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I ran underneath a large Horse Chestnut tree last night. The ground was littered with conkers. In years past these would have been hoovered up by school kids eager to play the iconic game. I suppose this means that conkers are banned in school.

To my mind this is a mistake. Yes there was always the chance of an injury of some sort, usually a rap on the knuckles from a badly aimed shot! But kids learned so much from traditional playground games like this. They learned about risk for a start, they learned about success and failure, bartering, maths, odds, cheating etc etc. The list goes on...and all of this learning taking place out of the classroom in the company of their peers and away from adults and their hypocritical ways.

The banning of games like this does not make the world a safer place. It only serves to make kids less able to cope with it when they eventually leave school.

Just read that 1 in 6 schools have banned conkers and it's not as I assumed ( always a mistake ...assuming) because of fear of injury but more to do with allergies ie. nut allergy and anaphylactic shock.

Perhaps this puts a different light on the whole thing?

Apparently conkers are not a nut and as such don't pose a threat to nut allergic people.

https://www.allergyuk.org/living-with-an-allergy/at-school/faqs-for-parents....

Elf n Safety gawn mad!

Could equally be that kids just aren't as into the game as they used to be. Times move on, trends change, different forms of entertainment are available now.

My only recent experience with schools was secondary rather than primary, so conkers was never a consideration. But there was always a lot less stuff banned than people tend to assume. I was a science teacher and adults would often reminisce about the science experiments they loved as kids, then whine about how sad it is that they must all be banned now. That was very rarely the case. The only exception I can think of was my father having apparently been allowed to play around with some mercury, which definitely wouldn't be allowed these days and with good reason!

The mercury thing was true! I remember the science teacher getting us to roll it around in our cupped palms during a lesson.

Thinking about how modern tech has developed these days, kids would likely be playing conkers on a console. I remember those plastic clacker balls we had back in the early seventies. That was real fun with the thrill of real shards of plastic exploding into your eyes. Not some computer game cr@p.

Had to explain the concept to the youngsters in my team at work.

Definitely didn’t do the mercury thing in our school (mid 80s).
Our chemistry teacher did however pick up some malt and yeast from the local distillery though and made moonshine for “demonstrating” distilling.

My class was out in the park collecting bags full yesterday.

Might use them for counters, but really just for the joy of finding and collecting.

Isn't that problematic with policies on nut allergies. Would've thought that would be banned due to breaking some safety rules. Serious comment.

I'm not going to debate what counts as a nut and what doesn't by a strict botanical definition, and if conkers are true nuts or peanuts or anything  else are true nuts. Conkers trigger nut allergies in some people, so need considering as such. My wife once worked where 2 kids had extreme nut allergies and EpiPen always at hand, they had a conker tree in the playground, it was a nightmare.

And how did you react when the head said “ Alan , shouldn’t your A level Physics class be getting on with some quantum mechanics ?”

Not according to:

https://www.allergyuk.org/living-with-an-allergy/at-school/faqs-for-parents...

Oh ok, maybe it was just these 2 particular kids? but I remember the stress she had every autumn 

Things change, as a kid conkers was fun though to be honest the challenge of knocking them out of the tree by throwing sticks was more fun than the actual game. 

Sticks, trees and conkers don't have screens though and things with screens seem to be the primary focus these days. 

In victoriana times the height of entertainment was running with a hoop and stick but that is consigned to history now and in time playing conkers will be a museum exhibit "in the 1900s kids would tie these nuts to a string and hit each other with them"

Followed by an exhibit "in the 2000s everyone carried a thing called a phone, they started as communication devices but rapidly became entertainment devices and people were physically and mentally addicted to the screens on them" 

My recollection of chemistry teachers (late 60s) is that their main objective was to blow up the school, or at the very least make a hole in the ceiling. This was great, and sometimes successful. Usually we'd be instructed to cower behind a bench and peer over the top

Moonshine though, that would have been seriously interesting. Surely this is what the sciences are all about!

