When I was young, along with many other North London children, I used to look forward ,excitedly, to the conkers ripening on one particular Horse Chestnut tree in Regent’s Park. I was taken there by my Mother most days and kept close watch so I could be first to pounce as they fell. Windy days were best and the thrill of seeing the prickly green casing fall to the ground and opening it to find the chestnut glowing inside, like a jewel in a jewel box, is still with me over 60 years later.

Baking them in the oven, threading the string, marinading them in vinegar and actually fighting with them came an unsatisfactory second to the joy of discovery and ownership.

I visited that same tree in that same park a few days ago and there, to my surprise, long after the appointed time for them to have fallen and been gathered, was a trove of conkers scattered, neglected and mouldering, in the grass.

Where were the children fighting over the best and the biggest and the ones with a flat edge that would make stringing so much easier? Where were the mothers cautioning their younger siblings “Don’t you dare put that in your mouth!”

I knew there had been much fuss in the recent past over the safety of conker fights but had assumed the newspaper stories merely myths. But they were myths with power – to such an extent that, when the story took hold in the early 2000s that conker fights had been officially banned unless goggles were worn, the Health and Safety Executive felt called upon to issue an official denial.

Some schools did insist on goggles, then, but, according to a teacher from one of those same schools years later, it appears that neither warnings nor safety gear are required as children have simply lost interest in games that aren’t either organised or on the computer.

Some people have revived and organised conker fighting, even to the extent of Northampton running a World Championships, raising large amounts for charity. Inevitably it has had to be called off this year.

I guess scenes like this will never be repeated (Maybe if they were, some girls would be allowed in!).

As we leave the park, I can’t help collecting some of the unwanted conkers. They are by now hard and wrinkled. These burnished seeds that were once so prized are shrunken and dry.

As they sit on my desk in front of me, I feel sorry for them and try hard not to draw depressing human parallels.