A golden season for conkers
Clive Gammon
With Hallowe'en gone by, the dark evenings closing in on us and the conker season almost at an end, it seems an appropriate time to review the autumn's sport, especially since it is unlikely that Nick will be competing again in the fall of '72. At least I have advised him against it. After all, he is already thirteen, over the hill a little, perhaps, for competitive conkers, and although this season has been a triumphant one for him, it is much better, I've explained, to retire at such a peak as this one. "Think of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson," I told him, but he had never heard of them and their pathetic decline. In any case he'll be away at a new school before it all starts up again: probably he will have to fall into line and write the whole thing off as beneath his years and dignity.
But it has been a golden season, for which I think I can claim some responsibility. For it was I who, more than a year ago, brought home from Holland the most devastatingly destructive stable of conkers seen in these parts. Serious conker fanciers might like to note that they came from near the town of Valkenburg, in the province of Limburg, hilly, wooded country more German looking than Dutch. They are freely available there, as easy to pick up as acorns in this country. Maybe Dutch boys
don't play conkers, having to keep their fingers free for dyke-plugging; I know that the gleaming harvest couldn't conceivably have lain in the grass so long at home.
Anyway, these fine Dutch conkers were then exposed to the gentle heat of the Upstairs airing cupboard for almost a year. After this treatment they were so hard that Nick had to use an electric drill to Pierce them and get the string through. Or, more accurately, nylon cord. Probably this long tempering is against the rules. At any rate, Nick asked me not to mention the fact to anyone. I expect there's a body in Geneva or somewhere called the Confederation Internationale du Marron d'Inde Sportif, with an elaborate codification of the laws of the game, and they no doubt Will have covered this question of slow baking, but I strongly suspect it is illegal in the rough, frontier code practised amongst Nick and his friends, a code sometimes bloodily enforced when it comes to disputes over such matters as " strings."
I don't recall any rule from my own conker days legislating for the occasions When the striker misses with his conker but entangles his string with that of the Other player. This is a pretty serious piece of bad luck in Nick's circle because it entitles the strikee, so to speak, to three extra goes, something not lightly to be conceded amongst such experts as he Plays against. You might think that there could be no argument over a " strings" decision. Either you're entangled, or not. But of course there is a counter-plea. It is standard procedure to accuse the strikee, of having moved his conker down a little at the critical instant. Things sometimes move fast after this point has been reached. It is because of this " strings " business, of course, that Nick uses nylon cord. It tends to spring off, rather than remain entangled.
But the well-tempered Dutch conkers rose above any technicalities and ruleinvoking. Monotonously they destroyed the unseasoned natives gathered only days before and no doubt they would be just as effective next autumn, possibly in the hands of his sister who, throughout this season, has been pleading with passion to be given one of them. He might, I suppose, hand them down to Bridie if he could only be convinced that she was serious about Using them.
He has noticed, however, as I have done, that the conker season coincides with a craze amongst the small girls of our neighbourhood for something called Chinese Skipping for which you need a yard Of thick elastic. There is sometimes desultory conker activity to be seen amongst the girls, but not much and what there is, not serious. They are happier Chanting their ancient rhymes: Strawberry, raspberry, apple tart, What's the name of Your sweetheart? and executing elaborate figures with paving stones, skipping rope, elastic and tennis balls.
So I suppose the master-conkers will be laid aside, finding their way eventually to the lowest level of the toy-cupboard ar,friongst the broken plastic models of 1:iitfires, incomplete Lexicon packs and the remains of jigsaws, to rest there until they are thrown out in the annual clearance. A sad end, but there you are YOU are. In sport, They Never Come Back.
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