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Thread: OT Conkers

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
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    OT Conkers

    Don’t kids play conkers anymore? When I was a boy in the early 70’s almost every boy played them and those not playing were watching others play.

    Saturday mornings in The conker season you’d see gangs of boys armed with chair legs for throwing into the trees, a pen knife for opening them and a carrier bag to bring the booty home.

    If you ever saw a conker on the floor you’d grab it like it was gold dust, nowadays they’re just left to rot all over the park.

    For all the technology and games consoles, boys today have missed out on a lot of enjoyment that boys of yesteryear had.

  2. #2
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    Forgive me for saying this Loyal but how did you harden your nuts?

  3. #3
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    Soaked them in vinegar. Oo er missus!

  4. #4
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    Phew. I'm glad you didn't misinterpret my question!

    Never much good at conkers meself tended to end up with cracked knuckles.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by loyalmiller View Post
    Don’t kids play conkers anymore? When I was a boy in the early 70’s almost every boy played them and those not playing were watching others play.

    Saturday mornings in The conker season you’d see gangs of boys armed with chair legs for throwing into the trees, a pen knife for opening them and a carrier bag to bring the booty home.

    If you ever saw a conker on the floor you’d grab it like it was gold dust, nowadays they’re just left to rot all over the park.

    For all the technology and games consoles, boys today have missed out on a lot of enjoyment that boys of yesteryear had.
    We have (or had) two conker trees in our garden, in the village generations of boys knew us as 'the conker house'. From the first week of October we'd get loads of boys politely (and in latter years impolitely) asking if they could pick conkers up.

    In my day, you'd put one conker on the end of a string and compete with that. In later years you could see them put all their conkers a string so they could use it as weapon.

    In the last five years? Not a single boy has come for a conker. Now each spring the lawn looks like a new forest as the squirels' hidden winter feed starts to grow.

    I said we had two conker trees - a couple of years ago one of them blew down in a storm. That was quite an event.

  6. #6
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    Mar 2004
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    About 5 years ago I was excited to come across a 'conker' tree here in the US and even more excited that nobody was picking them up so I grabbed myself a bagful for future use. Last year I was back in the UK at this time and on a walk through Rosehill Park was almost breaking my ankles as the fallen conkers rolled beneath my feet. As Loyal says, that would never have happened 40-50 years ago, either they were brought down by eager boys with sticks or the floor was 'hoovered' clean of windfalls on the way to school in the morning. Whoever invented video games should be shot

  7. #7
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    Jun 2004
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    By the 1990s when I played conkers as a kid it was on its last legs.

    The main reason is because compared to modern toys, it's really quite a crap game.

    When even crap games from my childhood such as pogs and tamagotchi were more fun playground alternatives, what hope does it have in the smartphone era with some of the fantastic games available.

    Do they not call them buckeyes there CA? When I lived in Ohio and partied at Ohio State University their mascot is a giant conker called Brutus the Buckeye with a conker for a head which always amused me.

  8. #8
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    Aug 2005
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    Quite like collecting wild nuts and fruit mi sen. Think its the hunter and gatherer in me. Like to go blackberrying -decent crop this year-also been decent for sloes. 1 and a half litre bottles of local sloe gin on the go as i speak. Also some rhubarb and ginger gin on the go as well tho admittedly fruit bought from shop for that .Our lass made some elderflower cordial last year from elder flowers found on the golf course at the Grange. Also got our own goosegog bush which has had a fair crop this year.

    A pal of mine is good at identifying nuts so picked a few hazel nuts and sweet chestnuts when out walking.

    I have drawn the line at picking mushrooms because I fear I may get it wrong and not have a second chance!. They do tell me if it looks like a mushroom it usually is. Some of the most ugly looking fungi is often edible.

    So get ya sens out there and get back to your basic instincts and start foraging guys.
    Last edited by rolymiller; 23-09-2019 at 09:33 PM.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
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    Anyone interested has a chance at becoming World Champion in just over a couple of weeks in Northamptonshire (surprised the US haven't claimed it yet as part of Major League Conkers )

    https://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/index.php

    Just looked it up, Buckeyes look similar but are not Horse Chestnuts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesculus_glabra
    Last edited by CAMiller; 23-09-2019 at 09:35 PM.

  10. #10
    Schools don’t like kids having them, at some they are even banned on health and safety grounds.


    I’m told that conkers are good for keeping spiders out of your drawers ( oooerr missus)

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