The sign queueing up to get my conker seemed a tad dramatic. “You won’t die, but you might lose an eye,” it read, but less than an hour later, in the midst of a chestnut-ridden battlefield, I wondered what else this frantic game could cost me.
On the instruction of my editors, who probably thought this job would be a jolly, risk-free jaunt, I headed down to the Peckham Conker Championships in south London on Saturday afternoon to take part. It was staged in a boozy alleyway where beers and bobbling chestnuts abounded.