You'll be pleased to hear that in my teaching career in this century, I still saw plenty of scorched ceilings. Granted, some of the labs in question probably hadn't been refurbished since the 60s, but there was no shortage of more recent scars.

Birch is great for kindling.

I like to think that I helped science classes be even more exciting today than they were when I was at school.  I remember a few from then that we would not do now like the barking dog (or just about anything to do with carbon disulphide), No ether, formaldehyde or carbon tet (thank goodness) either. Most activities and chemicals in the 1970s are still going in school.

Mercury still featured in demos (I was not allowed to "play" with it as a pupil either) - freezing it and melting it, a sealed container with a nut floating in it, tilt switches etc. but no chemistry because of disposal issues. Solid mercury is perhaps the most beautiful chemical I ever worked with - until it melts or gets covered in frost.

Scorched ceiling tick

Moonshine tick

One thing that did go on my watch was white phosphorus - this delightful substance got disposed of after a colleague got a bad burn.

Probably cause you still have little psycopaths like me who dip their conkers in glue and have nails sticking out of them… 

Or used to stash them in the village bonfire so they would spit out when the thing was lit.

Mr Coull was a great teacher! After the science bit the beaker got passed around the class.

brewing cider was part of O level biology, think playing with Mercury was A level chemistry, along with burning Magnesium

My 5yo son is obsessed with finding conkers. Must have about 100 in the house right now. Doesn’t seem bothered to play the game though

Aren't peanuts a bit unique in the nut and seed world in the reaction they cause? Is it not about their intact proteins ability to cross membranes within your body, which then when detected causes a huge immune response in some people as they think their body is under attack? 

A conker is as much a nut, as a grain of oats, or an apple pip, an acorn, they are just seeds. Generally a nut is a nut because the inner is edible and has a shell exterior (I think)

Get burning Mg in as early as possible - it's a great motivator. See also flame tests which I used as an end of term treat.  NO VIDEOS!

Every time I see gleaming conkers lying around I feel that acquisitive pang of emotion that takes me back to the mid 1960s when they were such objects of desire, a kind of wealth lying round to be picked up and cherished.  The feeling is still strong.

We used to make conker creatures using matchsticks as legs and to connect the conkers together ( a bit like those molecule building kits).  I suppose with so few people smoking now that cocktail sticks would work as well

Playing conkers was one of many games I played at school, and although I ended up with a few bruised knuckles through missed strikes, it was always a fun game to play with friends who thought they had the unique way of procuring a conker which would beat everyone else’s.

Like you say, it’s one of those games you know the consequences of before playing. It’s not as if they are looking to ban a game which is compulsory!

If you know the rules and willing to receive the odd bruised finger, then it should be allowed.

I remember camping in the Bois de Boulogne in the 70s and being ankle deep in beautiful conkers. I wracked my brain for a way to sell them to the French as Le Jeu Anglais, or something. Nothing would come. Bobbins from our redundant textile industry were being marketed at the time as skipping rope handles. Of course children don't skip either nowadays. The Woke won't let them. 

Was there ever an actual episode, or  was it just the (unfounded) worry?

(Something which is a major problem with drugs like penicillin)

Poe's law kicks in strongly here - without looking at your other posts on other topics it's impossible to tell whether this is satire or not!

As far as I'm aware, in the 2 years or so she was there while those kids were attending there were no conker related incidents. Whether that's because they weren't a trigger or due to the zealous precautions I couldn't tell you. But I can attest to the stress it caused her.

Conkers is an incredibly violent game that has caused millions of deaths worldwide and probably directly caused the Vietnam war 

You might as well give schoolkids a loaded AK47 1000 rounds of ammo each as let them near a conker

(Satire PS do u think I could write a novel??)

We used to do that with acorns and hawthorn thorns.

What do primary school age kids do nowadays during playtime? Do the schools allow them to stand around looking at phones? I somehow doubt that, but what do they do instead?

