Bombarded as we are here in the United States with news items about cops shooting glass jars off the heads of skunks, and Coke and Pepsi deliverymen engaging in fisticuffs, we sometimes need distraction from the mayhem. And what better salve than to cast one’s mind to that fairer ground of the autumn glades of Olde Englande, where conker season is just beginning. When the skies turn that leaden grey over Blighty, and the leaves flash their golden effulgence in the late afternoon sunshine that cuts suddenly through the clouds, autumn has arrived. Throngs of children comb the woods, searching for plump, mahogany jewels. These jewels are horse chestnuts, or conkers, as they call them over there, the fruit of a massive tree, proud as an oak and easily as tall as a sycamore. I well remember scouring the fallen piles of orange and amber leaves as a lad, my eyes straining in the pale light of the shortened days, and the jolt of excitement upon spying a big polished brown orb. But finding a conker was only the beginning, whether you knocked it down with a well-aimed stick, or scaled a horse chestnut tree to shake the branches and send the conkers raining down on friends who were forever grateful.

The size of a conker ranges from about one inch to two and a half in diameter, and size is not necessarily that important for what we did with conkers, believe it or not. Hardness was much more important. The whole point of searching for the the nuts was to enter them into conker fights. Conker fights entail taking the conker, drilling a hole right through the middle of it with a nail, and threading a length of bootlace in, before tying a knot at the bottom, to prevent the conker slipping off. There should be approximately eight inches of play on the lace, after it has been wrapped tightly round the hand at least twice, so that the conker can be held up for one’s opponent to strike, by swinging their own conker down on its bootlace as hard as possible, in an attempt to smash your prized little friend to bits. Contestants take turns to swing their conkers down, hard, onto their opponent’s conker, losing a turn when they miss the conker completely. To score a glancing blow (a “skinner”) is a relief, as the lightest of contacts counts in favour of the assailant, but anyone caught moving their conker out of the way of the assault is instantly penalized by missing the next turn. Fights can last for hours. Many a conker fight at my school began before we entered school for roll-call (or “registration”, as we call it in England), was continued at morning break, then again at lunch, again at afternoon break, and sometimes kids would hang around after school, desperate to bring the duel to a satisfactory conclusion. On occasion the fight would have to continue into the following day, and, if the nuts were thus matched, beyond, through the week. It wasn’t completely unknown for some kids to have to arrange a weekend rendezvous, for a marathon set-to in the park, while being cheered on by their attendant cronies. That said, most conker fights are concluded in less than half an hour, as the likelihood of two disparate nuts being so well matched is extremely low.

Some conkers proved utterly useless, as they were hollow and full of a viscous transparent fluid. These were called “water babies”, and many a disappointed lad saw his prized sparkling beauty crumble like nothing, upon receiving its very first tap. A conker that actually made it through one conker season into the next (hidden in a safe place like a family gem) was called a “seasoner”. If it made it to a third season it was called a “three-seasoner” and so on. A conker which had attained seven-seasoner status was a sight to be seen, and was a much coveted nut in this schoolyard world. The older seasoners resembled other alpha-beasts in nature; like an ornery old crocodile, a seven-seasoner would be lean, dry and wrinkled, having dispatched innumerable lesser conkers in its time, with the hardness of a stone and the conscience of an iron bar. Of course, whenever two kids set their multi-seasoners against each other, it was like the mother of all conker fights, and everyone wanted a ring-side seat. But, as with all sports, there were ways and means to cheat, to skirt the rules, and triumph with evil alchemy and black magic. If you wanted your new conker to appear to be a seasoner without it having actually been in the wars, you could soak it in malt vinegar and bake it in the oven. This lent a gnarled and vicious appearance to the thing, and there were protests-a-plenty when a lad turned up to challenge a seasoner bearing a “seasoner” of his own, which had somehow been forgotten about by all since the previous year. On occasions like this it was left to a panel of older lads to inspect the thing, sniffing it and applying pressure with thumb and forefinger in an attempt to determine its authenticity, while the accused awaited the verdict.
This past week in Ashton, Northamptonshire England, the World Conker Tournament was held, and over 300 players from over 20 countries came to participate, before thousands of spectators. The same event last year raised twenty thousand pounds for charity, and it is estimated that the 2007 tournament will raise even more. Recently in England, schools have actually banned conker fights, claiming that they’re dangerous, and organizers of the tournament couldn’t disagree more. The rules against baking and soaking in vinegar were upheld, obviously, and length of lace was measured with care. As ever, dangerous play received an official warning, and some contestants even arrived in costumes. There’s nothing like watching a conker fight between Harry Potter and the Tin-Man, is there? I can almost hear the Monty Python theme tune starting up as we speak…