Figure 1.-- |
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One British, Bill Ferguson, reader writes, "Oh the fun we had in collecting them. A collection of conkers. A big bag full. The collection could contain conkers from previous
years. The harder they were the better. New conkers could not withstand being smacked by conkers made hard."
The Children's game of conkers brought back fond memories of this game. I recall it was a late summer game played in September. This coincided with the start of a new school academic year. Collecting conkers was the first thing to do and this was often an evening activity. Our after school activities did not require that we change from school clothes to play clothes so we
did not bother and went conkering in our school clothes."
There were lots of trees where I lived in Blackburn Lancashire and the best
place to go conkering was to the town cemetery. It was a short 15-minute
walk from my home to the cemetery. It was a quiet spooky place. We felt
scared and apprehensive at the thought of ghosts and more likely the cemetery
watchmen who chased us away and the trouble we would be in if he caught
us. We thought of police arrest; being scolded by our parents for playing
in a place we should not have been. These fears made our expedition appear
to be a most daring undertaking to collect conkers. It was for this reason
that we did not go on the expedition alone. Collecting conkers was an activity,
which was done with your friends. Fear meant that there was strength in
numbers. As well as the abundance of conker bearing horse chestnut trees
were the graves of interesting people who were buried there.
Our first activity on arriving in the cemetery was to visit the grave of
Fred Kempster, the British Giant. He had died in Blackburn when he came
to the town about 1919 as part of a circus entertainment. We marvelled at
his grave and exaggerated how tall he had been. We also left flowers on
his grave. These were picked wild but sometimes mischief reigned and we
?borrowed? flowers from the gardens we passed on our way to the cemetery. We never disturbed the graves we went by. We treated them with our childish respect for we believed bad luck and scary things would happen to you. It was okay to hide behind them but not to walk across them. It was for this reason that we checked most carefully the area around the 'conker' trees we did not want to suffer misfortune by accidentally standing on someone's grave.
Our first task was to search the ground for windfalls. These belonged to
the person who found them so it was a free for all in this task. Once this
was over there were the ones in the trees to collect. This was a task in
which we needed to work together. The way we got the conkers to the ground
was to throw sticks or stones into the trees. These missiles had first to
be collected and this was a job for everyone.
We would take it in turns to throw the stones into the trees and then collect
the conkers the stones dislodged. We would do this for a considerable time
until it was judged that we had enough conkers to play the game the following
day in the school playground.
It would be dusk as we made our way out of the cemetery. The gates were
closed about 8: 30 so we did not want to be locked in and clamber over the
wall to escape but more often than not that was how we had to leave for
we had misjudged the time. It was also likely that the Old Sam, the caretaker
would be patrolling and he would chase us if he saw us. There was one occasion that Old Sam scared the living daylights out of us. He had seen us collecting conkers when he went to lock the gate. We did not know that he had hidden behind a grave. On our way out making ghostly sounds he appeared and we fled in terror and scrambled over the high wall in seconds. Once on the other side a head count to ascertain that we had all escaped and our pockets full of conker we ran all the way home. The scary experience ensured that our annual conker collecting expeditions were brought to an untimely end.
Trouble was in store for us when we got home because the new shoes we had
worn on leaving were now badly scuffed and we got a telling off and sent
to bed early because of the state of our shoes.
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