I don't remember my school time in the 60s, but in the early 70s, conkers featured heavily during playtime, as did bartering for and competing for Brook-Bond tea cards. I mean especially the winner-takes-all game where we would stand several cards in a row against a wall then try to knock them down by flicking other cards towards them, in turn, from a distance. I was good at that and still have several full albums from those years as testament.

On conkers, part of the fun was knowing about trees that were thought to give good conkers, or were just good to climb.

A farming family, having trees gave you status at school.  There was one tree in particular - sadly fell victim to The Great Vandal.

I’ve kept this quiet through embarrassment, but my recent Back Prang started through collecting conkers last Thursday. First thing in the morning, back a bit stiff as always, and too much bending down to collect those beautiful gems. Felt the odd twinge, forgot about it, then jumped off a step and got this shooting pain in the old war wound. Dangerous game, conker collecting. 

When I was a kid, conker collecting started in mid summer, when dads, mainly miners, from the rough parts of Leigh, would turn up to the park and using their incredible strength hurl sections of fencing at great speed, dislodging conkers that were completely albino. Their sons would be up the same trees, at the same time, shaking the branches like mad whilst ducking from the missiles being fired towards them. 

I wonder how many children died in the 80s from conker allergies?

It's satire.

That's because peanuts are beans.

Burning magnesium was fun, though not as much fun as when a ne-er do well (not me) stole a jar of sodium and flushed it down the toilet.

In prime conker season the MOD Plod in my 9 year old mind seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time chasing us scrotes around RAF Uxbridge. The IRA still managed to plant a bomb there, maybe the plod were looking for very short Provos in even shorter trousers and we were just collateral damage. 
 

What’s the preferred way of weaponizing the humble conker? Soaking in vinegar, or baking them?  

We would do both but I think baking made them hard but brittle whereas vinegar made them into tough rubber.

The scoring of conkers was interesting. There were two distinct methods.

a) Every conker you beat was counted. So if you won 10 games you had a 10ser.

b) Every time you beat a conker you accumulated all the ones that it had beaten previously. So if you beat a 100ser yours would become a 101ser.

This way some conkers achieved legendary status by attaining huge scores in the thousands. Of course non of the scores were verified by some sort of Guiness Book of Conker record so were complete fantasy in reality. It all added to the wonder and magic of the game.

One thing that never happened ( and something I just thought of now) was that conkers were never given names. If I had a champion conker now I would call it something like William or Conan.

This was the way in my school. My Dad was utterly flabbergasted when I first came home with a conker I claimed some ludicrous score for. He was not impressed by the logic of the scoring system but it really heightened the drama.

I spent years travelling to school on the top deck of a double decker bus, then reserved for smokers. We had a game based on conker scoring which involved matchsticks. You gripped a matchstick between finger and thumb and tried to break the other kid's matchstick, thereby accruing the broken matchstick's score. Some matchsticks achieved heroic status and lasted for many trips. 

Of course, getting the matchsticks involved a lot of crawling about under the seats of the bus. Don't know what my mam made of my school gaberdine covered in cig ash.

I was basically raised on tobacco and spaghetti hoops. Happy days eh..

William the Conkeror?

Messner had his conkers downgraded by GBR recently.

Not sure if ours was a local variation, but you could also "Crown" your own conker, by smashing it against a wall, and transfer your score to a new one, but ONLY if it took one hit.

So if you'd won, with your own conker already deeply split, you could keep your own score, rather than giving an easy win to an opponent.

Also, each game you had the option of allowing/disallowing "Stampsies", whereby if they conker was dropped / slipped off the string, you could/couldn't stamp on it.

My walk to work takes me under a couple of large horsechestnut trees just outside a primary school.

Not a conker to be seen. Lots of husks that have obviously been split by hand, and evidence that people have been throwing sticks into the tree to try to knock them down.

No idea if the school allows conkers or not, but the kids are definitely taking them!

I know for sure my kids have been bringing conkers back. It is a shame though if schools are banning them but will willingly let kids sit on smartphones!

had a snooker table for that purpose!

We did the mercury thing in the late 70s/early 80s. I think a fair amount got lost between the wooden floorboards in the old chemistry lab.

