Conkers Bonkers

Conkers Bonkers:

These are some of the more recent scary reports concerning conkers (American readers please follow this link)

BONKERS health and safety concerns have forced pupils to wear goggles while playing conkers at a village school near Carlisle

This month in South Shields, a local council lopped the branches off conker trees to stop children hurting themselves and the trees are to be replaced with a different species.

Schools are banning time-honoured playtime pastimes such as conkers because headteachers are afraid of being sued by parents in the event of an accident

Alarm>>>>The traditional children's party game of musical chairs has been accused of breeding violence

Now is it me being old and boring but isn’t playing conkers a pretty harmless activity, I mean I played it and never ever got injured, well maybe the odd bruised knuckles. And musical chairs breeding violence, excuse me has anyone even asked Charlie Manson if he excelled at musical chairs?

What can kids do today, how can they even enjoy being kids if we wrap them in cotton wool all the time, how will they learn life’s lessons? Like ‘Look before you leap!’ Because I guess leaping in any form is banned.

A recent report stated that children no longer roam out and about and are being reared like battery hens by fearful parents. They sit watching TV, playing computer games and surfing the internet. They are getting obese and unhealthy.

Now when I was a child living in Weston-super-mare we were out till all hours. Playing in the woods, on the beach, we would cycle for miles and miles into the countryside. We played with go-carts we made ourselves out of junk prams and go plummeting down the biggest hills we could find – wot no brakes! We climbed trees; played conkers (gasp) swam in rivers, broke into derelict houses and played on building sites. We used to make fires and try to smoke twigs, rolled up rose petals. We made dens in the woods and had battles with other gangs using guns that fired peas, homemade bows and arrows, and catapults (this all sounds a bit ‘William at Large’ I know but its true!) or we just threw stones at them. We sea fished at night and fished rivers by day. We drank water from the streams and scrumped apples from the orchards. A scrape or graze would be washed under the tap and a plaster put on it. We all had penknives and managed not to either stab each other or ourselves. As we got older we rode motor bikes on rough ground because they weren’t roadworthy (admittedly my broken collar bone weakens my argument here) and even kissed girls with no ill effects. (You pay for that in later life!)

Anyway I think you get my drift here. We live in a society where children are being wrapped in cotton wool and in my view this isn’t healthy, its about time the nanny state and all the nannies out there shut up and let the kids play conkers or musical chairs, climb trees and generally be kids.