Friday, 24 October 2014

Conkers

I love conkers!
 
I'm not sure why but I've always found finding conkers exciting, and there's something very satisfying about opening the spiky green case and finding the lovely shiny conker inside. I think conker colours are gorgeous. This year I only found one, but then my dad turned up with loads!
 
 
Some conker trivia:
 
- In the UK there was a campaign asking everyone to collect conkers during the first and second world wars and donate them to the government. They were a source of starch to produce acetone, which was used in military armament factories.
 
- I've heard a lot the last couple of years that conkers are meant to repel spiders - given my great fear of spiders this makes me love conkers even more! I don't think there's any proper scientific evidence though.

- There is such a thing as a World Conker Championship! It started in 1965 in the village of Ashton near Oundle in Northamptonshire in England. It's held on the second Sunday of October each year - I don't know about you but this is going in my diary, I need to go to this!

The men's champion is crowned King Conker, and the women's champion is Queen Conker. Here are this year's winners (note the conkers on their crowns!):

John Doyle 2014
Stephanie Withall 2014
Men’s Champion
John Doyle
from Leamington Spa
Ladies' Champion
Stephanie Withall
from Towcester

In case anyone doesn't know about the game of conkers, it's played by two people, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string. They take turns, with one player letting their conker dangle on the string, and the other player swinging their conker to hit it. Points are gained by the conker breaking the other conker.

Maybe get some practice in and enter next year's World Championship?!

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