Walking in Southern Cemetery in early summer and thinking of conkers

A walk in Southern Cemetery will not appeal to everyone, but there is a tranquilly, and beauty in the place.

And of course a lot of history and for David my facebook chum plenty of memories of collecting conkers on warm autumn evenings.

Which is pretty much what I was doing at much the same time in Nunhead Cemetery in south east London.

Now conkers are something of the past, even my sons no longer collect them.  We of course were lucky in that there are plenty of conker trees in the Rec directly opposite us. And in the early autumn it was part of the day to go across and pick them up.

But I always think there is etiquette.  You don’t go throwing lumps of wood up into the trees to dislodge them.  The correct thing and the fun thing is to go looking for them on the ground, always hoping that they are still in their shells and when pried open are that deep shiny brown and not still white.  Or worse still just the size of a peanut.

I have to say that many of these conker searches were probably more to do with me reliving my own childhood than anything else.  As I recall my boys enjoyed many activities which were actually just a rerun of my own young activities in the 1950s.

So they had the Beano and Dandy, played monopoly at Christmas and helped Dad make cardboard rockets from cereal boxes.

And still safely stored away is the red, yellow and black car made from a squeezy bottle for a school competition.

It comes out occasionally which is more than can be said for the conkers.  These we gathered in such numbers that even all of our lads plus assorted friends never managed to use up.

And so they sat in a plasi bag in a corner of the cellar.

If we were lucky they just shrivelled but sometimes they went mouldy and ended up in the bin usually just before the first of the new harvest fell to the ground.

Throwing them out always seemed a waste and a bit of a reproach for not doing more with them.

But there are only so many that you can soak in vinegar and bake in the oven.

Not that we resorted to such underhand forms of cheating.

You just gently made the hole with a crewdriver, threaded the shoe lace of string through the conker and went in to the park or playground hoping that  all the effort of collectiong and preparing was not shattered with one hit for a rival.

After all no one wanted to do all this just to see the prize and joy not even become a "oner."

All of which is a long way from Southern Cemetery so for those not interested in conkers but wishing to follow up on a name on a gravestone or wishing to track down a family member there is always the City Council online database which holds the records of those buried in Manchester cemeteries.*

There is also a map which allows you to locate the grave.

*http://www.burialrecords.manchester.gov.uk/

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson