Why aren't kids interested in conkers anymore?

It was littered with huge, shiny conkers. In the sun they looked beautiful, as though someone had come along with a duster and a can of Mr Sheen and given them the once over.

But while I admired them, strewn across the pavement among fallen leaves, I also despaired. Such a sight would never have been seen throughout my childhood. Back then, in the late 1960s and throughout the seventies, there was no way any child would walk past even one exposed conker on the floor, never mind dozens of them.

It was sad to see so many conkers left on the pavement

A magnificent horse chestnut tree like the one behind our post box would have been plundered to oblivion by just about every youngster in the area. Had any conkers fallen to the ground they would have been immediately snatched up, and those remaining were dislodged into our eagerly awaiting palms by sticks thrown up into the tree as high as we could manage.

There is no way any conkers like the ones I found, a small sample of which are pictured, left, would have been ignored. We would have taken them home, soaked them in vinegar, put them on a tin plate and baked them in the oven. Then my dad would use a tool to gouge a hole through the middle, through which we would thread string. We would then be ready to play.

Children would take their conkers to school in their pockets. It was fun seeing how many opponents you could beat.

I don’t think any of mine survived more than two or three matches - there were some formidable players in our village.

Some kids even kept conkers from the previous year, which were hard as rock.

Thankfully, the game is still played and enjoyed. Picture: Toby Melville/PA

Kids don’t play conkers nowadays. They’re just not interested. And many schools don’t even allow the game for fear of children getting hurt. It’s a great shame. It’s also sad that kids don’t go out conkering, hurling sticks up high and hoping that a good bounty would rain down. While sitting in their bedrooms every night after school, pressing buttons on handsets and slaughtering people in virtual worlds, they are missing out on a whole world of fun.

Despite youngsters’ apathy towards such pursuits, and health and safety madness, it’s great to know that conkers is still alive and kicking. The annual World Conker Championships - which has been running since 1965 - took place last weekend at the Shuckburgh Arms in Southwick, Peterborough, with more than 300 competitors and around 5,000 spectators from across the globe.

When I came across the neglected conkers in my village, my long-buried childhood instincts kicked in and, although I knew that nobody was going to come along and pick them up, I hated to leave them and gathered up a few to take home.

I showed them to my neighbour, who said that when growing up in a Manchester suburb “we would walk miles, going round all the best conker trees and stripping them of conkers - we knew where they all were.”

His wife reminisced about soaking conkers in vinegar for two or three days in the hope of creating a granite-like conker that could beat all comers.

I am never going to stop collecting conkers. If nothing else, those I brought home can serve as deterrents for spiders. It is said by many an old wife that they keep them at bay and, of late, we have had some big fellas trying to find a winter refuge in our house.