A FEW years ago, I played conkers for the first time since my schooldays. Well, it was a slow day at the office...

Anyway, I'd forgotten just how dangerous it was. Misdirected conkers slamming into your fingers, splinters flying around.

And that's before you manage to get the string through the little hole in the conker and start playing.

So I have a certain degree of sympathy for the headteacher who said pupils could only play conkers if they wore protective goggles.

Shaun Halfpenny, headmaster of Cummersdale Primary School in Carlisle, bought two pairs of the safety eyewear after pupils came back from a field trip weighed down with conkers and asked if they could play.

His concern was obviously for health and safety, and should be applauded - after all, how many schools would prefer the headline-grabbing safe line of simply banning the activity.

What worries me is the attitude of the children. Did you ever ask permission to play conkers? I don't even remember asking permission to borrow Mum's vinegar to soak them in (never as effective as a little surreptitious oven-baking).

Don't they have enough initiative to start playground crazes on their own?

Then when they get banned, move on to something else?

Still, where could it all lead? Metal gauntlets for those brave souls playing marbles?

Full body armour for British Bulldog, surely the most dangerous playground game of our age?

No wonder kids prefer to sit inside recreating the Premiership on their Playstations.

If a game of conkers is so lethal, what price 20-a-side playground footie using an old Coke can?

Y'know, maybe my old nan was right after all; it's only fun until someone gets hurt.

First published: October 8