Behold the Conkering Heroes Come!

The boy’s mother told him that autumn was the season for a reason. There was a glimmer of a smile at the phrase she had just turned. It was the beginning of a new school year. It was time for him to turn the tables on a bad report card. It was time for him to put an end to the long, lazy days of summer. The hands fell away from her hips, the frown dissipated, she smiled, patted him on the head, brushed the flour off her apron and told him that he could go out and play.

It was true that the season had changed. He scuffed his way through the lights and darks of brown leaves on the way to school. He turned the corner and saw two of his mates emerge from their houses. They were pleased to see each other. They walked on towards the traffic island, a grassy, natural roundabout which had in its middle a large horse chestnut tree. It was this tree that interested them. Stopping beneath it the tallest of the three reached up and grabbed the nearest spiky green circular berry. Quickly he peeled the outer coat away revealing a brown horse chestnut ready for harvesting. They smiled at each other and found their way to the trunk. Quickly they were up and reaching along the branches and picking the berries. Soon the ground beneath was strewn with spiky fruit ready to be revealed. Blissfully unaware of the time and the fact that they were now late for the first day of the school year, they sat down and began to reveal their treasure . As they exposed the crop to the light, each perused the contents, jewellers checking the worth of diamonds. They frowned, turned them over, squeezed and gripped and set aside those that they thought would best serve their needs. When they left, the ground was littered with the detritus of their presence.

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Mr. King greeted them at the school gates with a frown and a finger that pointed the way to the Headmaster’s study. Tails between their legs, guilt across their faces, they marched across the playground ready for the blast that they knew was going to come their way. Mr. King left them at the door and went in ahead of them. They said nothing.  But in their minds were the images of their parents, the talk of the beginning of the turning over of a new leaf, a chance to make amends, an opportunity to begin well with hopes that their habits would become good and that they would flourish in their studies. Mr. King appeared, looked cross, said nothing but pointed to the door. As they entered they saw Mr. Holmes, the Headmaster, behind his desk, studying some papers in front of him with poised pen. They stood in a line before him waiting. It seemed an age before Mr. Holmes spoke.

“Well?”

They looked at each other. None wanted to be the first to speak. Finally the tallest of the three mustered the courage.

“Conkers, Sir.”

That was all. Nothing more. Nothing more needed.

“Empty your pockets.”

The boys sheepishly reached into their pockets pulled out the horse chestnuts and held them before them. But not without spilling some on the floor where they rolled under the desk and easy chairs which were a part of the décor of Larry Holmes large office. The boys turned to try to pick them up.

“Leave them.” 

Gordon Holmes was on his feet now and about to walk around to their side of the desk. Now they were for it. He was moving towards the easy chairs and he sat down. Before him was a large rectangular coffee table with a vase of flowers in the middle.

“Put them on the table.”

They did so. The Head picked one up, studied it and placed it separate from the rest.

“Who owns this one?”

One of the boys timidly put his hand up.

“It’s mine, Sir”.

“Hmm, let’s put these in order largest to smallest.”

The boys looked alarmed. That meant they would lose their picks, that their carefully selected conkers would be up for grabs by any of them. There would be disappointment, followed by arguments and maybe even fighting.

“OK, pick yours up and let’s separate them on the table.”

They looked relieved. Soon there were three neat piles.

“John, go open the right hand drawer of my desk.”

The boys looked at each other because that’s where the Head kept his strap.

“Go on then’.

Reluctantly John went over to the drawer, opened it and there was the leather strap which the Head kept there as a threat to the whole school although nobody could ever remember him ever having used it.

“Rummage around and you should find a ball of string and a skewer.”

John found the items with little difficulty and brought them over to the coffee table. The Head reached forward and picked up the largest conker.

“Whose is this?”

Eric put up his hand. Mr. Holmes reached for the skewer and proceeded to pierce a hole through it.

“Don’t just stand there, get the scissors from the desk and cut up some lengths of string.”

The third boy, Nobby Clarke, wandered over to the desk and quickly found the scissors. Soon all three of them were measuring lengths of string and cutting them. The Head reached across grabbed one of them and threaded it through the hole in the first conker and knotted the end so that it would hang about a forearms length when he held it still in front of him. When he had finished he handed it to John.

“Yours I believe.”

Before long they each had several conkers on separate pieces of string.

“I need one”.

“You can have mine, Sir.”

John handed him his largest and most solid looking.

“Alright whose first?”

So Nobby moved towards the Head. He held up his conker on the end of his string, steadied its twirling with his other hand and waited as Larry Holmes prepared to strike. His conker was held in his right hand. With his left he pulled it back over his right and readied it to flick, aiming carefully at the hanging target.  His focus was careful, the build up was methodical. Suddenly he struck.

Such was the accuracy and force of his movement that Eric’s conker shattered, its brown shell revealing the whiteness beneath, it’s pieces bursting over the carpeted floor, destroyed in a moment. Larry Holmes smiled, raised himself to his full height and exclaimed,

“So mine’s a oncer”.

It was about an hour and a half later when Larry Holmes opened his door and asked his secretary if she could bring in the vacuum cleaner. When she entered she looked around the messy floor with aghast disapproval. Mr. Holmes was behind his desk working on some documents.

“Right boys, clean up the room”.

And the three boys bent to their task, picking up the larger pieces and eventually surveying the crumbs on the floor and getting the vacuum cleaner to perform the final touch. When they had finished, the Head called them over to the front of his desk, peered at the miscreants over the top of his glasses.

“The next time you are brought to me, I want it to be for something good. No more lateness, no more dallying on the way to school, pride in your work, manners and steadfastness in how you carry yourselves. Got it.”

“Yessir”.

“Any questions?”

Nobby raised his hand.

“Are you going to tell my mum, sir?”

Mr.L.G. Holmes frowned, his brows beetled, his white hair seemed to rise up like a flock of seagulls.

“You mean am I going to tell your mum that rather than learning about the area of a triangle, you spent the morning playing conkers with the Headmaster in his office? I think not. Get out.”

As they made their way to Mrs. Ayres music class, the boys said nothing, scratching their heads, confused by what had just happened to them.

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The annual harvest of the horse chestnuts was something that I grew up with, Dear Reader. Our breaks and recesses were all about playing conkers. Some of us cheated by taking them home and immersing them in vinegar overnight with the theory that that would make them harder.  But the colour changed and the hardened horse chestnuts would not be allowed to participate in the competition. Of course, my wee tale is a work of fiction although the names of the teachers are real as my brothers will attest. Most of them had come through the war. Mr. King had a prosthetic leg from a wartime wound. All of them were kindly. They had seen things, I think, which they fervently hoped none of us would see. They had seen humanity at its best and worst. They did not, therefore, make too many judgements about character. They did not make a meal about pupils being late for school, nor did they see it as an unprofessional, undermining lack of professionalism if they ‘wasted’ a morning playing conkers with some students. They recognised that not all lessons in life are by the book or from the book. They also saw that such a little thing as a morning spent wasting time was the kernel of existence, the horse chestnut of life. (Yikes, Davidson). Sometimes, Dear Reader, the book of rules, the bible of good practice, the sacrosanct and the essential guide, the bureaucratic diktats of some highheidyin in an office with windows and doors that work but rules that don’t. Some such troglodytes wouldn’t recognise common sense if they found it in their soup. Sometimes such people need to be bricked up in their offices and their rule books need to be founder members of the  ‘Anal Rules for Dummies’  section at public libraries everywhere.

           Thanks for reading, friends.