingers when I was a kid, the boys were so rough and used to whack my conkers so hard it would hit against my hands...brought a tear to my eyes it did!

[Keef]

I was always on the look out for a good "cheese cutter", and would be baking it, painting it in my mum's nail polish, soaking it in vinegar... None of which made a blind bit of difference!!!

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Cheats never prosper Keef. Shame on you.

PS - inject concrete.

[TillieTrotter]

My boys still collect, bake, vinegar and play conkers. Gotta be done!

[Michael Palaeologus]

"The boys were so rough and used to whack my conkers so hard" - this cheered my morning SO much this morning (not your pain Heidi - just the words)

I am always saddened by the enormous quantities of perfectly good conkers left on the ground - it does seem to be a dying art.

The Estonian's have conker trees in Tallinn, they looked very puzzled when I tried explaining the game to them - it must be a democracy thing.

My Dad was a teacher in a particularly industrial and under-priveliged area of the Midlands - with little greenery. We lived near a wood and my Dad used to collect buckets of conckers and distribute them to his school-kids by throwing handfulls of them over the school field. Kids loved it, nowadays he would probably get done under health and safety legislation.

Did you know that the horse-chestnut is not an indigenous species but is actually from Turkey and the Middle East? It was introduced as a decorative tree by ... somebody.

[Keef]

I always found it best to go for the smaller conker. People with the massive ones just give you an easy target, and would often miss you... Of course if they did hit you, you were buggered!

[Brendan]

Nothing wrong with massive conkers.

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

Glad I made you smile! :))

I have never seen any kids playing with conkers now you have mentioned it, whereas that was the complete norm in my day.

That and marbles! I often lost my marbles too.....