I recall our original chemistry teacher making chlorine gas, then chastising us for feeling sick, eventually allowing us to evacuate and then throwing up in the sink.

We made some explosive silver salt at A level. Can't remember which, but the lab had small 'cracks' going on for ages later as things spontaneously exploded. There was also a stain on the ceiling from an explosion (chromic acid?) when the reaction needed constant stirring but we didn't have a stirring block - picking up the heating block, flask and condenser and shaking it wasn't sufficient and the whole lot went up. I was tempted to sign it.

Those were(n't) the days!

There was huge controversy at primary school when 'no-Stampsies' had been called and a venerable conker was stamped on. Needed the equivalent of VAR.

And what good would that have done ?

They run around the playground playing chase / armies and do skipping with skipping ropes, if my children are anything to go by. They also collect conkers - cleared out about 12 from a coat pocket the other day - they don't play conkers anymore because it's a fairly rubbish game, not because it's banned.

That sums up my childhood (80/90s), as a game conkers had no interest whatsoever. But there is something memorising about a conker glistening on the ground, or prising it from the prickly shell, that that makes you want to collect them.

They were never banned when I was at school, but neither did anyone really play with them to any extent. Once or twice a few people would put some string through a couple and have a match, but that was as far as it would go and no-one took it particularly seriously. Not a clue what conkers would teach anyone about bartering, maths or odds as nothing of that sort ever came into it. I seem to be coping with the world just fine though.

And yes, I did go to school before smartphones etc were available so it isn't just a case of kids being obsessed with screens. Times and trends just change. Plenty of other ways to learn about failure, cheating etc.

Hydrogen and washing up liquid was responsible for one at my school, it was apparently quite a pillar of flame!

Someone should end up in The Hague for that.

Our youngish kids collect confers but it’s just a ritual and none of them seem to want to attach them to string and try to break their peers’ fingers.  Maybe for the best.

some of these comments remind me of the types of chemistry class I’m sure is now banned - handing out 20 bottles of toluene and benzene to 16 year olds, letting us free style with chemicals in that fume extractor cabinet, not stepping in when we made a friend inhale fumes of hydrochloric acid…..

for some reason I didn’t pass my chemistry exams.

Silver fulminate.

It's interesting to note that the expriments we got up to at home with stuff nicked from the school labs, (potassium, sodium, magnesium ribbon, phosphorus, calcium carbide), fireworks, .22LR rounds, (don't know where the hell they came from), petrol and gas canisters would see us doing 10 years for terrorism these days.

We harvest some each year, then smash them up in a bag, discard the skins and keep the bits of stuff from the inside.  I then cut the dried bits of stuff up, blanch them in boiled water for an hour or two and filter to collect the leachate.  It’s a saponin rich liquid that makes a very effective shampoo that doesn’t strip the body’s naturally secreted oils from the hair.  Results speak for themselves.

See also methane out of the gas taps.   

The biggest lab messer up was silver.  Any silver nitrate spills were there for ever.

Great lengths were went to to protect sodium stock - only small quantities ever made it out of the prep room and only staff handled it (also policy when I was a pupil) - the horror stories of the ignorant putting lumps in their pockets etc are all too familiar true or not.  Anyway, alkali metals are one of the perks of the job.

Just before my time as a pupil, someone had managed to liberate some conc nitric and sulphuric and decided it would be cool to nitrate toluene.  Shudder.

we had to content ourselves with weedkiller and sugar, up in the N Pennines in the 70s

That is pretty serious stuff, we once had a thing come round from the Home Office with a bizarre list of chemicals to stocktake with care or consider not using.  Of course chlorates were amongst them.  Only chlorate/sugar thing I ever did was chuck jelly babies into molten potassium chlorate. Muhahaha.

I wonder if this was home chemistry?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-11787222 

Lots of chlorate fun on Youtube though flame colours have to be seen live.

There was a case where a teacher got the jail for an incident involving metal powders and chlorates/perchlorates which led to life changing injuries to a pupil,